OUR ways of telling stories, of practising Journalism, of interacting and sharing and influencing the public mind, now happens across the digital landscape. With smartscreens and the Internet, we turn to a connected world in virtual reality to orient ourselves in this new world order. We consume content online, designing our worldview at the flash of bits and bites.Newspapers and print media fall away as the world speeds up, our attention span moving at nanoseconds rather than absorbed in long hours of reading, thinking and internalisation. Our minds move at lightning speed. The monotonous black and white of print, flat, grey, static, no longer interests our eyes.
Yet, with great irony, newspapers hold on to a crucial tenet of our Knowledge Age, of this glut of information that swarms us and swamps us under the weight of superficial stuff. Embedded in that very flat, grey, static nature of print, we find an absolutely necessary ingredient of any solid diet of mindful knowledge: credibility. Newspapers remain our one source of credible public information.
Despite the grotesque popularity of tabloid trash and the herd-appeal of gore, gossip, slander and sleaze, newspapers of professional standards of Journalism form the core of our world’s obsession with media, information, news and public opinion.
We turn to newspapers to verify and confirm things. We hold up the newspaper as the flagship of what’s true and authentic and real. We see the newspaper as the paragon of Journalistic virtue and ethical creation, development and dissemination of engaging, inspiring, interesting content.
Newspapers that practise aesthetic design of content, and hardcore substance in its pages, rather than superficial, cheap info, would forever be the cornerstone of our world, even in this digital age of knowledge and virtual space.
Our world weeds out bad newspapers, and that’s why we’re seeing a massive ongoing global shakeup of the newspaper space. Only good newspapers, professional, ethical, balanced, would remain, rising to the top of the Knowledge Age.
Online media and social media would always resort to these credible, professional, real newspapers for what’s ultimately true of society.
Three necessities define such newspapers: powerful writing skills, with strong competition for talented, professional, ethical writers; excellence of page design and publication layout, with a falling away of the formulaic layout template, but instead a daily work of art shaping content into attractive, inspiring, eye-catching creations; and strong engagement with online communities, the newspaper becoming a unique social media hub.
Guyanese newspapers fail on all these counts, with much of the writing so poor and ill-thought out that the public merely skim headlines, refusing to read text, unless it’s gore, gossip, sleaze or slander. Except for the Guyana Times, and now some effort from the Chronicle, newspaper design in Guyana seems a foreign idea. And engagement with folks online, particularly the community of global Guyanese, remains as flat, grey and uninspiring as the look and feel of the physical newspapers.
We face a profound problem with our newspapers, however, that we must address: our newspapers practise reactive dissemination of information, and hardly ever create and generate original content. Our newspaper culture appears to be problem-prone, absolutely oblivious to such a thing as a solutions-oriented approach to shaping the social landscape of the land and designing the national conversation.
In our democracy, with media playing such a critically vital role to our society’s development and functioning, one would assume that media bosses would realise that it’s not only the politicians that influence our national mind. In fact, the politicians depend on the media to reach the public.
Alas, it’s the media that hold ultimate responsibility for the state of our public space.
What happened in the 10th Parliament is much the media’s cause as the Opposition’s. The way Guyanese see their freely and fairly elected Government is much the media’s doing as the Opposition. Government’s function depends as much on the media disseminating sound information of its projects and programmes and plans as on the State connecting with the people.
And if our newspapers form the core foundation of our national media, then the managers of our national newspapers must face up to their failure to make a positive, solutions-oriented contribution to the Guyanese society.
Running through last Sunday’s newspapers, for example, leaves one feeling a sense of frustration for citizens who can’t find great content to consume, to spend their Sunday in inspired reading.
The Sunday Chronicle makes a real effort these days to publish stories of ordinary Guyanese people, with features and stories covering diverse areas of the country. Though somewhat challenged in its page design, it at least makes an effort, and some of the village features bring to our homes the charm of our small communities.
Other newspapers publish one or two stories a week on ordinary Guyanese, and most feature villages. But the newspapers that practise bias and prejudice, embracing Opposition views, paint our villages and communities as bad places, and demoralise, demotivate and depress readers.
What’s glaring and shocking in the newspapers, however, is the preponderance of problems. Commentators, letter writers and columnists, especially, seem oblivious to offering solutions to challenges and issues facing Guyanese, except, of course, “changing” Government, by whatever means possible.
We see a regurgitation of problems: with national newspapers taking former President Bharrat Jagdeo to task, accusing him of stirring up political strife, a story lacking any substance whatsoever; with a barrage of continued spewing of the controversy surrounding Dr. Bheri Ramsarran, when he berated a hysterical woman in Berbice. Astonishingly, these two stories took up umpteen column-inches in national newspapers last Sunday, despite Government’s condemning of Ramsarran’s crass action.
Yet, we saw actual bodily harm done to supporters of the ruling Party at a blatant political attack on the main road of No 51 Village, Corentyne, a week ago, and none of these newspapers vented on the story. They ignored the violence of Opposition sympathisers who burnt Guyanese with acid, in a deliberate act of violence.
These crass newspapers, these media outfits that ditch any real pretense at professional Journalism this elections season, perpetuate the very thing they criticise: in constantly harping on Jagdeo and Ramsarran and any Government supporter who takes their fancy, they embed the subliminal message of elections violence in the public mind. And, incredibly, they deny their role as culprit, refusing to see that peace, calm and national cohesion flow out of a responsible media landscape.
Government has every interest in maintaining peace and calm in our society, and top State officials say this over and over, when influential national newspapers ignore this, and wrongfully accuse Government, while ignoring Opposition over-zealousness in verbal attacks, our society suffers.
Out of this attitude of these newspapers, online media organs propel the irresponsible, unprofessional, unethical dissemination of information, and our citizens suffer the impact of a national language of attack and strife and dissent and gross disrespect for Government, ugly rhetoric spewed in the name of Journalism.

By Shaun Michael Samaroo