Citing the need to preserve press freedom, the Inter-American Press Associat-ion (IAPA) has called on the Guyana Government to review its current distribution practice for official advertising to ensure that neither Stabroek News nor any other media house “is adversely affected.”
The December 27th, 2019 statement from IAPA follows a complaint lodged with it on December 23rd, 2019 by Stabroek News, citing the sharp reduction of state advertisements from the Department of Public Information (DPI) since August 2019 as constituting an attack by the government on press freedom.
DPI instituted a radical cut in state ads to Stabroek News in September, Octo-ber and November after the newspaper had temporarily stopped accepting the placement of ads because of a significant outstanding debt of over $22 million. After DPI substantially reduced its debt, Stabroek News invited it to resume advertising normally for the month of August but this did not occur.