THE prevailing explanation for the collapsed popularity of the Stabroek News and the Kaieteur News is that modern technology has caught up with mainstream newspapers and social media, and online news outlets have destroyed the power of the mainstream print and electronic media houses.
That is a valid theory, but one has to be careful how one applies that theory to Guyana. The sharp decline of the Stabroek News (SN) and Kaieteur News (KN) began before they became victims of the online age. What the online age has done is to hasten their demise.
Space will not allow for an elaboration of the withering away of KN, so that analysis will have to wait. In relation to SN, profound dialectical changes to the class structure of Guyana after Hoyte’s Economic Recovery Programme (ERP), which was continued by subsequent PPP governments did not allow for the SN to sustain its existence since that existence was dependent on a resuscitation of the hegemony of the Portuguese mercantile class and the expansion of the Mulatto/Creole class (MCC).
The complex and profound social changes in Guyana between 1995 and 2010 cannot be outlined in a mere newspaper column of 800 words. What follows below is an enormous compression of class analysis and could best be described as a few short notes. I apologise to readers for the extreme brevity.
In the book, “The Birth of the Stabroek News,” its co-founder, David DeCaires, declared that the essential reason for birthing SN was to rejuvenate the private sector. DeCaires was using a euphemism; he meant the Portuguese petty bourgeoisie that was extensively decapitated through migration from 1968 onwards, and Burnham’s state socialism blueprint.
Because Guyana’s social structure was dormant, Hoyte’s ERP began to give impetus to a revitalisation of that social structure. This opportunity was used by the SN co-founders, DeCaires and Fitzpatrick, to start the paper as a form of class rebirth. But it was impossible for SN to rekindle the Portuguese petty bourgeoisie because that class was extremely tiny.
The ERP ushered in profound class changes. This took the form of: the rebirth of the traditional petty bourgeoisie, mostly Indian families that stayed; the return from the diaspora of sections of that traditional petty bourgeoisie; the emergence of a nouveau riche class, which was neither traditional petty bourgeoisie nor the birth of a new petty bourgeoisie.
This was a new class consisting of genuine small entrepreneurs and people who dabbled in dubious business practices, which got them rich quickly. Also appearing on the scene was a rebirth of a more sophisticated lumpen proletariat with money to spend because of the drug trade.
Since the SN emerged at a time when the Guyanese society was still in the doldrums, the SN became a sensational superstar overnight. There was no private media, there were no private radio stations, and there was no television at all. The SN became coterminous with society. People simply clamoured for the return of the private newspapers, and since SN was the only one existing, the SN became the biggest thing in Guyana from 1986 onwards.
But the dialectical changes that led to the birth of the SN would also be responsible for its death. Class changes were taking place rapidly, and those changes were not led by the Portuguese elites or the MCC. As the private sector expanded, as radio and television came on the scene, as KN emerged to compete with SN, and as authoritarian state behaviour began to wane, the superstardom of SN began to fade.
By the time DeCaires decided to retire from running the newspaper, it no longer commanded the importance and popularity it had from 1986 to about 2000. After his death, the DeCaires family showed no interest in the newspaper business and decided to migrate. The family still controlled the majority shares but had agreed that the editor-in-chief, Anand Persaud, will buy into the business.
Mr. Persaud, on his own, took the SN into an anti-PPP direction. That was where it was when online news outlets, podcasts and social media platforms overran both it and the KN. The era that brought SN to life and made it the jewel of Guyana is gone forever.
Mr. Persaud is content to let it continue as an anti-government outlet because Mr. Persaud is frenetically anti-PPP. He is also an incompetent editor. The DeCaires family has no interest in it, and now that the matriarch, Mrs. DeCaires is seriously ill, Guyana may soon see the end of a DeCaires presence in SN. As for its future, that is doubtful. All over the world, newspapers are being miniaturised. I doubt SN and KN will be around for another ten years. They are losing millions annually.
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.