Who is this chap Shaun Michaels? is this that chap Brandon Samaroo?

Trusting the media to play its role
By SHAUN MICHAEL SAMAROO | WAYS OF LOOKING & FEELING | THURSDAY, AUGUST 25, 2011

Democracy works best as a triangular love affair between the people of the society, elected government under free and fair national elections, and an independent, diverse, credible and ethical mass media. Our society progressed since political independence so that today we have learned how to elect our government, under a relatively free and fair system. Our society loves national elections, and we become quite excited at the prospect of exercising our voting rights as citizens.

Two sides of the triangle that form the foundation of a modern society work quite efficiently – elections and people exercising their right to vote. One of our short-comings might be our misunderstanding of the role of the media in this love affair that makes for a working democratic culture. Socio-economic progress happens in dictatorial societies such as China, Singapore and Cuba, but at incredible costs. For a country like ours, democracy is the way to go. The best nations in the world work well under this triangle love affair we call democracy.

Given all the resources endowed upon us as a people, and given the fact that two sides of the triangle now fit into place, what could we do to speed up our progress as a 21st century society looking for our place on the world stage? This question nags every Guyanese wherever he or she lives in this world. Every person wants a homeland to point to as a place of outstanding nationhood. We want our birth land, our motherland, to stand out on the world stage as a place of modern progress.

An ideal step forward would be a Leadership Development course at the University of Guyana, with the main goal of training national leaders, including Members of Parliament, in the essence of democracy. One aspect of this training would be a comprehensive course on the role of the media in building society. A society develops through the trials of healthy, respectful debates, constructive dissent and mass-circulated conversations that seek authentically for national solutions.

Both national parties set up online social media pages to tout their messages and pull voters. But both parties circumspectly avoid dissent on their pages, and seem unwilling to engage in constructive criticism. People complained online that their posts are being deleted off the pages of these parties, both of which have existed for over 50 years. This is nothing short of primitive behaviour, from political parties seeking to govern this nation. It’s like saying ‘if you don’t agree with us, we don’t want to hear from you, and you should remain silent’. That’s a backward view of what makes a healthy society.

The treatment of the national newspaper, Guyana Chronicle, over the past 50 years, including its nationalization under Forbes Burnham and the iron grip on it under the Jagdeo government, shows that the State remains mired in backward thinking where the mass media is concerned. Officials continue to pour scorn on people’s complaints that the State strangles dissent and healthy debates in the national, tax-payer funded mass media. For our society to develop under a democratic culture now running into its 20th year, we must allow our national voice, our national mass media, to speak freely and fairly.

David de Caires dedicated his life to open up the media in this country. He did an incredible job to give us the gift of an independent, professional, ethical daily newspaper. The Stabroek News continues to play a crucial role in this country. Just as we honour Dr Cheddi Jagan for his role in restoring free and fair elections, and we honour Forbes Burnham for securing political sovereignty for the nation, we ought to pull together and let the de Caires vision of a professional, ethical national voice take firm root. Failing to do this is our biggest failing as a nation.

President Jagdeo a couple months ago called on Caribbean societies to report “good news”, and lambasted the region’s media as “negative”. Similar views come out of the mouths of other politicians and leaders. To view the mass media as a Public Relations mouth piece, and a “good news” organ is short-sighted, childish and incredibly uninformed. The media’s role in the democratic triangle is to pinpoint flaws in the society’s body politic. The media functions akin to a doctor. The media search for symptoms of sickness in the society, and report this so that government takes action to solve the potential crisis.

A doctor exists to find where the body is breaking down, and takes appropriate action to repair the damage. The role of the media in a body politic is the same. Just as a doctor must be trusted as ethical, sincere and professional, people must trust their mass media organs as ethical, sincere and professional. The media does not have an agenda for or against any institution. The media simply looks to improve and develop the society into a healthy body politic.

Member of Parliament Khemraj Ramjattan shared with this writer an excellent article in the respected international Journal, Foreign Affairs, written by Oscar Arias, that easily applies to this country. Titled ‘Culture Matters – the real obstacles to Latin American development’, the article lists four insightful reasons why the region remains bogged down. Arias, one time President of Costa Rica and winner of the Nobel Peace in Prize in 1987, said widespread distrust among people stifle development.

