IN my column of Saturday, August 9, 2025 titled, “Deconstructing Nascimento and Stabroek News,” I wrote the following “SN’s reply I rather suspect was dictated by Mrs. DeCaires and written by her daughter Isabelle. I don’t think Mr. Anand Persaud, the Editor-in-Chief and Isabell DeCaires have that kind of analytical access to the politics of the early Burnham era. Mrs. DeCaires is a product of that era.”
That quote was in relation to the Stabroek News’ (SN) condemnation of Mr. Nascimento’s role in the Burnham Government. I was wrong to think that Mrs. De Caires dictated the reply. I have been reliably informed that Mrs. De Caires could not have done it because she has been ailing for some time now.
I apologise to Mrs. DeCaires. I have also been told that Isabelle DeCaires and her brother, the major shareholders in the newspaper, are not actively involved in the editorials and day to day journalistic direction of SN.
My source tells me that the De Caires family have left Mr. Anand Persaud to run the newspaper. I was told too that Mr. Persaud is an uncompromising hater of the PPP and that the selected school of editorial writers was his choice and they are all anti-PPP.
So, it would appear that it was one of those writers who penned the response to Mr. Nascimento. I accept totally what my source has told me because of their vantage point. It is no secret in this country that SN has become vulgar and unbecoming in its political reporting.
What has been obfuscated in this country is the almost insane hostility of Mr. Persaud towards the PPP. Why his venom has been hidden is because social media has taken over the communication landscape so when you want to see a bad, obsessive PPP hater you look to the lunatic fringe who parade up and down the ladder of social media.
Mr. Persaud’s profile is also obscured because people tend to look toward Christopher Ram, GHK Lall, Peeping Tom, mainstream opposition figures and civil society actors like the Guyana Human Rights Association, Red Thread for hostility against the government.
What remains hidden is that Mr. Persaud is even as frenetic in his rejection of the PPP as GHK Lall, Christopher Ram, Mike Mc Cormack are. Since he hides behind the curtain of the SN, people tend not to concentrate on him but on more publicly known anti-government personalities. The brutal fact is that Mr. Persaud is one of Guyana’s most enduring haters of the PPP.
Mr. Persaud does not deliver his anti-PPP poison frequently in his name thus he shields himself. He has other personalities to do it for him. I would like to think this is the reason why Mr. Ram has incredibly excessive latitude with SN and Mr. GHK Lall is allowed to publish a daily letter. There has been no way in the past and in the present, a letter-writer is allowed to publish a missive daily in a newspaper.
While Mr. Lall is given this special accolade, many letter-writers do not see their letters in SN. One such person is Gerald Perreira. This fellow is perhaps the longest serving Pan-Africanist in the Caribbean and has just been elected to the world’s Pan-Africanist Council. Mr. Perreira has more than 50 years in political activism.
Why is Mr. Perreira shut out? Because his area of academic interest is Western domination of the world. Mr. Perreira writes effusively on that topic. But Mr. Persaud refuses to publish Mr. Perreira’s thoughts because it would offend certain embassies that the newspaper is close to.
Under Mr. Persaud’s tenure, the SN has become extremely close to the Western embassies in Georgetown. A mere six months after living in Guyana, the ambassador of the EU mission, Mr. Van Ness, handed Mr. Persaud the embassy’s annual human rights award.
The SN makes sure that there are no letters that refer to the Western attempts to re-colonise the Third World. I have been told that a certain Western embassy gives an annual stipend to SN because the paper is in deep financial trouble only surviving through state advertisements which brings in a substantial monthly income
In a shocking moment of brazen sycophantic journalism, SN refused to carry any of the three public symposiums on Gaza and the two Palestine marches on the streets of Georgetown. SN did not carry the public appearance in Guyana of Palestine’s ambassador to the UN and Palestine’s ambassador to Guyana. I was not in the least surprised when I was told about Mr. Persaud’s crazy political temperament. It shows every day in the paper.
It is obvious that since this is the topic of this column, I should elaborate.

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.