Dear Editor,
For almost four decades, Stabroek News (SN) has been an important part of Guyanese life, culturally, socially, politically, and intellectually. It was indeed sad to learn that the management has decided to close the newspaper on the 15th of March, bringing the end of this national institution. Whatever one thinks of SN, it has become a part of the Guyanese reality with its departure in a few weeks; a void will be created that will be difficult to fill.
The management pointed to several reasons that influenced their painful decision. Among those are: (1) government refusal to pay the 80-plus million owed to the paper, (2) competition from social media, (3) insufficient advertisement from the private sector, and (4) a change in reading culture that led to a decline in sales of the paper, to name a few. It is difficult to say which of the above had the major influence on the decision to exit the public space. It is obvious that the government’s refusal to pay money owed to SN is probably the single most important factor that influenced the decision to close the paper. The PPP’s historic hostility to the SN is public knowledge that led to it losing a large section of Indian readership, and its sales for several years came from mainly the African and other communities. This strategy by the PPP reaches a new dimension with the birth of the Guyana Times, owned by a known PPP supporter. Given the politics in the country, in which racial/ethnic/ political solidarity and the fear factor of government victimization, the Indian-dominated private sector falls in line withholding ads from the newspaper. Added to the above, the SN became victim to the divisive and partisan political environment where it is difficult, some will say impossible, to engage in public advocacy without being accused of taking a political side and becoming a casualty of our political culture. Over time, the SN was seen as anti-PNCR/APNU and later anti-PPPC; its cry of independence and objectivity was not sufficient to defeat this perception.
While the SN never claimed to be a representative of Portuguese interest because of the ethnicity of its founding fathers and our race base political culture, the paper was seen in some quarters, particularly in the early period, as presenting the Portuguese political and economic interest. Given the Portuguese economic strength in the economy, one is forced to ponder why that community has not rallied behind the SN in its time of need. My judgment is the fear factor, the government’s ability to victimize. Whatever the reason in political terms, the death of the SN represents a decline in the ability of the Portuguese community to influence public discourse in the society – an unfortunate development.
Ironically, the SN had its birth in a period of PNC domination, and Desmond Hoyte reformed policy. Its demise has taken place under the return of “democracy,” PPPC-style domination. The country has demonstrated in the face of PPPC assault that, like the destruction of a multi-racial consistency to give meaning to multi-racial politics in a sustained way, there is no democratic culture to protect and sustain a true independent news media print or electronic. This is our reality. The departure of the SN is yet another victory for the PPPC and their march to domination. While they will be celebrating the end of the SN in objective politics, it stands as an indictment of that party’s governance of the country. The irony is that without a meaningful democratic voice those in power begin to hear only themselves. That echo chamber breeds overconfidence, arrogance, and eventually a decay from within.
Equally important is that this is taking place in a period when Guyana has become a Petro-State, and economic activity is booming in both the public sector and the private sector. In a normal society with government budget of 1.5 trillion dollars, given the small population, our economic activity should foster optimism for a brighter future for small businesses like SN. What a contradiction.
In closing, while in recent times in private I questioned Stabroek News’s neutrality and at times its objectivity, I never lost sight of its tremendous contribution to society. It will be remiss of me not to acknowledge that my coming to public prominence as a letter writer was facilitated by this newspaper, and like many, I am indebted to the SN. I see this letter as payment of that indebtedness.
Yours sincerely,
Tacuma Ogunseye.
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