Dear Editor,
I read where your columnist, Shaun Samaroo has written that his column has ended. I believe for the preservation of the integrity of the Stabroek News, it would have been better if Mr Samaroo had left earlier. Mr Samaroo fell into two categories of media operation – reporting for the Chronicle and commentary for Stabroek News.
Let’s look at his commentary. In opinion pieces, the writer expresses his/her interpretation. You could disagree most vehemently with an opinion piece but it is your viewpoint. Two types of opinion output are universally common: one that is condemnatory, the other that is complimentary.
In the former, the commentator is on safe ground because he/she can always find a latent disadvantage in a policy or can cite reasons why the policy will not work. The story of Mr Obama’s Health Care Act falls into that category. It is good and positive but because its implications are far reaching, a columnist can pick up on some weak dimensions and amplify them.
It is when you are praising someone you will find yourself in the spotlight because you are forced to speak about accomplishments. If you think Harry Jones is the most outstanding lawyer or Mickey Black is the best footballer then you have to cite achievements. If you cannot then you face the criticism of sycophancy or unenlightened opinions. Surely one is entitled to his/her opinion but they cannot be outlandishly ignorant.
I never read Mr Samaroo until I was shopping at the Hot and Spicy Restaurant on Albert Street and a gentleman asked me who Samaroo was. He pointed to his column in which Samaroo said that only Priya Manickchand can secure the future of Guyana. I laughed and told him the guy is a lunatic so forget it (those were my words). He insisted I read “what this guy Samaroo wrote.”
It was that incident that caused me to peruse Samaroo. I read where he went on to say that Guyana’s future rested with Ministers Frank Anthony and Priya Manickchand. He classified the AFC as an obstacle to progress in Guyana. Hs political views weren’t political views. They were his strategy for getting a job at the Chronicle.
In all honesty, the Guyana Times is far a better newspaper than the Chronicle. No professional journalist would want to be associated with the Chronicle. We have to be sympathetic with those Chronicle reporters who need to retain their job as a source of income. From the time he appeared in the Chronicle, management of the Stabroek News should have become suspicious.
Samaroo’s reporting on the Walter Rodney Commission wasn’t unprofessional, propagandistic and biased only. It was downright unpleasant. It wasn’t reporting at all. It was political activism on behalf of the PPP and government. What he did is that each time a WPA person took the stand and described the authoritarian milieu under which Walter Rodney and the WPA had to function, he would interject fictional words in his reporting and attribute them to the witnesses. He would report the witnesses as saying that such a situation no longer exists in Guyana today. In his reportage each WPA person spoke positively of the present situation in Guyana.
Karen De Souza took objection to that. But months later he did the same with Tacuma Ogunseye and Patricia Rodney. It was clear to any observer what Samaroo’s role was. Come January 2015 he will continue his political tasks and mask it as journalism.
In all honesty, I found Mr Samaroo a distasteful and offensive gentleman because his hypocrisy was simply too crass and barefaced. What he wrote in his columns about the need for Guyana to heal and be united and Guyanese to work together was deception designed to fool the Stabroek readers. In the same breath he was contributing to the continuation of the tragedy that is Guyana. Let us hope this is the last we have seen of Mr Samaroo in the independent media. He should remain at the Chronicle.
Yours faithfully,
Frederick Kissoon
