Dear Editor,
The People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) administration can no longer deny the now patently clear interference in the daily operations of the state media, thereby subverting the roles and functions of the Boards of Directors as well as the journalistic and editorial functionaries of the Guyana Chronicle and National Communications Network.
This level of presidential and other political interference is best exemplified by the once or twice daily meetings with senior functionaries of NCN and Guyana Chronicle chaired by either President Bharrat Jagdeo or Roger F Luncheon, MD. Participants at these meetings include the acting editor of the Guyana Chronicle, Cde Mark Ramotar; Cde Mohamed Sattaur, Chief Executive of NCN; Cde Neaz Subhan, Head of GINA; and Cdes Kwame Mc Koy and Dr Prem Misir of the Office of the President Publicity Unit.
It was this committee, for instance, that had crafted the Guyana Chronicle caption that “Corbin is a fool”.
My information is that a special propaganda-committee has been set up and may include a former editor of the Guyana Chronicle who was up to recently the editor of one of the privately-owned newspapers. That senior journalist’s functions include the provision of advisory services and the writing of opinion-columns for Kaieteur News.
Along with the daily meetings are frequent directives being issued either by Cde Mc Koy or Cde Luncheon to the editor of the Chronicle. Cde Mc Koy at times actually goes into the Guyana Chronicle and issues directives and makes editorial decisions that should be routinely left to the editors and reporters of the newspaper.
By now, it should be clear to the PPP/C administration that no professional journalist wants to subject himself or herself to the whims, fancies and dictates of political interferers. Those days, as the PPP/C likes to remind us, are all over and so recent efforts to recruit professionals have failed. Since the unfortunate termination of Cde Sharief Khan’s duties as editor-in-chief due to his ill health the PPP/C operatives now have free rein like they have never had before and they had always hoped for under Cde Sharief.
The PPP/C needs puppets who they can control. That is why they had sacrificed quality and the paper had fallen to a state where it was littered with grammatical errors of such a severe magnitude for the first time in the history of that newspaper.
The international donor community must put pressure on the Guyana government to stop wasting taxpayers monies to finance a liability whose circulation is about 5,000 copies daily.
Yours faithfully,
Mustapha Alphonso
Editor’s note
We are sending a copy of this letter to Dr Prem Misir, Head, State Information Sector for any comments he may wish to make.