For us to encourage healthy conversations that contribute solutions to our problems, we must learn to trust each other. And to develop trust among ourselves, we need to harbour, encourage and fuel a professional, ethical mass media climate – a platform for national conversations. Our development foundation remains shaky because our leaders refuse to trust the media for it to play its rightful role in a democratic society. “Nearly two centuries after the countries of Latin America gained their independence… not one of them is truly developed. Where have they gone wrong? Why have countries in other regions, once far behind, managed to achieve relatively quickly results that Latin American countries have aspired to for so long?” Arias asks.

He concludes that widespread distrust across the society is one of the reasons. We see that manifested in our country with our State distrusting people to the extent that it stifles the body politic developing a professional, ethical voice. State media reform might be the single most vital solution we need for our nation to leap ahead.

Source

quote:

Originally posted by Horse Man:
Who is this chap Shaun Michaels? is this that chap Brandon Samaroo?

I thouht you knew everything.

quote:

Originally posted by Mitwah:

quote:

Originally posted by Horse Man:
Who is this chap Shaun Michaels? is this that chap Brandon Samaroo?

I thouht you knew everything.

I also have a good kick. watch it.

Writing as a lifestyle
By SHAUN MICHAEL SAMAROO | WAYS OF LOOKING & FEELING | THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2011

Words play a vital role in a person’s life. We negotiate the wilderness of our social environment with words and language. In words we find the power to make sense of this world. With words we solve the issues of society that affect us. Because words play such a vital role in our lives, the ability to master the use of words becomes a key life skill.

This involves cultivating the art of conversation. Most times all it takes to solve a pressing problem, launch out on a path to success, or develop fruitful relationships, is a conversation. Walking through life equipped with the tool of words makes navigating this hard old world so much easier. In this 21st century global village, communication technology – built on typing textual words – opens up the world to any individual connected to the world wide web. Sad it is that so many people suffer life’s “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” – as Shakespeare’s Hamlet describes the trials and travails of living in this world – with bitter results.

If only every human being could learn the art of conversation, of the use of words and language. Yet, so many people refuse to engage in this exercise of talking things through. A lot of the violence and conflict in the world could end if people only choose to talk out their differences. Diplomats, of course, play politics with “diplomatic talk”. This kind of wordplay fails, simply because it lacks authenticity.

Words have to be used with authenticity of heart, a kind of spiritual reaching out to others, instead of looking for selfish gain. Diplomacy frequently fails at this life skill, but a lot of people also have not developed the art at all, and thus remain unable to master the use of words and language. These folks suffer life’s travails like dummies under attack. Functional literacy has spread across the globe, and today most people are able to read and write. In fact, doomsayers who predicted the death of writing at the electronic hand of digital communication have shut up.

Writing has never ever been as popular as it is today. Young kids text for hours and hours a day. Email and social media traffic continues to burgeon. It all involves writing. All over the world cell phones continue to open up every corner of the globe, with more than five billion mobile devices in our world at last count. And more people text on cell phones than they talk. In Africa, small twitter-like texts dominate how people use their cell phones. It’s cheap and easy. Writing and text-based communication has become a global phenomenon.

Discounting the abuse of grammar and spelling and sentence construction and these technicalities, writing has never been more popular and promising. Our world builds its global foundation on the alphabet and textual communication. Writing thus plays a vital role in this world of words. As author of a little book called “Clockwork Muse”, Eviatar Zerubavel, says, “It is almost impossible to live in the modern world and not have to write”.

Cultivating this lifestyle of writing out words could be the single most important key to unlock a successful life. For nearly everything involves some form of writing. Even to build a building, a plan has to be written out and a blueprint drawn up. To design one’s life, writing out a life plan becomes necessary. To shop for food, most people write out a grocery list. We write cards and emails to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries. To chat with our online friends, we write, typing words.

Writing is such a fundamental necessity in our world, and we do it almost unconsciously, be it to scribble a note here or there, or send off an email or a text message, or to update our social media status. So if we consciously employ this method of writing to every area of our life, we would see dramatic results. To live a fit and healthy life, write out a health plan. Even without following the plan, just having it as a map or guidepost achieves a lot. The same with developing our inner values, or dealing with our finances, or growing in intellect. Writing out a plan for each area is a powerful step to achieve success beyond mere wishes.

