Dear Editor,
On October 24th, 2013, I wrote and sent a letter for publication to the Stabroek News, Kaieteur News, Guyana Chronicle and Guyana Times. It was a letter in response to one written by Bryn Pollard S.C. and published only in the Stabroek News. My response was published by all the above mentioned newspapers except Stabroek News.
It seems to me that there is a policy at Stabroek News to publish views that are critical of the Government and in defence of the political opposition and their party leaders and a refusal to publish responses which are critical of them.
I saw the response of Stabroek News to one letter writer who made a similar complaint. The contention of Stabroek News is that they will not publish any letter which has been published by other newspapers. This contention is both unfair and wrong. Stabroek News has a duty, having published a letter, to publish a response to that letter, provided, that it has not offended the libel laws. This duty is even greater when Stabroek News is the only newspaper that carried the letter to which the response relates.
I invite Stabroek News to confirm or deny whether they pursue a policy described above.
Yours faithfully,
Sundar Nauth
Editor’s note:
Since the letter by Mr Bryn Pollard appeared only in Stabroek News Mr Nauth’s letter shall be carried. However, since Mr Nauth’s letter appeared in other media before this newspaper was able to carry it, there is no urgency in reproducing it. It is the policy of the newspaper that letters that appear first in other media will not be carried by this newspaper save and except if there is a good reason for doing so.
