Dear Editor,
The government is going to say it has clean hands in what is now a full-fledged fiasco in the matter of advertisement revenues involving Stabroek News. Well, I am not listening; and I am saying to the government: look at your hands again. Better yet, look at the hands of the paying public that has to fork out an extra twenty for what is now assuming the cause of the embattled heroic.
The government has had ample time and opportunity to fix this matter. Show them the money. I don’t care what SN did not cover, which is viewed as meaningful, if not extraordinary, by government. Similarly, I really have no interest in the contents and thrusts (and biases) of its editorials; they should not matter. In both instances, those are publisher’s prerogatives; small, touchy people react to these things by dropping the hammer. There are many more vitally important things that should occupy the attention and energies of government. Those do not include this matter about what the paper (or any other one) does or does not do; of course, once it is not libelous or racist or inflammatory.
I am surprised that the normally level-headed Guyanese Head-of-State has allowed this matter to linger unresolved so far. The paper is not going to change its tune; for to do that would lead to a loss of credibility and readability; boils down to a matter of journalistic integrity, of which SN is a leader, if not the leader, in Guyana. The government is not going to win this one; the other one didn’t, either, and it paid a price for its leadership foolishness and recklessness in what unfolded at that time. It was his combined assaults on the media that brought down the hard, bitter rains of Zeus on his head.
To our own President Granger, I appeal for a manifestation of some of the good sense that has characterized other dealings. I look at the current United States President and his snarling visage, and I put up my dukes just in case he gets any ideas about carrying out a mugging. There is that snarling spitting visage of malicious intentions that is now the norm of the breakfast paper, and on just about every subject, not just about manufactured media enemies. There was a similar snarling, spitting face in this same decade right here, who thrilled at being a media chopper, and look where and what it got him; he appears to have learned his lesson. As to why President Granger would harbour aspirations to be so lumped in that infamous brotherhood is beyond me. I say those who know better must set the example by doing better. This thing about ad dollars is already a cause celebre and threatens to get dangerously out of hand. The word is: do not mess with the Fourth Estate. I did say before that it has assumed the heroic proportions of the underdog.
As for the brain trust at SN, with the editor-in-chief as chief spokesman, I am recognizing more than an edgy marketing job. I discern a level of astuteness at work that makes the government information people come across as mulish. It is a brand-new year, so I want to be polite to all, thus that is as far as I would go today. I am particularly impressed with that $20 price hike. See what I mean when I say that this has all the hallmarks of a rallying cause from such small beginnings. Now, on every occasion that somebody buys a paper, he is contributing to a few worthy causes: of combating bullyism; of lending a hand against government overreach and excess; and of the small man (David) standing up against the mighty Philistine, thought to be unconquerable. Yes, I did have to switch the name to fit the circumstances; I don’t care what the government people do, or whisper in his ear, it is the president who loses. Again. The paper may even end up with more readers, if only to stand shoulder to shoulder with the besieged.
I would trust that His Excellency, being the historian that he is, would care to recall the outcome of that confrontation involving the little David in this situation. I respectfully urge him to rise above his one and move along past this one. It is high time.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
