Former President Bharrat Jagdeo has said that his PPP/C administration “was wrong” to withdraw state advertising from Stabroek News in 2006.
Almost 13 years after a 17-month boycott of this newspaper which began in November 2006, Jagdeo told his weekly press conference that “in retrospect it may be the wrong decision.” This is the first time Jagdeo or anyone in his administration has said the 2006 boycott was wrong.
In response to questions about whether his past actions made him ethically unfit to criticize the current administration’s use of state media, Jagdeo repeated the defence that government in 2006 chose to advertise only in the private newspaper which “had the highest circulation”
“At that time it was Kaieteur News….I am saying this today. In retrospect, it may be the wrong decision,” Jagdeo.
He further argued that “State ads must not be used in a punitive manner…I did not do it in a punitive sense but notwithstanding that, I think it was wrong.”
Jagdeo went on to advocate for some way to ensure that all private media regardless of where they stand enjoy access to state assets.
“It is not…me saying this because I have a history on this matter but looking forward… I think we must have in the new Government, a system which guarantees state ads to private media entities,” he stated.
The withdrawal of the state ads by the PPP/C administration began just months after the August 2006 general elections and followed severe attacks on Stabroek News by Jagdeo and government officials on a variety of issues including columns that were being carried in the newspaper for leaders of the Alliance for Change (AFC).
It has come to be seen as the most serious attack on press freedom during the period of PPP/C governance from 1992 to 2015.
Given his tight control of the government, it was believed that the decision to end ads to Stabroek News came directly from Jagdeo. Analysts had argued that the withholding of ads to Stabroek News was aimed at forcing it out of business and to clear the way for the Guyana Times which was eventually launched on June 5, 2008. This date was also significant to the end of the 17-month boycott as it cleared the way for the government to begin advertising with the Guyana Times a newspaper run by Jagdeo’s friend Ranjisinghi Ramroop.
Despite local and international pressure including from Party co-founder Janet Jagan the ban remained in place until April 2008 when placements resumed without explanation.
Two years later in August, 2010 the government suddenly announced that state advertising would now be placed on the internet and only the state-owned newspaper and a weekly paper – the PPP/C aligned Mirror newspaper would receive ads. Costs and the need to take advantage of digital technology were the reasons advanced by then Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr Roger Luncheon.
Effectively from September 2010, state ads were cut off to the three private newspapers: SN, KN and the Guyana Times.
Following its victory at the 2015 general elections, the APNU+AFC government had advertised broadly with all four of the daily newspapers until August of this year when the advertising in Stabroek News significantly decreased.
An article in the September 29 edition of the Sunday Stabroek recounted how the Department of Public Information had slashed state advertising in August and September to a trickle. Stabroek News Editor-in-Chief Anand Persaud had labelled it a crude attempt to muzzle the newspaper which had taken forthright positions on the government’s violation of the Constitution.
DPI rejected the news item as “wholly erroneous, misleading and mischievous and presented what it said were “unvarnished facts.”
They argued that the reduction of state advertisements in Stabroek News was a result of its decision to suspend bookings in May until significant arrears were cleared.
Persaud had countered that DPI’s account was not credible and smacked of the same type of excuses that had been issued during the Jagdeo boycott. Persaud said two facts rendered DPI’s explanation wholly unbelievable and fabricated: the silence that was maintained after written inquiries by the newspaper to Director of Public Information, Imran Khan and Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo and DPI’s announcement of a new advertising policy being in effect without having previously informed any media house. Persaud said Stabroek News will continue to highlight the DPI slashing of advertising as an abuse of press freedom.
