This is what SN’s ‘forthright reporting’ is all about

Dear Editor,
I QUOTE “Stabroek News’ contention has been that the Department of Public Information (DPI) slashed its advertisements to punish the newspapers for the forthright reporting on the government, and that this was in flagrant violation of the Inter-American press freedom of Chapultepec”, Guyana Chronicle, December 08, 2019.

One wonders what “forthright reporting” on the Coalition government is this shameless PR mouthpiece of the PPP/C and its horde of political vandals talking about, and on what dates, and on what issues were these carried in the Stabroek News. And here, one speaks of seriously written issues with objective analysis, and not the gutter-low journalistic practices that have been appearing as journalism since 2015, but which would have become solidified since December 21, 2018.

**As an example, here was a media house, leading what was definably the media aspect of totally false reporting, on the Caribbean Court of Justice’s (CCJ) decisions, for dangerous political ends, when it should have been otherwise, when the CCJ in its Consequential Order of July 12th ruled: “Article 106 of the Constitution invests in the President and the National Assembly (and implicitly in GECOM), responsibilities that impact on the precise timing of the elections.

Given that the CCJ ruled that the No-Confidence Motion was properly carried with a majority of 33 of the 65 seats of the National Assembly on the night of December 21, 2018, the provisions of Articles 106 (7) were triggered for elections to be held by March 21.
That Article reads, “Notwithstanding its defeat, the government shall remain in office and shall hold an election within three months, or such longer period as the National Assembly shall, by resolution, supported by not less than two-thirds of the votes of all the elected members of the National Assembly, and shall resign after the President takes the oath of office following the election.”

If there was ever a period that has been notably defined for its most dishonest brand of journalism, which brought this nation to its most dangerous precipice, it was this particular phase. When the Coalition sought judicial recourse, as was their constitutional right to do so, this media house continued its dark and desperate type of journalism on behalf of its desperately blinkered political horse, that the Coalition was engaged in delaying tactics.
Editor, in accusing the DPI of withdrawing advertisements, the Stabroek News’ ploy was to continue the PPP/C line of portraying the lie of the government being undemocratic, by resorting to a disingenuous red herring, which they knew from tradition would galvanise international opinion against the government. This is a dark deed, which they also know, committed by any government, would place the latter in a completely different category of nations. After all, they as a former regime, knew what they had done to the Stabroek News in this regard, and what had ensued. But their gambit was exposed, since the Department of Public Information (DPI) disproved their treachery.

The Constitution is clear, and Guyana must abide by the laws as defined therein and by a court of law, not by the skillful orchestrations of any political or other forces seeking power and willing to violate the Constitution of Guyana and the gullibility of some of our people. But on Stabroek News’ criminal claim of “forthright reporting”, it became a media’s whorehouse for some of the greatest political liars to have peddled their shady night trade of the dirtiest lies in its columns. They all can take their places in either the Nazi Julius Streicher Der Sturmer column, or any communist journal.

“Forthright reporting” again meant sinking to an agreed depraved political level of an opposition party, for the daily purpose of representing its political immoralities and other unspeakable insults against the stark truths of its criminal tenure of office and the people of this nation. The era of “alternate facts” must not be allowed to shape Guyana’s destiny.
Regards,
Carla Mendonca

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