Minister Kwame McCoy who holds responsibility for Public Affairs within the Office of the Prime Minister told Stabroek News in an interview that the government could see no immediate reason for disbanding any section of the state media. As it is the 2020 Budget has allocated more than half a billion dollars to boost state media capacities.
The state media include NCN which deals with television and radio, and GNNL which covers the Guyana Chronicle and the Department of Public Information (DPI). Neither the last government nor the various PPP/C administrations have ever made a clear distinction between the DPI and the state media in general. Mr McCoy too did not distinguish the different spheres of responsibility.
He insisted that the state media would not be used as a “political tool,” although it was understandable that it gave any government an advantage, and it might give this government one too, “because a large part of its responsibility is to inform plans for nationalistic objectives, promote unifying programmes among other initiatives.” The Minister went on to suggest that government programmes and activities, and party positions tended to be confused with each other. For example, he said, a request from the Guyana Police Force for a community outreach programme “… is not a Freedom House activity,” and the PPP/C had “adequate machinery to carry out its public relations work and won’t have to use [the] state media reach …”
He is perfectly correct that a police community outreach would not be classed as a political activity. However, under normal circumstances that kind of project would be handled by a government Department of Information or Ministry of Information or DPI, in this instance. Such an institution would also provide information on government plans and activities, and educate the public on matters of health – the coronavirus is a classic example at the present time – education, people’s rights and the like. Its releases, or documentaries in the case of the airwaves, would go out to all the private media. It is through such an avenue that democratic governments often keep people informed of their ventures and policies, as well as serving an educative purpose.
So if the DPI in fact intends to do all that – and if not what will its function be? − what exactly will the state newspaper be doing? The same thing? If the DPI is sharing this burden with the Chronicle, does that not sound like duplication? As it was Mr McCoy was not altogether informative about the paper’s coverage, although he did say that while it was not making considerable profit, it was not operating at a loss either. He was of the view that a state newspaper was still needed, and that with proper planning and management he was hopeful it could start “holding its own.” In terms of revenue GNNL’s printing capacity could be seen as a resource, he said, since it could be contracted out to clients seeking printing services.
While the financial advantages of this are indisputable, it still does not answer the question of what the purpose of a state newspaper is in this day and age. If its only raison d’être is contract printing then it might as well transform itself into a printery pure and simple. The Minister nevertheless adverted to a plan for overhauling all the agencies, beginning with human resource capacity. “It is the same for any business model,” he said, “you want to know the skillsets of your personnel to effectively plan so it ensures that your goals are met. So assessing human resources is first to be looked at.”
There was also the matter of equipment and upgrading the technology so it would meet international standards. Where this was concerned, he said, the focus to begin with would be NCN. “I believe that NCN has to be, at the least, the national yardstick for what quality broadcast is, he told this newspaper, going on to say, “Our vision is to lead, not only Guyana but the Caribbean in broadcasting. To do that we have to retool the entire place and invest in equipment, personnel, ensure proper management and that there be professionalism in the execution of the operation.”
Mr McCoy also envisages better management across the state media, that “could deliver on the mandate of making sure that the public information sector, especially … because it is run by the State … would be one that would be admired, and would be a leading example across the Caribbean.” In pursuit of this a great deal of attention would be paid to training, he said, and that in a world of new techniques you had to constantly upgrade people by giving them training.
While all of this might have a superficial appeal, in the end the state media (DPI potentially excluded) will be judged not by the sophistication of their technology, the effectiveness of their financial arrangements, the proficiency of their managers or the technical competence of their staff, but by content. After all, the primary objective of any news agency is to convey the news, and the approach they take to that is what is critical and what they will be judged by. In addition, of course, there is the matter of balance, editorial comment and the space which is given for contrary views to find expression.
Which brings us back to Minister McCoy’s statement quoted above that the state media would not be used as a “political tool”. This is despite the fact that they have not been used as anything else either by the last government or the various administrations of the PPP/C. For twenty-three years the state media were employed to push a consistently Freedom House line, sometimes with little respect for the truth and always with no respect for even-handedness. In addition, critics were castigated in crude if not vitriolic fashion, whether they were political opponents or represented independent agencies. It would be a huge leap for NCN, for example, to suddenly metamorphose into a BBC-like channel with its careful pursuit of balance and objectivity. Would the Minister say whether that is the kind of training he intends for reporters?
Mr McCoy made reference to transparency in management. Quite what was meant by that is not altogether clear (except where finances are concerned), but he never spoke of the need for accuracy and truth, as far as the latter is possible to achieve in reportage. Nor did he have anything to say about how criticism would be accommodated within this new state-media schema, and how they would go around deciding editorial lines in respect of leader columns.
In short, the phrase ‘freedom of expression’ never passed his lips, enlightening people as to how it could be applied in relation to NCN and GNNL.
He did speak of nationalistic objectives and unifying programmes, and making sure “that people benefit in such a way that they will be able to contribute significantly to our national development, because that is what we are all about and that is why we’re here.” Nationalistic objectives are fine in so far as they relate to border matters, but exactly how they apply in a wider sphere might be a subject of contention. And if the purpose of the state media is to benefit people so they contribute to national development, that raises the ghosts of an earlier international debate in the 1960s and ͗70s when some newly independent countries considered that the media should promote ‘development journalism’. Many western democracies saw this as an excuse for state control.
No doubt the Minister did not have that analogy quite in mind, but in view of the fact that it is a sitting government which will decide the policies for national development, and the function of the state media, he said, is to help people contribute to national development, it still leaves open the matter of how much control the government intends to exercise in pursuit of their goal.
One cannot help but feel that the administration is behind the times. Social media, even here, are fast eclipsing the printed and even the broadcast media. The government does not need all of these media entities, even if its underlying motive is as always to use them as a propaganda tool. Either way, it is a waste of half a billion of taxpayers’ money.
