-media workers group
The Association of Caribbean Media Workers (ACM) says the challenge of the advertising boycott of the Stabroek News by the Guyana government “highlighted the multi-dimensional nature of press freedom and the conditions that either promote or endanger its development.”
The government placed its first order for advertising space with this newspaper on Tuesday after withdrawing the ads in November 2006. No reason was given for the resumption of the ads. The ACM said it is encouraging that the government has heeded informed national, regional and international opinion on the issue and restored the ads to the paper. According to ACM President Wesley Gibbings press freedom “is a cause best supported by constant vigil and dispassionate examination and analysis. At its very core lies the welfare and well-being of Caribbean people at a time of social crisis. It is thus a cause for everyone to embrace, not just journalists and other media workers.”
At the same time, the Guyana Press Association (GPA) said it too welcomes government’s decision to restore the ads to the paper. In a statement issued yesterday, the GPA said it believes that no single segment of society could take credit for the restoration of the advertisements, “In fact, it must have been a conglomeration of sustained pressure domestically and internationally.” However, the GPA regrets that it took the government seventeen months and the possibility of the matter being put on the agenda of a summit of Caribbean Community leaders before the advertisements were restored.
“This decision, as just as it is, demonstrates the politically arbitrary nature of both the withdrawal and the restoration of the advertisements in the first instance that could not have withstood any scientific research,” it said. Meanwhile, the group still contends that the public has a right to know the reason for the restoration of the advertisements, in the light of the fact that the government had insisted that the withdrawal was based on circulation and value for money.
Drastic
“It is our considered view that there has been no drastic change in the circulation of any of the dailies, thus begging the question as to what was the true motive,” the local media body said. The group also urged all privately and publicly-owned print and electronic media houses to consider pooling their resources to conduct media research periodically that would inform decision-making. The GPA said the research would help the government to decide “whether the selective allocation of advertisements to privately-owned television stations is just and serves both financial and public interests,” adding that it “trusts that the future allocation of advertisements to newspapers shall not be influenced by any new entrants in the market-place.”
Further, the GPA said it is grateful to “every right-thinking media worker, media house, every resident of our beloved Guyana, the Association of Caribbean Media Workers and its affiliates as well as international organizations that had recognized the wisdom of our collective action in achieving this noble objective that strikes at the heart of press freedom in the Western Hemisphere and beyond.”
Meanwhile, Gibbings said the principles that guide the placement of official advertising are well established. He noted that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in its Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression, states clearly that, “the arbitrary and discriminatory placement of official advertising … with the intent to put pressure on and punish or reward and provide privileges to social communicators and communications media because of the opinions they express threaten freedom of expression” and must be explicitly prohibited by law. The ACM expressed its continued support for journalists and other media workers at Stabroek News and the wider media community in Guyana.
Government, through the Government Information Agency, first withdrew ads from 29 ministries and state agencies in November 2006 citing economic considerations. It placed ads with the country’s two other dailies, the state-owned Guyana Chronicle and the privately owned Kaieteur News as well as the weekly Mirror, which is aligned to the ruling party.
Following this move other government and state-owned entities which previously advertised independently of GINA: the Guyana Defence Force, the Guyana Police Force, the Guyana Revenue Authority, the Office of the Auditor General, the Guyana Sugar Corporation, the Guyana Power and Light and the regional administrations, also withdrew ads. Stabroek News objected to this move contending that the withdrawal of the ads was because of the newspaper’s editorial stance on issues of governance. This newspaper sought to have the ads re-instated but to no avail.
A number of individuals and local entities including the Guyana Press Association, opposition political parties, the Guyana Trades Union Congress, the Guyana Human Rights Association, the Pri-vate Sector Commission and the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association also joined the paper in condemning the ads withdrawal. The ACM and regional media houses as well as international media organisations, including the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA), the Commonwealth Press Union, the International Press Insti-tute, and Reporters Without Borders had also asked the government to restore the ads to this newspaper.
The cut-off also saw Stabroek News employees picketing a meeting of the Commonwealth Finance Ministers in Georgetown last year. Efforts by a regional mediating team to end the boycott via an offer to craft a mechanism for the distribution of state advertising also failed. Last month, the IAPA wrote to Caricom Secretary-General Edwin Carrington asking for the cut-off to be placed on the agenda of the meeting of Caricom Heads in Trinidad last Saturday.
