OVER the past few days, I have opined that those who heap sycophantic praise on the Stabroek News (SN) are unfit people. My lamentation is that you can praise the paper, but do the decent, morally correct thing and point out the unacceptable levels the paper has descended to over the past ten years.
The argument is the same with Forbes Burnham. You can eulogise his fantastic vision, but you must show decency of character and pinpoint his immense flaws. The descent into political crusade by SN, which departed from its great original days, do not need any meticulous research. The evidence is abundant. I have provided detailed information on this departure.
One of the SN’s friends did not put on his thinking cap (assuming that he ever did wear it) in rebutting my holistic critical reevaluation of SN. Dhanraj Bhagwandin, whom I knew well when he lived in Guyana, has accused me (in yesterday’s, Friday edition of SN) of a lack of academic insight in two areas that I have faulted SN on. One is its pro-Israel stance on Gaza since the Israeli invasion of Gaza two-and-a-half years ago.
My point is that SN has not given any coverage to Israel’s uncivilised brutality against the Palestinian people in Gaza. Bhagwandin claims I am wrong. How did he rebut me? By citing just one, I repeat, just one, foreign story that SN carried, which was a Reuters report in which UN employees wanted the UN to declare that there was genocide in Gaza.
Can you imagine the temerity of Bhagwandin? Just one item he can cite in an invasion that is still taking place, and over 90, 000 Palestinians have been murdered and it is a soft news item. Contrast SN’s refusal to feature Israel’s barbarism with that of the Kaieteur News (KN).
The Online edition of KN has featured Israel’s uncivilised bestiality more than 10 times on its front pag. SN refused to carry the three pro-Palestine marches in Georgetown, the four public symposia, and the visits to Guyana of the Palestinian UN ambassador, and Palestine’s ambassador to Guyana, respectively.
When the invasion started, SN interviewed Israel’s ambassador to the UN but failed to balance it with an interview with any Palestinian official. Is this the newspaper that people like Bhagwandin are praising? This is a horrible newspaper in Guyana that every Palestinian, wherever they live, should detest. Let’s give more examples of Bhagwandin’s lost thinking cap.
I noted that since Dr. Ali became president in August 2020, SN has not done one editorial in favour of the Ali presidency. I stand by that, and I doubt that any of my critics can cite one, even one editorial, to disprove me. On the contrary, the co-owner of SN, Isabelle DeCaires, has been dismissive of the Ali government. She once criticised the clothes he wore, and described Guyana as a flawed democracy.
Dhanraj Bhagwandin exposed himself, and, in the process, exposed his hero, the SN, when he came up with an editorial that praises the government. It was contextually not an editorial that offered a panegyric of the Guyana Government. Bhagwandin was being deceitful. His example is the editorial of August 3, 2024, in which SN lauded the government’s housing drive.
But those words were a cover for the poisonous attitude of SN towards the government, which, in fact, it didn’t hide in the same editorial. The editorial noted that: “There is one other aspect of the President’s assertions that requires deeper examination and that is the question of accountability and transparency. It may very well be the case that 35,000 house lots are being developed or have been developed and 3,000 houses built. However, the public is being asked to take this all on trust. Perhaps President Ali’s government would be sufficiently confident of its achievements over the last four years to subject these figures to broader examination.”
Unless all the readers of this column here are fools, it can clearly be seen that it was an editorial that questioned the actual figures in the housing drive and contextually questioned the integrity of the government. Bhagwandin is either an extremely poor researcher or got caught with his pants down. In probably 1829 editorials done by the SN since Dr. Ali became president, not one has sung praise to the Ali government. Not one is a glowing analysis of Ali’s presidential achievements. Not one is an acknowledgement that the Government of Guyana is a democratically elected government that deserves our support. Those 1829 editorials are testimony to SN’s journalistic pathology.
Whoever praises that paper has failed Guyana, themselves, their parents and their children. And maybe 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.
