First Vice President and Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo yesterday generated concern about political interference in the media when he told reporters at Parliament Building that he was “surprised and disappointed” by a headline which appeared in the state-owned Guyana Chronicle newspaper.
The headline which read “Gov’t Blunders on Budget Estimates…violates laws assented to by President Granger” had garnered several comments from members of both sides of the house during the day with unconfirmed reports claiming that at least one government minister had contacted the editor of the newspaper to express concern about the headline.
The issue developed at Parliament when several members of the media corps observed Nagamootoo speaking with, Derwayne Wills, the journalist who penned the article.
Reporters converged on Nagamootoo asking him if his conversation with the reporter addressed the article. During the exchange, the Minister acknowledged that “he had a conversation with Mr Wills, about journalism, [which] was triggered by a headline he saw in the Chronicle”.
Describing the newspaper as government-owned, Nagamootoo said “it is a government paper and I would expect that for a paper that it has a point of view that supports a government perspective…here is a case where there was a resolution of a problem, a compromise having been arrived at…”
Nagamootoo, who has responsibility for the portfolio of public information and had previously said that the Chronicle had been recently transformed from a partisan, propagandistic rag to a bastion of public information later issued a press statement in which he stressed that he has “not spoken with the editor over this matter though [he] felt; as Minister with responsibility for public information, that the headline did not do justice to what actually transpired as, there was a resolution of complaints by the opposition that a section of the budget was not properly structured to bring it in line with requirements of the Guyana Constitution.”
He added that he “had expected that greater care ought to have been exercised by the Guyana Chronicle before coming to the erroneous conclusion that the government had blundered on either the presentation or compilation of the estimates of expenditures since similar representation has been made during previous budget presentations of the former PPP government with regards to allocations for constitutional agencies, and had been resolved after bi-partisan consultations, as was the case yesterday, before consideration of the estimates started.”
Nagamootoo maintained that he had not threatened, upbraided or scolded the reporter about the article as he repeatedly urged media operatives to speak to the reporter.
Wills who had previously refused to speak to reporters about the matter went on record after Nagamootoo spoke with reporters.
He explained to reporters that he had approached the minister for an interview, “I identified myself as Derwayne Wills of the Guyana Chronicle and he expressed some concern about [yesterday’s] issue of the Guyana Chronicle…”
The reporter added that Nagamootoo “explained to me that he had concerns about the headline, however he indicated that he did not read the article.” According to Wills the Minister suggested that if he were to write the headline “he would have put it along the line of Government-Opposition compromise on Budget Estimates.”
Nagamootoo’s responses to reporters was in line with this, as he noted “I was disappointed. I was very disappointed. I didn’t think that it was an objective headline in the sum total of what transpired yesterday in the Parliament.”
He further argued that the Guyana Chronicle “…is a government newspaper…a fully supported established company of the State…one would expect that it would merit the views of government.”
Wills however “feels strongly that there is nothing wrong with the article,” nor the headline. “In no way at all did I take anything out of context,” he asserted “it was basic reporting style, comments, attribution all these things…I found absolutely nothing wrong with the article at all.”
He is also prepared to “stand strongly by the headline because [he] feels it was an accurate reflection of what happened [on Monday].”
He explained “You had a session stalled from 9am to 2pm; a five hour stall…. to deal with this issue…. so it was definitely a government blunder….it is difficult to see that there is such a great oversight of the government presenting a budget…contradicting laws you have passed.”
