Dear Editor,
There is a prevailing consensus among certain Guyanese that the Editor-in-Chief of the Stabroek News, Guyana’s independent daily, has sold his soul to the devil to regain PPP government advertising in his newspaper. The behaviour of the Stabroek News ever since the Govern-ment of Guyana restored government ads to it is disgracefully anti-black and patently pretentious. The government had ceased doing business with the paper for alleged biased reporting two years ago but restored ads last month. Now there seems to have been a nefarious deal, as the paper has emerged as a rancid sourpuss against black interests, and marching to the tune of the Guyanese ruling party.
During the period of the suspension of the ads, its owner, Mr David de Caires, a Portuguese-Guyanese, led an international campaign claiming that press freedom was under siege in Guyana, which was selfish, haughty and grossly insular at best.
He disregarded attacks on African-Guyanese members of the journalistic fraternity, the many attacks on the Guyana Press Association, the murder of journalist Ronald Waddell who once worked for him but whose sin was being black, and the criminal arrest and imprisonment of journalist Mark Benschop. Not once did he mention these other journalistic interests in his egocentric endeavours. How stink? Now that he is back in bed with the racist PPP, he promotes their interest and ignores the oppression of the Afro-Guyanese population.
There is no question in my mind that the Stabroek News pursues an anti-black agenda. It refused to cover the remarks of the Chief Magistrate of Guyana, Ms Juliet Holder-Allen, when she held a press conference last week to highlight the government’s discriminatory actions against her. It subsequently downplayed this rather important development by reporting it days later.
It also refused to cover the very large opposition demonstration last week and then editorialized against it – an epistle reminiscent of how Jim Crow ‘red-necks’ of the segregation era in America, attempted to lecture African-Americans on what their rights were.
The Stabroek News also diluted the significance of President Bharrat Jagdeo’s suspension of the licence of Sharma TV Channel 6, because the station champions the interests of blacks, the working class and the poor in Guyana.
Its mission is not in keeping with the agenda of the elitists at Stabroek News.
In the ideal world we should not divide ourselves by ethnicity, as we strive for a truly harmonious, multi-cultural society.
However, the PPP, the Stabroek News and others, enforce these ethnic divisions daily in Guyana. Hence, as the grandson of another Portuguese-Guyanese, I feel constrained to say that it’s time that we get real with these self-appointed elitists and narcissistic charlatans.
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, pontificates like a duck and behaves like a duck, then it is what it is – a duck! Many racist agendas are being played out in Guyana today and we must reject them.
My advice to Mr de Caires is to putdown his bag of ‘golf clubs’ and blinders, and pick up equality, fairness and journalistic professionalism and integrity.
Yours faithfully,
Rickford Burke
Editor’s note
1. The Stabroek News has done no deal with the government.
2. Exactly why Mr Burke should consider that this newspaper should have included other issues in its campaign to have state ads returned is unclear. Whatever criticisms the government might have made of the Guyana Press Association, for example, it was not under pressure of closure. As far as Mr Ronald Waddell is concerned, we gave that murder very full, front-page coverage, and editorialized on the need for the police to find his killers and charge them. Mr Mark Benschop’s case was also fully covered, and an editorial published on the delay in his case being heard.
3. We did not carry the substance of Ms Holder-Allen’s press conference immediately, because her charges were a repeat of what she had said before and which we had already printed. Although she had nothing new to say, we nevertheless carried the story.
4. Contrary to what Mr Burke claims, we did carry a story on the “very large opposition demonstration.”
5. We have not in any way diluted the “significance… of the suspension of the licence of Sharma TV Channel 6” – quite the opposite in fact. Again the matter received front-page coverage, we editorialized on it, and members of staff of this newspaper, including the daily editor, participated in the candlelight vigil outside Channel 6.
6. Finally, the editorial to which Mr Burke refers, was written by the Sunday Editor, and not Mr de Caires.
