Dear Editor,
I note that Mr Freddie Kissoon in his column of September 26 in the Kaieteur News where he has admitted in his usual circuitious way of having his facts wrong over the identity of a Mr Errol Arthur, has listed my name among those of a number of distinguished Guyanese, including renowned journalist Rickey Singh and prize-winning author and professor David Dabydeen. Although I can never measure up to the stature of these men, I am flattered by the honour afforded me by Mr Kissoon in listing me among them.
Incidentally, this latest admission of providing wrong information follows an earlier one a few months ago where he admitted to having his facts wrong about “fiddling” of votes at the last PPP convention.
I have no time to address Mr Kissoon’s charge against me – it’s useless as he will continue with his disinformation. Instead, I prefer to take this opportunity to bring to the attention of budding journalists and readers a couple of books that show how reputed journalists and editors practise their craft to ensure the accuracy of what they publish.
The first book is All the President’s Men, written by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, which was later made into a movie of the same name. For the benefit of those too young to know, Woodward and Bernstein were young and relatively unknown journalists whose reporting in the Washington Post gave them international fame and contributed to the downfall of US President in the 1970s, Richard Nixon.
In this book the authors show how meticulously they went about their job collecting and corroborating facts. They double and triple checked their information against other independent sources in order to ensure the accuracy of what they reported.
This is demonstration of professional journalistic standards.
Not only did these two journalists apply a rigorous methodology to verify their facts, but their editor Ben Bradley also had his own vetting process. In spite of the pressure to get the story out as quickly as possible and score ratings against competitors, Bradley refused to print an article when he was not convinced of the facts.
The other book is by that same editor of the Washington Post, Ben Bradlee, and the book is A Good Life. In my view, these two books should be mandatory reading for every aspiring journalist and/or editor.
If readers cannot rely on the accuracy of factual information which can be verified, how can they they take seriously views that are personal opinions that cannot be verified.
Yours faithfully,
Harry Hergash
