ALISSA Trotz, the Guyanese-Canadian, who presented the column titled “In The Diaspora” (ITD) in the Stabroek News (SN) has co-founded with the staff of the now defunct SN, an anti-government online thing named Kiskadee Watch. A more appropriate title would be “Kakariki Watch.”
Given the type of journalism SN produced, the new name is a desecration of that lovely Guyanese bird, kiskadee. A more appropriate appellation would have been Kakariki Watch. The kakariki is a small, noisy, ordinary looking parakeet whose colour is very bright green. SN showed its true colour after the 2020 election fiasco. Green is the party colour of – you know who.
It is common knowledge in Guyana that the people behind the kakariki watch were prevented from using any title that originated with the SN. So, they could not continue with the title, ITD.
They chose the headline Diaspora Voices. In introducing Diaspora Voices to the readers of kakariki watch, here are their words: “Welcome to Diaspora Voices, which picks up from the In the Diaspora column which for eighteen (18) years had found a home in the former Stabroek News. Diaspora Voices is excited to begin this new chapter with Kiskadee Watch, offering reflections and commentaries on Guyana, the Caribbean and the diaspora”
I find Ms. Trotz to be one of the most barefaced Guyanese I have known. And in my 39-year presence in the Guyanese newspapers, I find the former editor of SN, and now Kiskadee Watch Editor, Anand Persaud, the most incompetent editor in the history of Guyana. First, the barefaced accusation.
Ms. Trotz had the temerity to state the length of time she spent doing ITD – 18 years. Isn’t this lady ashamed of herself? In those 18 years, there wasn’t one column that took a positive angle on successive PPP governments. Not one column was written by someone with a sympathetic pen for the PPP government in those 18 years.
In those 18 years, there were not even one ITD column that condemned the No Confidence Motion disaster of 2018. In those 18 years, there was not even one article from ITD that condemned five months of attempts to rig the 2020 national election. With that track record, it is logical to assume that Ms. Trotz is an uncompromisingly anti-PPP person.
But it is important to mention that in the masthead for ITD it noted that the column was intended to highlight issues that interest the Guyanese diaspora. But Ms. Trotz had a bizarre understanding of what issues the Guyana diaspora was and is interested in. In Guyana, when you want to see visiting Guyanese, then go on the esplanade of the Eve Leary seawall.
Over the years, while walking my dog there, they would stop and always the tone would be: “Aren’t you Freddie Kissoon.” In 90 percent of the conversations with those diaspora Guyanese, there were words of praise for President Irfaan Ali. I can tell Trotz she doesn’t know a damn thing of what issues the Guyanese diaspora is interested in.
If you had the experience I had on that seawall then you would know that Trotz and the SN did an injustice to the Guyanese living abroad. Those visiting Guyanese people that I met over the years on the Georgetown seawall were most definitely interested in political and sociological aspects of Guyana that I never saw Ms. Trotz carried for 18 years.
Now for the accusation of incompetence of Mr. Anand Persaud. For the 18 years that ITD existed, the SN editor was Anand Persaud. Among the roles of an Editor-In-Chief is to bring journalistic balance to a newspaper. A simple example should suffice. If the paper is doing a weekly analysis of African countries, before the series conclude, all African countries have to be featured.
It is the job of the editor to enquire of the series writer why a particular country was excluded. That is definitely the role of the editor. For 18 years, Trotz invited anti-government Guyanese in the diaspora and anti-government Guyanese residing at home to do an article for ITD. I am tempted to believe that Ms. Trotz never invited an academic or writer with sympathies for the PPP government to pen an analysis.
Over those 18 years, it was the task for the editor to suggest to Ms. Trotz that balance must be seen to be present in ITD series and she should seek out someone to put the government’s position in perspective. Mr. Persaud never did that? How do you explain that? He was either ragingly anti-government like Ms. Trotz or incompetent or both.
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.