Reality has a lot to do with writing things out. So a key life skill is to consciously develop the habit of writing things out. Writing out thoughts, intentions, plans, dreams, goals and aspirations sets a person on the road to making real whatever starts in the imagination. The next step from writing things out is designing. Design thinking, made popular after Edward de Bono’s ground-breaking work and books, has become an important tool in today’s world. But before design could start, there must be writing.

Writing involves the simple act of recording text on paper or electronic screen. Writing is evolving to become free of its technicalities, such as grammar and spelling and so on. Once meaning is conveyed, writing achieves its goal. This understanding of the goal of writing, as the conveyer of inner intention rather than a technical skill, may have originated in the work of James Joyce, whose books ‘Finnegans Wake’ and ‘Ulysses’ arguable make up the best novels ever written in English. So writing does not involve all the formalities that professional writers employ in their work.

Just write things out, wherever and whenever. Such a habit becomes a valuable life skill, and a tool for achieving results. Writing is wrapped up with planning. Most of us write because we plan. We could achieve very little unless we plan first, and planning involves writing. A life lived with careful planning and constant writing is a life well-lived. Too many people in this world refuse to plan or write out their dreams and aspirations, and thus so many folks live unfulfilled lives.

As our nation looks to the future, let us cultivate the art of being writers, a writing people who plan our days and our lives, using words to design our way forward. Each individual could thus use the tool of words to make a positive, transformational difference in this land.

Source

Reading as a lifestyle
By SHAUN MICHAEL SAMAROO | WAYS OF LOOKING & FEELING | THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2011

Cultivating the reading habit presents any person with the greatest of gifts. This ability to read most people take for granted. Even for a child, learning the alphabet and reading children’s literature opens up a wonderful world of discovery and knowledge. Reading opens up the world to anyone.

Mankind’s most valuable sons may very well be Johannes Gutenberg, who invented the printing press in 1439, and Andrew Carnegie, the American steel tycoon, who donated his vast wealth in the early 1900’s to build free public libraries around the world. The printing and easy availability of books opens the world to the average individual all over the earth. These two inventions, the printing press and free libraries, ushered in the era of meritocracy, whereby anyone could rise in the world, based purely on merit – skill, talent, knowledge and hard work.

For the past 50 years the world has steadily expanded basic and functional literacy. Now, most people in every country could read and write. The beauty of the 21st century is that functional literacy is a global reality, and information and knowledge flow freely everywhere. Anyone can dip into its stream and receive, freely. But so many neglect such a great blessing. So many suffer because they refuse to really embrace these gifts – reading and writing.

Reading opens up a world of delight because it endows one’s mind with comprehension, being able to understand the workings of life, nature and people. Whereas writing endows a person with the ability to compose and express thoughts and ideas into stylistic prose, reading allows for understanding. First, there is comprehension, the awareness, the understanding. Then, there is composition and the expression of that which is understood. These two, reading and writing, go hand in hand.

And they make up the most amazing gifts any person could embrace in this world. Yet, so many neglect developing their reading habit. And even more neglect developing their writing skills. To neglect these gifts means we are wasting our ability to understand life, and we are wasting the gift of being able to express ourselves well. To understand life is to gain knowledge. And what is better than knowledge? We go to school and university to gain knowledge so we could live a successful life.

And to express ourselves with style and eloquence is to be able to participate well in society, to rub shoulders with other human beings relatively successfully. If any person today were to focus and dedicate time daily to develop the habit of reading, that person would see a dramatic increase in his or her living standard. All over our country we should encourage the art of reading.

The Ministry of Culture ought to incorporate reading – of fiction, poetry, drama, newspapers and magazines – as a community activity in every village and town in this nation. Reading rooms and libraries should be icons in every village, every community centre. The greatest gift we could give the next generation is the reading habit.

Reading a good newspaper to engage in one’s community as a habit, studying literature books for recreation and pleasure, delving into magazines like ‘The Atlantic’, ‘Foreign Affairs’ and ‘Forbes’ for ideas and insights, and browsing online blogs and articles for information all work to build character, depth of thinking and the ability to deal with the social storms of life. If every person were to escape the failures of government, shun the cultural decay that stifles the society, and just spend time reading, what a different society we would cultivate.

