The Guyana Press Associa-tion (GPA) has issued a call for management and staff of all media houses to join Stabroek News in its peaceful picket between 8:30 and 9:30 am outside the Common-wealth Finance Ministers meeting tomorrow at the Guyana International Con-ference Centre, Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara.
The newspaper announced its intention to hold the picketing exercise yesterday in relation to the withdrawal of government advertisements while reiterating that the move by the government is an attack on press freedom.
The withdrawal of advertisements by twenty-nine government ministries, agencies and state corporations started since November 1 of last year. (See comment on page 1.)
In a press release the GPA restated “its unswerving solidarity” with the newspaper “on the detrimental impact that the withdrawal of a huge portion of government advertisements is having on that newspaper.”
The association once again urged the government to take up its suggestion, which was also offered by the Associa-tion of Caribbean Media Workers (ACM), for a study to be conducted on the allocation of government advertisements to the three daily newspapers and the ruling party-aligned Mirror newspaper.
“Such a study should be based, we believe, on circulation, target-readership, and types of advertisements, among other benchmarks. We state unambiguously that the GPA is supportive of the principle of fair allocation of government advertisements to all newspapers, regardless of ownership and content but the provision of this vital source of revenue must be done based on scientific evidence,” the release said.
Further, the GPA said it cannot help but notice “the continual snide remarks and criticisms against Stabroek News”, as opposed to any other newspaper, by no less a person than His Excellency President Bharrat Jagdeo.
“While the President also has an equal right to freedom of expression, his utterances against Stabroek News are not going un-noticed and are clearly indicators of his administration’s displeasure about the content of the newspaper that cannot be easily isolated from the withdrawal of the advertisements,” the release added.
The association called for all to join hands in sending a strong message to the 53-nation Commonwealth whose several members are signatories to the Declaration of Chapultepec that prohibits governments from putting in place “Tariff and exchange policies, licenses for the importation of paper or news-gathering equipment, the assigning of radio and television frequencies and the granting or withdrawal of government advertising to reward or punish the media or individual journalists.”
