I am not surprising myself today – my penultimate piece before our May 11 D-Day-when I am finding it challenging to write on something different and relevant at this time. Perhaps from some different perspective as well.
The scores of letters to Editors, news features, commentaries, analyses, editorials and columns fill the print media with views on you-know-what. What ‘new’ should I contribute? Tough to find something not yet explored. So I have opted to repeat a few observations on the use of the media, especially our newspapers, during this rather robust campaign season of 2015.
I think it was either the academic David Granger or WPA advocate Nigel Westmaas who wrote a useful piece on the history of Guyana’s newspapers. It showed how the Planter-class and the colonial administrators used the earliest print media to promote their interests, before those ‘papers were joined by those which preached the predicaments and issues relevant to the former slaves, the new immigrants and their representatives who emerged as the majority demographic in the British Guiana colony of the twenties-to-the-sixties.
Frankly Speaking, not much has changed with respect to the role of some media houses in terms of their influence and political support. (When, for example, the D’Aguiar-friendly Chronicle of the early sixties decided to carry a campaign to discredit – perhaps depose – Cheddi Jagan’s PPP, the Chronicle would plead its watch dog role. But to me the ‘paper’s objective was obvious.)
Today this Stabroek News newspaper would declare its professional neutrality in our local politics. The PPP and Government would however discover writers and editorials that are aggressively biased towards regime change.
I myself easily identify certain regular letter-writers – local and overseas-based – who seem to command thousands of column inches per week in this ‘paper. But Stabroek, to me is not as vitriolic as it is incisive, analytical and “intellectual”.
Newspapers campaign 2015…
I grew up reading Argosy, Chronicle, Graphic. I think in that order but memory is fading fast. I had never imagined that by the eighties, for a few years, I would act as the country’s Chief Information Officer and would be professionally familiar with the functionaries and perspectives of a Burnham/Hoyte–friendly Chronicle. Yes there was ministerial interference – direct instructions to editors, including whose photos should never be placed on the Chronicle’s front pages – But today’s state media controllers make us appear as professional, independent saints in comparison!
The Chronicle seems just an extension of the PPP’s Mirror – which it prints – at this campaign time. No space for the opponents’ views. I’m told that the Op-ed pieces are supplied by the Office of the President, the GINA and Freedom House. (Little work for the actual journalists in that ‘paper’s editorial department at this time.) We old PNC types were never that blatant.
Over at the Jagdeo-Ramroop–friendly Guyana Times, they make an effort to appear more “objective”, especially in their news features. But they can’t succeed with us who are on to these techniques. Their political rallies reports are always invested with editorial content at the end. Actually I find interesting indications of PPP-Freedom House thinking via the Times. But more on that some other time.
Not much is necessary about the current posture of the popular Kaieteur News. Apparently there was some serious “falling-out” between Publisher and President some years ago and the result is exposés – bonanzas for us, the innocent readers and on-lookers. Kaieteur’s views and commentators are dedicated to one primary objective: exposure and removal of an “enemy administration”. To me, the real reasons are more complex than meets the immediate eye.
Television and radio bombard us with campaign messages, newscast and reportage – even Ads with American accents. GECOM’s MMU will attempt to monitor and rein in excesses but will fail. Social media bloggers, I understand, have no time for official, responsible scrutiny. They enjoy a free-for-all (?) Can they contribute to incitement? Divisiveness? You tell me.
Miscellaneous Musings…
Related to all the foregoing are two very significant print media pieces brought to my attention.
The Guyana Review once David Granger’s laudable journalistic offering, made a re-appearance this week via this newspaper. Appropriate and provocative pieces included Moses Nagamootoo’s declaration that the May 11 elections could be “A Referendum on corruption and mismanagement”.
That’s a worthy expectation but, Frankly Speaking, I doubt the electorate’s judgement on those issues would be paramount. It is what they think about the future that would have more or equal impact.
Then there is a ‘curious’ editorial in the PPP-friendly Chronicle of this Tuesday (28th April.) It speaks about “Tin Gods” in the PPP who are now tarnishing and threatening the status, image and effectiveness of that Party. Wow! I have to read it. Is it a stand-by excuse for the Party’s perceived electoral loss on May 11, as one friend suggests? (As the cry of supporter – “Apathy” in 2011?) Wonder who wrote that?
By the way, how are Selman, Urling and Ramsaroop faring in the PPP campaign? And has the Coalition not attracted any significant defectors as yet?
‘Til next week!
(allanafenty@yahoo.com)
