THE issue of press freedom has dominated the headlines for the past few days. Most prominent among them was that of the May 4 edition of the Sunday Stabroek. Splashed across the front page was the headline ‘US envoy challenges Government over censorship, intimidation of media’. The US ambassador dedicated his entire speech to mark the occasion of World Press Freedom Day to admonishing the Government of Guyana on the lack of press freedom in this country instead of recognising the achievements the PPP/C Administration made as compared to what existed under the PNC.
Listening to Mr. Hardt or reading the above-mentioned article, one gets the impression that the United States is the embodiment of press freedom, and Guyana is the worst. However, a little research would prove beyond any doubt that the US ambassador was simply being hypocritical. He simply exploited the occasion to hit back at a Government he thought he could bully.
Mr. Hardt should have instead filled the knowledge gap of the Guyanese public and inform them that under the Obama administration, press freedom in the US has taken a nosedive. In 2002, Reporters Without Borders gave the US a ranking of Number 17. In 2013 it nose-dived to 32.
It is true that the Government of Guyana is often critical of those private media houses which are openly hostile to it, and openly abuse the freedom they enjoy. It is true that at least 80% of the independent media houses openly promote the Opposition’s political agenda. But it is also true that the Government has never branded any of them “illegitimate”, unlike the US Government.
It is none other than the White House that has branded Fox News as illegitimate, simply because its reporting does not suit its agenda. It is equally true that there have been many leakages of information by State employees to the press, including some that caused significant embarrassment. The Guyana Government has never tapped the phones of any public servant or journalist; hacked into their computers; or in any other way try to intimidate any of them. The US Government, on the other hand, through its ‘Department of Justice’ has illegally invaded the privacy of three Fox News reporters in every conceivable way to identify the source of their information.
As a result, a former State Department employee is now facing 15 years jail. The last time such a thing happened in Guyana, the PNC was in power. So instead of telling the government of Guyana to stop intimidating the press in Guyana, Hardt should have directed those comments to Mr. Barack Obama, President of the United States, his president.
Mr. Hardt, therefore, has no moral right to lecture Guyana about press freedom and intimidation of independent press. Furthermore, instead of criticising the Guyana Government on the issuing of broadcasting licences, he should have done the honourable thing and acknowledged that Al Jazeera had to wait 10 years for a license to broadcast in America.
Instead of lecturing Guyana on press freedom, Mr. Hardt should have reflected on the level of press freedom in his own country, and what an embarrassment it is for the “world’s most democratic, country”, or is it that Mr. Hardt and the Obama administration belong to that category which subscribe to the philosophy, ‘Do as I say, and not as I do’.
The state of press freedom in America was best captured in the words of Fox News’ Brit Hume who said: “The Obama-Holder Justice Department is now prepared to treat the ordinary news gathering activities of reporters to seek information from government officials as a possible crime”.
Is it, therefore, not surprising that some countries in the Caribbean, Eastern Europe and even Africa are now ranked higher than the United States when it comes to press freedom?

FARUK MOHAMED