President Bharrat Jagdeo says he does not feel that the protest by Stabroek News (SN) this week over the withdrawal of state advertisements made any big impact.
The protest was held on Monday at the start of the Commonwealth Finance Ministers Meeting.
Speaking to the Govern-ment Information Agency (GINA) President Jagdeo said “I spoke with the foreign media, I spoke with many of the delegates because they recognize that SN sees press freedom as them getting a share of the ads, their share, I do not know what that share is, but they feel they have a divine right to ads”.
President Jagdeo said that the key issues are that Stabroek News has a smaller circulation than the Kaieteur News and that there was no hue and cry when KN was not receiving ads or just a small amount.
“Suddenly, because there is this shift, they are now making it a press freedom issue. It is not a press freedom issue because we have not stopped spending the government’s revenue in advertising in the private sector or private newspapers. We have just made a switch to the larger circulating newspaper because we get more value for money. We reach more homes with the same amount of money, investing in advertising in that particular newspaper”, the President said. He added that if Stabroek News wants to change this the newspaper needs to get its circulation rate up again.
In a comment on the President’s statement, Stabroek News Editor Anand Persaud said that the newspaper was satisfied that its protest on Monday had the desired effect and acquainted the international community of the crude attack by the government on press freedom. He said this was notwithstanding the shocking and indefensible decision by the police to prevent protesters from taking placards to the entrance of the Guyana International Con-ference Centre. He noted that the Stabroek News protesters improvised and used copies of the newspaper to good effect.
In relation to the President’s circulation argument, Persaud said that the government has not provided one iota of evidence to substantiate its case and has failed to reply to a request by the Press Freedom rapporteur of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) for an explanation of the ads withdrawal from Stabroek News. Persaud said if President Jagdeo was so confident about the government’s case he would have surely instructed that a detailed reply be dispatched to the rapporteur. The government’s failure to do this exposes the fragility of its case.
Persaud said that the President made two statements for which he has no evidence: that the Kaieteur News has a larger circulation and the government gets more value for money for these ads.
The Stabroek News Editor added that the wholesale cut-off ads from Stabroek News cannot be justified on any basis as the newspaper reaches taxpayers who do not patronize the newspapers that the government advertises in. “Taxpayers’ money has to be transparently and fairly shared and this is what the government has signally failed to do in this case”, Persaud said. Further, he said SN has led the way in business reporting and by virtue of this is closely followed by the business community which would be the main target for government advertising.
Persaud added that President Jagdeo has rebuffed reasonable offers floated by a Caribbean mediating team and by Stabroek News itself for the scientific apportioning of state ads. The rejection of these proposals indicates a mindset against Stabroek News which was clearly evident in the 2006 general elections campaign, the SN Editor said.
