DO you read the editorials of the Stabroek News (SN)? The answer is you don’t. And how do I know that? Because I know the demographic composition of Guyana. Over 60 percent of the population is young people who are attached to social media and would frown on a large newspaper article called an editorial.

One of the things that amuses me about politics in Guyana is the SN and its sycophantic supporters, especially its online bloggers. The SN constantly carps on lack of accountability of many governmental outputs but accountability is something that SN wouldn’t recognise even it appears as Jaws in the gutter outside the newspaper

The Pavlovian bloggers who add their servile comments to every anti-government letter published by SN never seem to have even an ephemeral moment of reflection and ask SN: “Shouldn’t you answer questions of you to show that you are accountable?”
It never occurs to the fans of SN that the media as a powerful societal compartment needs to be accountable.
Hear is another lamentation on lack of accountability by SN and it came as late as last Monday (April 14): “It is clear that President Ali sees himself above being accountable ….” It is clear that the SN is in no moral position to judge anyone in Guyana much less the president. Here are some examples. The newspaper refuses to name its editorial board.

Mr. Timothy Jonas is the legal adviser of SN. Mr. Jonas sits on its board and Mr. Jonas is one of the founders of the political party, ANUG. The newspaper refuses to tell the nation what is its daily circulation. The newspaper refuses to comment on why it is the only newspaper that charges Guyanese in and out of Guyana a fee for reading its online edition.

Now here is where I find SN so amusing that if it is not published for one day, I would be bored. The SN never fails to advise the Government of Guyana on financial and economic issues. It has done that as recent as that Monday editorial that I now quote from: “What will be the cost of this measure announced by the President and is it sustainable? The announcement on exam fees makes no calculation whatsoever of the cost of these benefits and what could likely happen if there is spurt in the population size.”
So what is the cost of running a newspaper in the age of the internet when online newspapers are free (I read Guardian, BBC, Hindustani Times, CNN free online and all other local newspapers plus Demerara Waves is free, Newsroom is free, INews is, Village Voice is free, etc). Why does SN charge readers

to read the online paper? But I guess we will never know this because accountability is a value reserved for the government only.
But let’s get back to the caption of this article. I quote once more from the newspaper. “This is an election year. One has to ask whether the incumbent sees any need for self-restraint in spreading election goodies for the sole purpose of ensuring re-election. More advanced democracies recognise the need

for a level playing field and to circumscribe the natural inclination of the governing party to go into overdrive”
Which advanced democracies “recognise the need for a level playing field” and restrain themselves in an election year? Do I live in the same world that the management of Stabroek News lives in?

Of course the SN used a broad brush deliberately and chose not to name any of those countries. The paper couldn’t. Ruling parties in the West are unrestrained during election time in their use of money to stop immigration from the Global South.
But apart from the widespread use of money to stop immigration during election time, ruling parties in Europe and their competitors try to outdo each other in using the worst forms of racist demagoguery directed against immigrants. This explains why semi-fascist parties come to power as in the case of Italy.

It was as recent as April 9 that I devoted a column looking at the colonial mind in Guyana. Please see my article for that day titled: “The persistence of the colonial mind: Henry Jeffrey and Bernard Ramcharran.”

Five days after writing that piece in the Chronicle, Guyanese have seen the SN telling them that in the Western countries when it is election season, those governments do not spend money because they want a level playing field. So in effect, they are more democratic than countries like Guyana. Do you believe that? Surely you cannot have such a colonially driven mind to believe it.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.