SN should not have allowed letter-writer to withhold name

Dear Editor,

I refer to a letter in the SN of Dec 9, 2014, ‘This is the perfect time for young people to take a stand.’ The letter has a non-identifiable signature. That letter should not have been published because whereas it expresses the views of a reader, it has no journalistic value in terms of an editor’s role not only as an obligation to the media but to the wider society itself

From the time I entered the media in 1988, I have always stressed there are very few circumstances in which an anonymous columnists and/or letter-writers can be justified. There is only one reason for a pen-name commentator in the print media – a whistleblower who can come to harm. Outside of this situation, the print media should not permit a commentator whose viewpoints are contained in an all-inclusive methodology.

It is simply morally unacceptable for a nameless person to be condemning others while hiding his/her identify. This is where social media become dangerous. You can start a web site without legal identification of ownership and accuse your former boss of terrible crimes because you were caught stealing and was dismissed. No one knows who you are.

Modern newspapers should not allow for pen-name writers who compose essays on all types of subjects including analyses of public figures. I may be wrong but that anomaly no longer obtains in the print media. In 1990, while a columnist at the Catholic Standard, I came across an unpublished letter that the editor Father Morrison was about to print.

Penned by a retired public servant, Basil Collins of Duncan Street (deceased), the letter advocated that there should be a general strike by civil servants against the Hoyte government. Mr Collins appealed to public servants to be brave and join the picket line even if arrest or loss of employment followed.

He signed his name as ‘Observer.’ I accused Mr Collins of crass dishonest and immoral behaviour. On my side I had the support of deputy editor, Colin Smith who told Father Morrison that Mr Collins was asking people to be brave while hiding. It is one of my moments in journalism that Colin and I always reflect on. I will never forget that incident because it helped shape my attitude to editing.

In that letter in the Stabroek, the person wrote, “…this is the perfect time for the young people of this country to take a stand. To let those in power recognize that we are no longer going to allow Guyana to be controlled by persons who do not have the best interest of the country at heart. That we are not going to allow race and class to dictate the decisions that are being made for our country and that we as youth intend to have a vital input in how the Cooperative Republic of Guyana moves forward.”

The moral contradiction is glaring there. This is an advocacy statement in which the person is afraid to be part of his/her own advocacy.

That person has not taken a stand because no one knows that. Even if the editor knows the name of the writer, the society doesn’t and the writer is asking the society to be openly brave. In discussing this aberration with Adam Harris, I told him one should not advocate the use of mango leaves for health reasons when you don’t use it. You are bound to be seen as hypocritical. Harris agreed.

Finally, both the Stabroek News and Kaieteur News have continuously warned letter-writers to identify themselves through submission of some piece of evidence, yet both newspapers have consistently ignored their own guidelines. M Maxwell and Sultan Mohamed are fictional signatures.

It is simply unbelievable that editors at Kaieteur News and the Stabroek News continue to publish correspondence with these phantom names. It is simply unbelievable that Mr Vishnu Bisram could write often to these two newspapers and say NACTA has done a poll when there is absolutely no evidence anywhere in the world that a polling organization exists by the name of NACTA and the newspapers and the Guyanese society know that.

The role of the editor in the light of that information has a duty to journalistic integrity to omit the name NACTA and simply retain Mr Bisram’s name because Mr Bisram exists, he is real. But should we be surprised. No! There isn’t anything that should surprise us in a country named Guyana.

 

Yours faithfully,

Frederick Kissoon