WE have a week more before the Stabroek News (SN) goes out of existence. I will do a few articles before the closure. This is the first one.
We should expect a deluge of panegyrics coming from people who will extol the important role SN played but ignored the enormous, egregious mistakes SN made. If those admirers had stopped being sycophantic and point out to SN that it was failing its lofty mission that it started out with, maybe they could have saved the newspaper.
When you keep pounding into the ear of a leader servile praise, after a time that leader believes the fiction you are telling him. Another example is the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes. The story of SN’s sycophants and SN’s perennial castigations of the PPP government since 2020 constitute a fantastic irony.
SN as a newspaper believed that its constant criticisms of the government serve the purpose of getting the government as the most powerful organ in the society to see its mistakes and correct them. That is the value of a newspaper and no one will doubt that. It is like the role of an opposition. Minister Edghill once stated on the Freddie Kissoon Show that he welcomes the existence of an opposition because it keeps government on its toes.
I doubt there is a citizen out there in the world that will not want an opposition party in society. The media and opposition parties do execute the role of getting governments to correct mistakes. In Guyana, we can point to so many changes that have come about over the years because wrong directions by the governments were corrected because of media criticism.
SN and Kaieteur News were responsible for the GRA stopping its outdated practice of drivers having to wait to get their road licence days after the budget was passed. The confusion was nightmarish. I was extremely exhausted one year in the line so the next day in my column I wrote on how foolish the system was.
The then Commissioner-General, Kurshid Sattaur and I had a nasty quarrel over that insanity. Today, you can get your document on any day in the calendar year. There are no lines anymore.
As SN began to falter since 2020, none of its fans tried to objectively criticise it so it could have mended its ways. The examples are literally countless. Alissa Trotz was the MC for the day of appreciation for Rupert Roopnaraine last Sunday so she comes to mind. Ms. Trotz has been the editor for a column in SN titled “In the Diaspora” (ITD) for 10 years now.
Here are the words on the masthead: “This is one of a series of weekly columns from Guyanese in the diaspora and others with an interest in issues related to Guyana and the Caribbean.”
In those ten years, ITD has never featured a column on the five months of election rigging attempts and the CoI into that election disaster. Is the SN telling this entire nation that the five-month election disaster did not find interest in the Guyana diaspora? ITD has never featured an analyst that wrote in support of the Government of Guyana.
Not one SN admirer has taken SN to task about the horrendous bias of ITD. Which newspaper in the world will openly tell a presidential adviser or prime ministerial adviser that it will not print his letters because he attacks civil society groups? Imagine that! It is beyond belief. And while SN told Dr. Randy Persaud that it couldn’t carry his missives, the paper was printing daily attacks on the President and his ministers.
It boggles the mind that not one of SN admirers had the decency to define the term “independence” for the paper. The SN had no balance thus destroying any semblance of the independent approach. SN printed seven days a week, yet it lacked the commonsense to understand that a media house has to balance its views for and against. It never carried even a monthly columnist that wrote in favour of the government.
It was so elementary to understand that you publish a column by financial expert, Christopher Ram then you print a column by Joel Bhagewandin, another financial analyst who has a pro-government perspective. So, you give both sides. Imagine this paper carried a column of praise by Bertrand Ramcharran for the former Head of Mossad, a state terrorist that ordered assassinations around the world.
SN could have done better if its sycophantic fans could have thrown off their servile mentality and speak to SN objectively. What happened is that human nature took over. SN, like the Emperor, fell for the mountain of praise it received from its fans and believed it was the best newspaper in the world.

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.