Dear Editor,
Ever since the Roger Khan saga started playing out in a Brooklyn, New York court two years ago, Mr Enrico Woolford of Capitol News has been providing Guyanese at home and abroad with a valuable service by way of news updates, and not once during his reportage out of New York have I ever read where the President or his government was outraged at Mr Woolford’s straightforward reporting of an event that has been covered by other reporters for other New York media houses.
In fact, the President is known to have reacted directly to news stories out of New York on Khan without ever adverting to the reporter. When news broke in New York that Khan was not only responsible for drug smuggling out of Guyana but for over 200 murders at the hands of Phantom Squad killers, the President said if Khan did the crime he should face the consequences, and that’s why it comes as a bit of surprise when the government suddenly put out a statement that said, “The main source of the information in the local media frenzy is Enrico Woolford, known for his anti-government journalism and reporting selectively on the ongoing trial in the USA.”
Why is Mr Woolford suddenly the focus of the government’s ire? Is it, as someone else asked, because the government doesn’t like the message so it decided to go after the messenger? One of the basic principles a journalist is expected to adhere to when reporting an event as news, is to steer clear of injecting opinions and just sticking to the facts as they are presented, and I can vouch that after reading the latest bombshell news story as written by Mr Woolford, I did not see one sentence containing his opinion. He reported on the general case and attributed statements to specific persons, but especially the key witnesses in the Robert Simels trial.
It would make more sense for the government to go after the witnesses if it has anything on them as it seems to have on Selwyn Vaughn. To no one’s surprise, the government released information on Vaughn’s arrest records, because it was Vaughn’s words in a courthouse that helped to damage the image of the Guyana government. All Mr Woolford did was report what Vaughn and others said in that court.
Meanwhile, I find it deeply troubling that the Jagdeo regime would continue to sink to such low levels as to openly belittle the profession of hard-working journalists in the private media simply because these journalists are not reporting what the government wants. Last year the President banned Mr Gordon Moseley of Capitol News from State House and the Office of the President, not because of what Mr Moseley reported on during the President’s visit to Antigua, but because in a published letter he suggested that if the President wanted a particular slant of coverage then the President should have made arrangements to ensure government journalists were there.
This holds true in the current Simels trial, where jaw-dropping revelations that are embarrassing the Guyana government could have been spun differently to the liking of the President and his government if only they had reporters assigned to the case. But given what they all knew or suspected was likely to come out in this trial, would it have made sense to spend money on sending a government reporter to engage in damage control only to damage his or her credibility trying to write the exact opposite of what Mr Woolford and others reported?
I have said before and will say again, when the government starts exerting tactical political pressure on the private media, it is a sure sign it is ramping up its push towards a dictatorship. Just look at what happened in Venezuela over the last few days where President Hugo Chavez, in his dictatorial thrust, has moved to close down 30 radio stations. It started with seemingly harmless threats against the media and when it saw no one pushing back, it made its move at the opportune time. And this is the man some Guyanese and West Indians praise for his political valour and vision? In Guyana, President Jagdeo is already on record labelling the private media as the new political opposition simply because journalists dared to do their jobs of reporting stories the government didn’t want exposed. And we’re talking about a government that boasts about returning democracy to Guyana, as though elections are the sum total of democracy.
Even Stabroek News and Kaieteur News have been on the receiving end of the President’s brusque attitude, but private media owners, managers, editors, and field operatives as well as those who remember the Burnham era of oppressing the free press, owe it to themselves to keep Guyana from political apostasy by pushing back every time this government pushes the envelope to see what it can get away with.
Long live Guyana’s journalists! Long live press freedom in Guyana!
Yours faithfully,
Emile Mervin
