The Guyana Press Association (GPA) has registered its concerns over what it says is a campaign for advertisements to be reduced or removed from a number of media houses and/or for a number of state officials to disengage with some media entities.
The Association said that the campaign is mainly done by commentator/influencer Mikhail “Guyanese Critic” Rodgrigues who, every week would ask Vice President Jagdeo about taking questions from Kaieteur News reporters and/or reducing State ads for Kaieteur News in particular.
“Twice in recent times, Vice President Jagdeo acknowledged the issues of state ads for the media, one time saying that this should be reviewed and, on another occasion, that he would raise the issue in writing with President Ali as he branded Kaieteur News a political entity. The GPA considers this issue a threat to the economic viability of independent media houses in Guyana,” the GPA said.
The body also noted that there is a campaign to discredit the media and more so the independent ones, which has been ongoing for years but has been amplified over the months.
“Even as we call on politicians to respect the media and media workers, we expect that this will be no easy task. There is no genuine effort to be open with the media, address the concerns and simply do better. Instead, there is a trend to attack the media, journalists, the GPA via the state-controlled and social media pages.
The Guyana Press Association (GPA) hopes that this changes and there is a willingness to acknowledge the work of the media as well as working with those professionals. We also call on media houses to use this opportunity to encourage media workers to attend and absorb all training opportunities.”
The GPA also noted that there is a need for even more robust fact-checking mechanisms within media houses and verification of information before publication. There continues to be complaints about issues of verification of very basic details in reporting.
To this end, the GPA said it is committed to continuing its training with media workers.
“The GPA wants to use this opportunity to call on several bodies including the Guyana Elections Commission to not only consider media monitoring but also elections-related training for media workers. And as the election cycle has begun, GECOM should also consider a political code of conduct for politicians, as it does for the media,” the body concluded.
What is the position of political organs? Are they independent media?