Having hauled the Kaieteur News columnist before the courts for calling him King Kong, Mr. Jagdeo has decided that if other people can indulge in name-calling so can he.
But vultures and carrion crows, Mr. President? Now surely, Sir, even if you felt inclined to indulge in one of your now familiar tirades, you could have chosen a brace of more tasteful sobriquets? Vultures and Carrion Crows feed on carcasses, Sir! Surely you are not suggesting that the surfeit of state information coming out of GINA is no more than dead meat. We have our opinion on that, Sir, but we’ll keep it to ourselves.
Pray, tell us Sir; what have the media done to deserve this? For a start, Mr. Jagdeo, you control the radio station Sir and you control the Chronicle and NCN and GINA. Are the journalists who work for you Vultures and Carrion Crows, too? Or is it just those journalists who are doing no more than saying that there’s more to Guyana than the law according to Jagdeo who qualify as Carrion Crows? Un-presidential Sir, definitely un-presidential!
Now CN may have come to you in a spirit of contriteness, “crying like a baby,” as you put it. But did you have to shame the man in the presence of the rally crowd in Kitty. Did you have to go blabbing to the whole world about a conversation which, you as President, had with the man and his wife. Isn’t that taking transparency too far, sir?
The truth is, Mr. Jagdeo, you are thin-skinned and get wound up every time either you or your administration comes under critical attention from the media; this isn’t the Soviet Union under Stalin; this is Guyana, man! We’re bumping our gums tirelessly about the virtues of democracy and a free press and about the media being the gatekeepers of the society. And it isn’t as if your government is squeaky clean; there’s so much to talk about that it’s pointless trying to mention all of it here. All the corruption and the nepotism and the fat cats and the Pradovilles! Grow up Mr. Jagdeo! These things cannot be expected to pass without comment. The media has its work to do and part of that job is to keep an eye on you and your government! And let’s face it you have your own formidable propaganda machine……..there’s Luncheon and Kwame and Prem Misir and these guys never stop talking about the glories of the Jagdeo revolution. Or is it that you simply do not want to hear a single dissenting voice? Sorry Sir! Not in this lifetime or the next.
More than that, Mr. President, you really need to spare a thought for those media houses and the journalists who work for them.
