THE two owners of Stabroek News (SN) – Isabelle DeCaires and her brother Brendan – did not tell SN readers the whole truth about why SN closed. It couldn’t do so because the loss of credibility would have been enormous. Here is the truthful, factual and realistic reason why the SN shut down.
As the column progresses, I will ask readers to bear in mind, that SN ceased to exist a mere six months after the 2025 election. Why so shortly after Dr Ali’s reelection? We will come to that because in that timeframe lies the real reason for the closure.
The Kaieteur News (KN) is owned by multi-billionaire Glen Lall. As Leonard Gildarie opined, Mr. Lall will subsidise KN. What Lall has been doing is taking money from other business interests and keeping KN alive. The identical thing occurs within the walls of the Guyana Times.
SN could not go down that road because it was a shareholding company. None of the shareholders wanted to come together and simply fund SN. That would have meant, each month money from their business had to be put aside to keep SN alive. But disagreement began to creep in among the shareholders. SN had become under the DeCaires siblings and editor, Anand Persaud not only critical of the government but insanely hostile.
Let’s quote a fair-minded analyst, Leonard Craig. He wrote in the Chronicle last Monday the following words: “The bug that bit SN was the hard-nosed, fanatical anti-government, anti-PPP paranoia that overcame the newspaper since the election of Dr Ali. SN was in an ever-ready status to sacrifice good journalistic and editorial principles in order to jump on anything that will negatively sensationalise President Ali’s administration and present him as a tyrannical, undemocratic governor.”
Analysis like this created mental discomfort among some shareholders. Two factors featured in their reasoning. One was that Guyana was not undemocratic and shambolic as SN preached daily. Secondly, like untold numbers in the Guyanese diaspora and in Guyana, these shareholders believed that SN had crossed the line and had become an opposition newspaper.
But here now is the crucial part. Although Guyanese newspapers were losing money, SN was breaking-even because of the enormity of government advertisements. The paper was surviving on government placements. And those placements were guaranteed because the EU Embassy under former Ambassador Van Ness pointedly told the government that the EU would not accept withdrawal of government advertisements.
SN’s ownership and management could not tell people when the closure announcement was made that the paper needed government’s money in order to survive.
The most commonsensical reaction from Guyanese wherever they lived would have gone like: “How yuh cud cuss down de people when yuh depend pon deh money.”
Before I proceed, a point needs to be made. Anyone that could praise the government and not see it had become insanely preoccupied against the government is morally degenerate.
It was that reaction (cited above) that the DeCaires siblings were afraid of, so they couldn’t tell Guyanese and the world that they had to shut down because the future of government money was very uncertain.
Then came the 2025 election. SN believed its own twisted logic, irrational ramblings and fictional hegemony. SN sincerely believed that there would be a total opposition to the government thus giving birth to a minority PPP government in 2025. A minority PPP government after 2025 could not stop government advertisements thus SN lives on.
The SN world was shattered when together with one particular Western embassy, SN failed to get a consensus candidate in the form of Nigel Hughes. Aubrey Norton knew that there were forces working invisibly to get an AFC consensus candidate. Read a particular Facebook posting of Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Melissa Ifill during the dispute over the consensus candidate.
She opined that the issue of class and colour were involved in the discussion over Norton’s suitability. Check all the panegyrics since SN closed. Tell me if one current PNC leader has sung praise to SN.
SN then turned its attention to WIN. It could not openly campaign for WIN. It left that task to two of its favourite Guyanese – GHK Lall and Chris Ram. The latter went to comical level to assert that not since Rodney had Guyanese seen the welcome that Azruddin Mohamed got.
There were no editorials in favour of Mohamed. What SN did was to give preferential campaign coverage to WIN. One report on the WIN campaign was done through a transmission by WIN and not based on actual reporting from the scene. SN was convinced there would have been a minority government. SN knew that it could not survive without government money so it made the logical decision to close after Dr Ali’ handsome victory.

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.