The fallen empire of Robb Street
Freddie Kissoon column
Kaieteur News
January 17, 2007
Don't you smile on some occasions when the mighty, the pompous, the invincible, wrapped up in the fabric of hubris and hauteur and sporting self-importance as if it was the rarest diamond whose value even the CIA's most modern scientific calculator cannot determine has been brought down to heart.
Isn't life funny? You know some things are uncanny in this life. In last Sunday's issue of the Sunday Stabroek, its columnist, Ian Mc Donald penned an essay on the pitfalls of self-importance. He wrote, “Anyone suffering from an acute attack of self-importance should read a little history and recall how fleeting all fame really is.” Did Mr. Mc Donald have his own paper in mind when he composed that sentence?
It reminds me of a KN column of mine done years ago, and which remains one of my favourite pieces. Entitled, “The fragility of everything” it was motivated by the sight of a former Vice-Chancellor of UG on the Sheriff Street seawall strutting and fretting his hour on stage. This very man plotted to illegally dismiss me from UG for being a voice against wrongdoing. On my way to work at the very UG from which he tried to remove me, I look at the lonely frame as it winds its way down the path of obscurity, and I say to myself, “everything is fleeting, everything is fragile.”
Ian Mc Donald is certainly right. Fame goes; it will always go. In yesterday's issue of both dailies, we read about the cry of the Stabroek News that press freedom is endangered because the Guyana Government is not giving advertisements to it. The Stabroek News was once the emperor of Guyana. It became a receptacle of immense power after Father Morrison and his little Catholic Standard had set the pace for bold and daring journalism.
All and sundry had to be humble before the twin founders of David De Caires and Miles Fitzpatrick. They were the cream of society. Big shot lawyers from the light-complexioned Guyanese world to which everyone gravitated. Unable to control his emotions over the pervasive influence of the two-founders of the Stabroek News, President Hoyte told his Linden audience that there is a “Putagee mafia” in Guyana, referring to the influence of the Stabroek News.
Whatever Stabroek News was from 1988 onwards, it was certainly an organisation that lauded it over the Guyanese nation. From 1988, when I wrote for that newspaper, the Stabroek News was the personification of power in the deconstructed sense of the word. As the political affairs columnist, I couldn't speak to the editor, Mr. De Caires. I had to go through his wife. You had to tell his wife why you wanted to talk to him. No one dared approach Mr. De Caires without getting clearance from his wife, Doreen.
The paper is still living in a world of illusion that it is the only powerful media house in Guyana. This sad state of affairs continues to this day.
So is the government stifling the independent press by reducing the number of advertisements to Stabroek News? How honest is Stabroek News's practice of press freedom? I hope the government reconsiders the withdrawal. The Stabroek News should be offered state advertisements.
But SN's conceptualization of press freedom is openly and shamelessly lopsided. My contention is that if the state has a moral right to put money in the Stabroek News, the Stabroek News has the same moral obligation to display press freedom without convenient excuses.
SN is not without its nasty faults. Now it wants you to side on its behalf when it is hardly a paragon of press freedom.
Let's look at how the Stabroek News conceptualizes media functions here in Guyana. First, SN on two occasions has insinuated that the Kaieteur News pays some of its sources to get unpublished materials. In both of these situations, KN had got there first. SN's interpretation was dirty and cynical - KN reached there first because it bribed its sources. How can a newspaper like SN print such words when the Stabroek News itself is in possession of confidential information all the time? The occasions are too numerous to count.
Look at the integrity of some newspapers. There was never an occasion when SN beat KN to it that the latter cried foul. This is the nature of the game. All media houses have their contacts. You have reporters that have been on the crime beat for so long they have come to have trusted buddies in the security services.
The longer a media house stays in the business, the more confidential friends it makes. Adam Harris has people that will only relate to him. I am in receipt of secret reports quite often. The same goes for Enrico Woolford, David De Caires and many others. It is downright unprincipled for a sister newspaper to accuse its competitor of bribing people when its rivals scoop it.
I leave readers to come to their conclusion. My judgement is that it is unbelievable arrogance on the part of SN to think that only it can get secret publications. This is the kind of self-importance that its own columnist, Ian Mc Donald, wrote about in his own paper last Sunday.
Secondly, SN in a press release yesterday, makes the point that it has an edge over KN because it has business coverage and KN does not. Surely, one would have thought that SN would have been more scientific in its arguments. Where is the survey of SN that proves that its business pages have improved its circulation? Aren't advertisers more concerned with the sales of a newspaper?
But let's continue the debate. Alright, SN says that it has an edge over KN because the latter does not cover business.
The question that is quite obvious is this; does KN have something than SN does not and therefore that is the decisive advantage? Take columnists. KN has 13 pieces of commentary every week (Stella is temporarily out). SN has just two. Imagine that! In seven days of publications, readers only get two columnists from SN. One is Ian Mc Donald that writes on literary issues only. The other is Alan Fenty who does not write on anything at all.
People love satire. KN has three each week. SN has only one. The arrogance of SN is incredible. It thinks it is living in the eighties and nineties when David De Caires and Miles Fitzpatrick were the kings of the Georgetown media. They still may be kings but not for the newspaper business.
More shocking revelations about the fallen empire of Robb Street (no, not Freedom House). Stay tuned.