Dear Editor,
Yesterday’s Stabroek News carried an article entitled `Guyana regressing from stewards of natural resources to squanderers’ . Listed below the article were a selection of names of some member organizations of the Policy Forum Guyana as if they, were the signatories, rather than the PFG itself the way the release was submitted.
If SN wished to vary the authorship of releases, surely they should seek permission to do so. Moreover since PFG was in direct contact with the newspaper in the intervening days, SN had time and opportunity to do so.
Interfering with the authors would be unacceptable even if the text of the release were printed as written. In this case the release was extensively re-written into appearing like a list of negative criticisms rather than an argument for the national dialogue called for.
The cherry-picking of names of member organizations of the Forum further distorts the matter.
Policy Forum Guyana wishes particularly to clarify that while we collaborate with Conservation International Guyana on several matters of common interest, neither Conservation International nor Conservation International Guyana was party to preparation of our press release issued on June 1.
PFG proposes that SN print the original release verbatim as a letter to allow readers to judge its intention for themselves.
Yours faithfully,
Mike McCormack
Convenor
Editor’s note:
Stabroek News did not change the authorship of the press release. Throughout the news item that appeared it is stated that the author is Policy Forum Guyana. A selection of the names of members of PFG was carried to give the public an idea as to its membership. Immediately preceding these names was an indicator that these were only some of the members.
As it relates to the manner in which the press release was rewritten, that is the sole discretion of the newspaper. If there were any factual errors we would of course correct such.
