One of the good things about opinion pieces such as comments and editorials is that they give the newspaper a “voice” so to speak.
Letters, though, remain a forum for readers to express their views or to reply to opinions expressed columnists, journalists or editorial writers.
Opinions are different from ordinary stories in that they represent views as opposed to actual facts.
While readers expect news stories to be factual, opinions are a different matter.
Each newspaper is entitled to its own opinion and news reporters must strive at all times to accurately report the facts and the facts only when reporting. In short, readers expect news reports to be fair and balanced.
Opinion pieces, though, can be quite stimulating and informative once the writer refrains from name calling or from slandering persons.
Sometimes letter writers get into a form of debate where views are expounded in the media. Most times newspapers encourage this potpourri of views once it does not degenerate into slander.
On June 17 Stabroek Sport reported that the Guyana Table Tennis Association (GTTA) had named a number of players in several categories to begin training with a view to representing Guyana at next month’s Caribbean championships.
On June 19, Kaieteur News reported what they said was the team to the tournament claiming that they had been given that information by the general secretary of the GTTA Godfrey Munroe.
Munroe has denied giving the Kaieteur News the names of the members of the representative team published by the newspaper while the newspaper has stuck to its story.
Neither seems to want to budge from their positions and, as stated in an earlier comment, it is difficult to get to the bottom of the matter.
Implications
If the Kaieteur News’ reporter Edison Jefford is to be believed then let us analyse Munroe’s actions.
He releases a training team on June 17 and then gives a rival newspaper the official Guyana team one day later (on June 18) for a championships to be held next month.
What can possibly be Munroe’s motive for doing that? He must have known that once the names of the official team members were published then he would have had to indicate to the players named in the training squad that the team was already selected and give them reasons why.
If Munroe did select the team and give them to Jefford with the full knowledge that the team was going to be published as claimed by Jefford then Munroe should have at the next training session offer an explanation to the members of the training squad his reasons for picking the team after only one day of training and releasing it to the media.
There might have been an exodus of players from the training squad but that should have been expected under the circumstances for what’s the sense in training when the team has already been selected.
Munroe did indicate in his response that players had enquired from him whether the team had already been selected. That is only logical. Munroe has said that he told the players that he had not named the team. Can any of the players substantiate that? Will they come forward?
Why did Munroe give the Kaieteur News the scoop and then deny to the players and the media afterwards that he had done so?
This brings us to the question of whether the GTTA has a selection policy or committee in place or whether Munroe is the sole GTTA selector.
What if Jefford is
correct?
A number of other questions arise here.
Why would a reporter feel that the official national team of any sport would be selected after only one day of training?
And, if the team was indeed selected why is the GTTA still continuing with training the squad shortlisted.
If what Jefford claims is correct, then Munroe is guilty of behaving as a one-man association who does not respect the rest of the executive enough to not only include them in deliberations on team selection matters but who makes press releases without their knowledge.
If Munroe gave the team to Jefford he would have been guilty of giving privileged information to one media house only. Releases on team selections are usually sent to more than one media house.
He would also be guilty of showing scant respect to those players whom he had called to training on June 19 only to callously inform them by way of the media that they would no longer figure in the GTTA’s chances for team glory.
Perhaps GTTA members can come forward and say whether this is so.
What if Munroe is correct?
If Munroe is to be believed then Jefford would be guilty of claiming a report as accurate from a news source which does not substantiate his story a breach of journalism ethics.
If the news report was an opinion piece nothing would be wrong with naming the players the writer felt would be on the final composition of the team but the article was a news story.
In Jefford’s story `GTTA sets sights on Caribbean team titles’ he quoted Munroe as saying:”We have named a team for the Caribbean championships…”
Did Munroe mean squad instead of team? Is this whole furor a case of a misinterpretation of a word?
Jefford has been all over the place casting aspersions, using disparaging words to describe some of the table tennis players and trying to include persons who are in no way related to the issue to support his case but the only thing at stake here is his credibility as a reporter, the credibility of the newspaper he works for (by extension), and the credibility of Munroe.
It’s that simple.
