Dear Editor,
We need to respond to Derek Sampson’s misinformed letter in Stabroek News of July 17, 2008. Sampson presents a case of media harassment by the Government of Guyana, and cites these cases: withdrawal of advertisements from Stabroek News; the ‘April 2008’ suspension of CNS 6TV; and now the declaration of Gordon Moseley as persona non grata.
Stabroek News’ limited circulation and limited reach drove the Government Information Agency (GINA) to withdraw the placement of advertisements from that newspaper.
GINA’s policy on the placement of advertisements is as follows: place newspaper advertisements in the state media plus one private media house.
And so in order to comply with the policy of placing advertisements in only one private newspaper, GINA made a business decision to focus its commercials mainly toward the Kaieteur News, certainly not a pro-government newspaper. The Guyana Chronicle is the state’s newspaper, not a private newspaper.
GINA’s policy decision complied with economic factors. And this kind of competition and the free market should further refine press freedom; at least, so say the advocates of capitalism.
The ‘April 2008’ suspension of CNS 6 from transmitting and the ensuing enforcement of that suspension were due to its non-compliance with the terms and conditions of the National Frequency Management Unit’s (NFMU) licensing conditions. The suspension once again brought into play intentional confusion between freedom of speech and compliance with licensing conditions.
The CNSTV 4-month suspension issue attracted wide publicity and titillated the imaginations of the opposition forces and others. Any threat to kill any president of any country is more than serious, and a caller on the CNSTV ‘Voice of the People’ made such a threat. The broadcaster on CNSTV acknowledged the difficulty presented by this caller, and so CNSTV, through this broadcast, violated the conditions of the licence as well as the law. Yet CNSTV effected three unedited rebroadcasts of this programme; the television station had sufficient time to edit out the ‘threat’; but failed to take corrective action.
Now, let’s move to the issue of the persona non grata status of Mr Gordon Moseley. Mr Moseley acquired persona non grata status at the Office of the President (OP) and State House as a direct result of reproachful and disrespectful comments on the Head of State in his letter to the press. He can continue to cover the President, but at events outside of the premises of OP and State House.
Indeed, Mr Moseley already recently covered the President at the Carifesta Secretariat. Freedom of the press is not absolute; and so there must be boundaries and limitations. There must be professionalism and a journalist code of conduct that is alien to Denis Chabrol of the Guyana Press Association.
Yours faithfully,
Prem Misir
Editor’s note
Dr Misir has reiterated the government position in relation to the withdrawal of state advertisements from Stabroek News which was given at the time the decision was made. However, at no point has the administration ever adduced evidence in support of its contentions regarding circulation, and it has also steadfastly resisted the proposals put forward by this newspaper to have the circulation of all the dailies audited by a Caribbean member of the Audit Bureau of Circul-ations. Only Stabroek News has audited circulation figures, and it is widely believed that the state paper has a low circulation. Furthermore, this newspaper also suggested that an independent regional advertising agency be retained to undertake a survey on the impact of advertisements in the three newspapers at the time, and to make recommendations as to which papers had the target audience for the kind of ads the government places. This suggestion too was rejected. Since the decision to withdraw the ads clearly had no economic foundation, the conclusion cannot be avoided that it was intended to punish this newspaper for its editorial line.
As it is, the government restored advertisements as suddenly as they had been withdrawn, with no accompanying explanation of any kind. Since the administration can be no better informed about comparative circulation figures than it was in 2006 and 2007, are we to infer that there has been a change of policy? If so, then Dr Misir owes it to the newspaper fraternity to explain what that new policy is.
