In a remarkable display of organisational defensiveness, the executive of the Guyana Press Association has managed to transform President Irfaan Ali’s thoughtful request to discuss media evolution in the age of artificial intelligence into a supposed assault on press freedom.

Such a knee-jerk reaction illustrates a troubling disconnect between an institution that ought to be a voice for journalistic progress and the very real issues of modern media.  President Ali’s World Press Freedom Day remarks were not, as the GPA seemingly interpreted them, some Machiavellian plot to control information flow, but an acknowledgement that the media landscape is undergoing a seismic shift necessitating contemplative consideration by all stakeholders.

The irony is particularly stark given that the GPA’s own recent media release for World Press Freedom Day explicitly acknowledged AI’s potential both to benefit journalism through enhancing research capabilities and to damage it through generating deceptive content. How an organisation can issue a statement warning of AI’s potential to undermine “trust in democratic institutions” one week, and denounce a presidential invitation to talk about the very same issues the next, strains rational explanation.

This contradiction suggests an organisation more interested in opposition than in constructive dialogue on the future of Guyana’s media landscape. Some journalists, who highlighted the shortcomings in the GPA’s statements, rightly identified the heart of the issue when they stated that the President’s message was simply “one that called for us to consider modernising our view of the media landscape”.

This reasonable perspective was in stark contrast with the alarmist rhetoric engaged in by the GPA leadership, who instinctively conjured up dystopian scenarios of licensing essentials and authoritarian suppression from what was actually an invitation to debate. This sort of catastrophising does little to advance the cause of press freedom and much to illustrate an organisation wedded to outdated models of government-media relations.

The GPA’s credibility issue extends beyond this singular incident. Journalists tartly pointed out that the organisation is led by an “outdated Constitution” that does not accept workers of online media as members. In an era where online journalism has become central to information dissemination, this exclusionary position undermines any pretension the GPA might have to representing Guyana’s media workers in the broadest sense.

A truly progressive press association would be opening its tent rather than defending ever-irrelevant boundaries. An organisation that presents itself as a champion of democratic values should at least demonstrate the same values in its own operations. If the GPA is issuing statements “filled with conjecture and attacks” without sufficient internal consultation, it has no moral high ground to lecture others on responsible information practices.

It is the backdrop of Guyana’s upcoming general and regional elections that renders this so particularly disturbing. The GPA itself has warned the public to be “extremely vigilant against misinformation and disinformation that can be generated using AI technology”. But when the President opens a discussion on precisely how such threats are to be met, the association takes refuge in political grandstanding rather than in constructive exchange.

This suggests an organisation more comfortable with criticism than with the harder work of developing actual solutions. The legitimate pursuit of media development must never be mistaken for political interference. The GPA’s apparent inability to make this distinction nakedly exposes an organisation perhaps too accustomed to adversarial positioning at the expense of its higher mandate to improve Guyana’s media environment.

If the GPA wishes to be relevant in Guyana’s rapidly changing information landscape, it must move beyond reaction politics and selective outrage. It must sort out its internal contradictions, modernise its constitution to embrace digital media practitioners, and engage constructively with all stakeholders-including government-on the fundamental challenges posed by technological change.  Only then can it credibly present itself as an effective voice for press freedom in the digital age.