February 26 ,2021
It was the turn of Mr Kwame McCoy, who is Minister of Public Affairs within the Prime Minister’s Office to make his contribution to the budget debate on Monday. What he had to say gave rise to the apprehension that far from modifying the traditional approach of the governing party to the media, it was the intention of the administration to entrench it.
The plan is to establish a National Broadcast-ing Academy. It appears the government will provide opportunities to increase capacity-building for the state media at both the human and technical level, so they meet the needs of Guyanese audiences. “The training mix will include local refresher training,” said the Minister, as well as “a wide-ranging scholarship programme at certificate, bachelor’s and master’s degree levels; and an expansive regional and international professional study exchange programme.”
It will not have escaped the notice of operatives in the wider media domain that these academic initiatives are intended for members of the state media alone, and while upgrading their skills in and of itself is not unwelcome, the issue is really the context in which state-employed journalists have to function whether or not they are trained. Perhaps with a measure of reassurance in mind, Mr McCoy told Parliament that the state media would not be allowed to operate in isolation from civil society any longer, or out of sync with the nation. While the latter part of his statement is open to various interpretations, the earlier portion might on the face of it seem to suggest the possibility of giving civil bodies and potential critics access to the state channels and press so their perspectives and not just government viewpoints can be given exposure.
He did say, for example, that they are cautiously repairing broken stakeholder relations among faith-based organisations and civil society, in order to quickly rekindle the participatory approach to governance.
After decades of all previous administrations excluding non-government-approved voices, that could be regarded as an advance, but it is by no means certain quite what is contemplated. Does it, for example, mean that the official opposition would now have equal access to the state media? After all, as things stand the government will not talk to the opposition in the participatory sense that they are proclaiming, so it is difficult to envisage them allowing equal column inches or airtime to those whom they will not engage in other settings.
The Minister went on to say that the government would be working towards the integration of public affairs on every platform available for communication, and that his secretariat would concentrate on eliminating the gap between information channels. Exactly what this implies was not immediately obvious either, more especially as he went on to inform MPs that his office had already begun building systems to coordinate information and communication between the government and citizens so that the people were aware of government’s policies, programmes and projects and how they could play a role.
No mention here of a multitude of voices finding latitude in the state media to talk to citizens about what the government is not doing, or what it should be doing or the mistakes it has made or the transgressions it has committed. This was not about the state communications outlets along with the private media holding the administration accountable, but of making people aware of government’s policies and how they could play a role. In other words it comes dangerously close to a position where the government media continue to function in a propaganda capacity for the political office-holders.
On World Radio Day last week Minister McCoy said that in this country radio remained the most widely consumed communication medium, which meant that it could be “leveraged to shape a society’s social and cultural fabric and identity while being a catalytic medium through which democracy can evolve and thrive.” Shape a society’s social and cultural fabric and identity? That surely doesn’t sound like participatory democracy, or any kind of democracy, the last part of his sentence notwithstanding.
Addressing Parliament, the Minister told MPs that the government will “equip every hinterland household with short-wave radios, and provide technical training in the repair and maintenance of those radios.” The purpose of this, he said, was to ensure that every Guyanese had access to information. The question which comes immediately to mind is what kind of information? Only that from government, or government approved sources? And presumably it is government too which will continue the work he referred to involving developing local content for the hinterland radio stations.
Governments need some vehicle to inform the public about what its policies and activities are. But it has that in the form of the Department of Public Information which is not a newspaper like the Guyana Chronicle, and should be furnishing its press releases to all media houses including the private ones. In addition, of course, ministries and ministers issue their own releases and statements, while in this day and age cabinet members in addition to some others can be accessed on social media, although it might be noted that the number and variety of outlets do not mean that these officials are necessarily more disposed to answer questions from the private media than they used to be.
In addition to all of these possibilities for getting their message across to the public, this government, like the last one, still retains a newspaper, a television channel and radio stations, ownership of all of which paradoxically probably does little to help it dominate the media landscape. If Mr McCoy’s calculations are right, then the exception would be the radio stations, or at least those in the hinterland, because the ruling party needs the Indigenous vote in order to win an election, and the interior population is less exposed to other forms of media than people living on the Coast.
Nowadays, along the more urbanised areas of the coastland especially, citizens are becoming less dependent on the formal media for their news, and more dependent on social media. One cannot think that the officials in the Prime Minister’s Office, not to mention Freedom House do not know this. Is the aim to find some formula not just to make the state media more palatable, even if not truly open, and, to quote the Minister, effect ‘the integration of public affairs on every platform available for communication’? In other words, continue control by more sophisticated means?
This government’s record on press freedom when previously in office is not wholly unblemished, so Minister McCoy’s statement to the House that his team had been working to make sure that public concerns were appropriately handled in respect of policy implementation – he did not mention unease about other government operations – and at the same time address threats designed to upset the tranquillity, stability, and security of the state, did not necessarily provide reassurance.
Of course he spoke of government’s “unwavering commitment” to media freedom and citizens’ rights to information and freedom of expression, but this involved a strategic transformational agenda for the Fourth Estate, he said, with the media at the front and centre of the ‘change management and national development continuum.’ If the government is truly committed to media freedom and freedom of expression, what ‘change management’ and ‘national development continuum’ can he be talking about? Allowing a free media to operate unimpeded carries its own logic.