The Guyana Press Association (GPA) yesterday upped its criticism of communications consultant Kit Nascimento and the government over the handling of a recent press conference by President Irfaan Ali which saw him speaking for more than an hour before answering one question from each media house.
Responding to recent criticisms of its position by Nascimento, the GPA hit back in a statement.
It said it had been watching for several months President Ali’s resort to public statements on social media, without question by journalists, and the weekly 60-minute monologue by the Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall on social media.
It said that Nascimento’s so far ‘guest’ appearance at a presidential press conference has done nothing but bring into question the democratic credentials of the People’s Progressive Party which had pre-1992 promised to break with the past.
It said that the reliance by Nascimento on qualifications, experience, and an award for freedom of expression to locate some unjustifiable credibility is “most disgusting”. The GPA said “One hopes that he is not disregarding the qualitative contributions of the likes of Father Andrew Morrison, Mr C.D. Kirton, Mr David de Caires, Mr Bert Wilkinson, Mr Pete Ninvalle, Mr Sharief Khan et al to fearless and independent journalism who may or may not have been lettered or awarded as he brags about”.
Amid repeated calls for presidential press conferences, the GPA said that the President eventually acquiesced but with a control button to his side, referring to Nascimento.
Dating back to the presidencies of Dr Cheddi Jagan, and Bharrat Jagdeo and, as Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr Roger Luncheon and Gail Teixeira, all had hosted press conferences in the spacious Credentials Room of Office of the President. President Ali, flanked by several of his ministers, had also held a news conference at the very spacious Baridi Benab, State House, the GPA noted..
“The not so creeping imposition of limitations on the media was to evidently rear its ugly head of the past at the joint press conference by the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken and President Ali. Prior, media houses had been contacted to indicate whether they would be asking questions and a number of media houses did so. However, the plot unfurled when they were informed that only two local journalists and two foreign journalists who had traveled with Mr Blinken would have been allowed to ask questions. Despite the fact that a number of Guyanese journalists had indicated by the show of their hands much earlier, the pre-planned selection of representatives from the government-owned and controlled National Communications Network and the online news entity, Newsroom, were allowed to ask questions. It must be noted that the foreign media asked Mr Blinken more than one question without objection. Surely, the United States Embassy and by extension the United States government must take note of this calculated control under the charade of press liberty that has been perpetrated by the Guyana government”, the GPA said.
It pointed out that in the days following, the non-government-owned and controlled and non-pro-government media were not invited to cover the swearing in of the members of the Public Service Commission on Thursday, July 13, 2023, and the Judicial Service Commission on Friday, July 14, 2023. The reason given on both occasions was insufficient space to accommodate the media.
Returning to the President’s press conference on Thursday, July 13, 2023, the GPA said that a time constraint was imposed on the media by the fact that President Ali’s opening statement was 76 minutes (1 hour, 16 minutes) long.
“If the President’s intention was to inform the nation and the world about newsworthy aspects of his government, then he failed miserably to do so because most of his statement had been covered in previous news reports, hence hardly anything there constituted “news”. However, if the plan was to dominate his first solo appearance (unaccompanied by ministers) before the media at a press conference by restricting the duration and number of questions, then his decision to hire Mr Nascimento achieved that objective albeit in a limited self-serving manner”, the GPA declared.
It added that enquiries from colleagues in Caribbean countries reveal that there is no strict timeline for the arrival of the media to prime ministerial press conferences.
“It will be difficult to the point of almost being impossible for President Ali and Nascimento to not be aware that there were other burning national, regional and international issues that the media and by extension the public had needed the President’s perspective on. Indeed, qualitatively Guyanese might have benefitted from those other questions that could not have been asked”, the GPA argued.
It said that whether or not one of Nascimento’s new-found contractual obligations is the creation of a pool of presidential correspondents as is the case at the United States White House, then he needs to adopt the entire model whose features include 10 minute or less opening statements, more than one questions and press conferences of under one hour.
“If the President and Nascimento want to operate by First World/American media standards, as they ought to, then the GPA hopes that they will not be offended by several questions by the media corps even after the President declares the press conference closed”, the GPA stated.
Regarding Nascimento’s reference to the GPA’s elections, the GPA maintained its stance that it was a democratic process involving legitimate members of its organisation.
“Perhaps, the single and most important achievement of the press engagement for the President, the government, Consultant Nascimento and the media was the fact that it started promptly, ushering in for the first time the discipline of punctuality”, the GPA contended.
