I AM submitting this article here to the Chronicle at 15:05 hrs on Wednesday. From just after 07:00 hrs on the same day (Wednesday – yesterday) I received three emails. By 09:00 hrs, I received two telephone calls.
By 13:00 hrs on the same day, I was in receipt of a number of emails and cellphone calls about my column on Wednesday which was about the Stabroek News’ (SN) refusal to publish the letters of presidential adviser, Professor Randolph Persaud and the attitude of opposition politician, Timothy Jonas to the controversy.

I will summarise some of the contents then describe my reply to each email and each telephonic contact.
There are those who felt that the political career of Mr. Jonas is over, that for a politician to refuse to defend the right of Dr. Persaud to be heard cannot survive the attention that will come his way.

Some feel that Mr. Jonas has lost the moral right to criticise the state media and the government. Others feel that the PPP will bring up the SN’s action against Dr. Persaud when elections come in 2025.
I got a few comments that explain to me how a board of directors operate and the people who wrote to me were clear that Mr. Jonas was insincere, that for a top-class lawyer, he knows the function of a board and the board could call on editor, Anand Persaud to offer an explanation.

Of course I know how a board operates and what its jurisdiction is. I sat on the board of UG, named the council of the university for five years and on the Board of the Faculty of Social Sciences for 26 years.
Believe it or leave it, most of the emails and calls were about Mr. Jonas and not so much on the editor of SN. For example, one caller asked me if I believe Mr. Jonas when he said he can only remember three board members of SN.

Of course I did not believe him. Some emails were scathing about the President of the Guyana Press Association (GPA), Ms. Nazima Raghubir, for saying that she cannot speak for the GPA and that I must write to the GPA directly.
A lawyer friend told me Ms. Raghubir needs to speak to an attorney urgently so she can be informed that the head of an organisation can speak on an issue, but must clarify that his/her position is not that of the board. I was advised that one can write the head of any organisation in his/her personal capacity and that person then forward the correspondence to his/her organisation.
One email from a former journalist at SN pointed out that the editor of SN is the owner, thus Isabelle DeCaires and the board cannot speak to him. Though I respect the knowledge of this journalist, my investigation tells me differently.

I was told that the family of SN’s founder, David DeCaires, has majority shares. I could be wrong but as a powerful institution in Guyana, SN should tell us who are its shareholders and board members.
What was my reaction to the people who made contact? It was one-dimensional. I told every one of them, I would expect them to write a letter to the four daily newspapers and circulate their feelings on social media and on their respective Facebook page. Do you know they all declined? Every one of them took the identical position; “Freddie, we just want you to know; we are not interested in going public.”

I found this reaction sad, but I have been around a long time so I was not surprised. This nation has been a sheepish one for a long time now. But as I write this, I feel anguished at how the leaders of the PPP must be feeling.
They get criticised by the lunatic fringe (TLF), the usual suspect (TUS), the Mulatto/Creole Class (MCC) and the political nouveau lumpen (TPNL – which is my description of anti-government civil society entities) for everything they do.
But when the TLF, TUS, MCC and TPNL are exposed for their hypocrisy, double standards and character flaws, we are afraid of confronting them

This columnist is not. Those who criticise the government must have a standard from which they do that. If they don’t, then they do not have the moral right to criticise PPP leaders and Guyanese should let them know how they feel.
Timothy Jonas, Nazima Raghubir, Isabelle DeCaires, and the editor of SN do not meet the criterion for criticising the leaders of government. In another column, I will examine, in greater detail, the dangerous consequences for journalism that lie in the attitude of Jonas, Raghubir, DeCaires and SN’s editor.