The exodus of advertisements from the print media is seemingly snowballing with GuySuCo and GPL indicating recently that they were discontinuing placing ads to be published in the newspapers.
In an email sent on Monday, September 13, to the four daily newspapers, GuySuCo requested that all of its ads to be published in the newspapers be discontinued. This newspaper learnt that the corporation would be publishing its ads on the state website, eprocure.gov.gy
Earlier, on Wednesday, August 25, the power company also informed via email that it would be “pulling all print and electronic advertisements with immediate effect.” Recipients of that email included the three private daily newspapers; Channel 65’s News Update; and HGPTV.
The Basic Needs Trust Fund (BNTF), which is a Caribbean Development Bank programme, on September 6, sent an email to Stabroek News and Kaieteur News, stating that it wished to withdraw ads it had placed until further notice.
Government last month stated that it was moving away from the traditional and more expensive means of advertising in the print media and taking advantage of the transformation in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector. “Our intention is to migrate, as much as possible, definitely more and more… government ads and government notices into the electronic world,” Cabinet Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon had said at a post-Cabinet press briefing. “It is most unlikely that those benefits that so easily accrue from the investments in ICT, we would overlook them, because of the utterances of those who insist that there is something devious and unprincipled about what we are doing,” he added.
He was at the time responding to a question from this newspaper about the future of state advertisements in the print media, following the establishment of the website. Asked specifically about the placement of advertisements in the Guyana Chronicle, Luncheon said advertisements in the print media will not be totally ruled out.
“This is a cultural thing. Quite a bit of those who advertise have had longstanding engagements–financial, nostalgic and otherwise–with various print media houses,” he said. “And then some categories of notices, whether on the basis of existing legislation or the [explicit] desire of those who are placing the ads for it to appear in the print media. And there is enough room, in the system, to contemplate those instances that would be used to support ads, notices in the print media,” he added.
The main opposition PNCR has, however, charged that the move was intended to starve independent newspapers of advertising.
Stabroek News’ Editor-in-Chief Anand Persaud has said government’s explanation for suddenly pulling ads from the print media is woefully deficient, as it did not provide a reasonable rationale.
Noting that government is now extolling the virtues of electronic advertising, he has questioned why it had not been placing ads for many years previous on the web as an accompaniment to the print and broadcast ads.
Persaud added that the government also had to convince the public that the website and the poorly patronized Guyana Chronicle would provide sufficient publicity and notice of procurement advertisements and other government business.
The government has for the third time in less than four years changed its policy on state advertisements in the print media and this, he said, was a classic sign of policy jumble or worse, the rewarding or punishing of media entities.
The latter, he noted, would constitute a clear violation of the press freedom Declaration of Chapultepec to which Guyana is a signatory.
The issue of the award of state ads has become a contentious one ever since 2007 when Stabroek News had all state advertising pulled for a period of 17 months. No reason was given for this withdrawal but after the newspaper went public with the cut-off, government officials and GINA then argued that it was the policy that the state paper would receive ads along with the privately-owned newspaper with the highest circulation. The Kaieteur News was then identified as this newspaper without the benefit of any analysis of circulation or sectoral preference.
The placement of government ads in Stabroek News resumed in April 2008, without any official explanation being given.
However, in recent times the Kaieteur News had been getting fewer ads while the one-year-old Guyana Times had seen an increase in the portion of state ads being received. The former recently issued an offer to publish government ads for free which the administration has said it would take up.