A person’s life is like a garden. It needs good seeds planted, careful tending and cultivation of the mind, and a social environment that is fertile and conducive to good health. This environment should be free of pests and bugs and parasites. How does anyone create such an oasis to be able to grow and develop? One way is to read good books, newspapers, magazines and online information.

Reading is the gift that completely transforms any person from mediocre living to exceptional achievement. No one achieves anything of worth and value in this world without dedicating their days to learning and understanding, to embracing knowledge. Some may use brute force and violence to get what they want, but these do not last the test of time. Every person today could embrace this self-development tool of reading. Anyone can walk into a library, pick up a book or newspaper or magazine and read. And do it again tomorrow, and the next. And make it a daily habit.

The ability to acquire knowledge is the greatest asset anyone could possess. And knowledge is free, easily available and rewards its seeker with wisdom and understanding. In our country, 98 percent of the population learn to read and write in early schooling, at least at a basic level. All a person needs is to know the alphabet. The rest is up to the individual. Any person could take on the task of self-development. Just read as a lifestyle. Instead of coming up with excuses as to why life is such a challenge, if our young people and senior people would cultivate reading as a habit, what a different society we would build.

We neglect and waste our most precious gift, and then complain and whine that we are not given our just due. No one can hold back the one who reads constantly and seeks to uplift him or herself. “It was from my own early experience that I decided there was no use to which money could be applied so productive of good, to boys and girls who have good within them and ability and ambition to develop it, as the founding of a public library”, Carnegie said. He knew what reading could do for a person, for he became the richest man in the world, and built libraries in every country. He left us this advice: “Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!”

Do it with the tool of reading, as a lifestyle. We have what it takes to be a great nation in the 21st century: enough of our citizens reading as a daily habit.

Source

KN started with a vision for an investigative weekend journal to help rebuild the country
By STABROEK STAFF | LETTERS | WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2011

Dear Editor,

I refer to a letter published on September 5, 2011 in the Guyana Chronicle titled ‘Wikileaks exposes real Glenn Lall’ that mentioned my name. The anonymous letter writer said in part that “The genesis of Kaieteur News is the ‘Kaieteur Weekend World‘, started by Shaun Samaroo, John Ali of Canada, with Glenn Lall being a junior partner. “Samaroo had mortgaged his father’s house to invest in the newspaper, and it would add to the real picture of Glenn Lall as exposed by Wikileaks if Samaroo would expose the truth of how he nearly lost his father’s house and the way Lall wrested sole ownership of the paper from the partners. “However, Samaroo is today a supporter of the opposition and bitterly opposed to the PPP/C administration.”

As an independent and professional journalist, I am absolutely not “a supporter of the opposition,” and I am absolutely not “bitterly opposed to the PPP/C administration.” I deeply admire the PPP/C for its work to regain free and fair elections for the Guyanese people. Managing the state of a broken Guyana is definitely not an easy job, and my personal view, which is never reflected in my journalism work, is that the PPP/C must be given credit for its role in the country’s history.

I am apolitical, and do not support any political party, nor do I oppose any party. I have friends who are members of parliament, and these I support and publicly praise as good leaders because I admire their values and their heart for public service. As a journalist I do not practise politics. When I worked as a reporter during the Hoyte administration, I criticized the then government as freely and fearlessly as I today constructively criticize the PPP/C government. A journalist works to improve society. My role as a journalist is to inform the populace, the readers, and the government of the malfunctions, failures and aberrations of the society, with a view to correcting the breakdowns.

Journalists look only for the flaws that harm society, and report on these to make the society a better social environment for citizens. As a journalist I cannot aim to support any government or opposition group. Instead, my function is to sharpen accountability and good governance, whichever party forms the government of the day. So I reject the Chronicle’s maligning of my professional conduct, and its tainting of my character.

I am the founder of the Kaieteur newspaper, and the company that publishes it, National Media and Publishing Company Limited. I invented both, and the intellectual property is mine. I secured a loan with my father, Dharam Samaroo, recently deceased, using my father’s house as collateral, from the Institute of Private Enterprise Development (IPED), as seed financing to launch the project. With the IPED funds, I purchased the printing press in Canada.

The idea for a newspaper came to me as a young reporter trained by Stabroek News, because I wanted to publish a weekend journal that focused entirely on investigative reporting, and that would also reflect solid family values, with a democratic Western mindset. The country had just won back its electoral democracy after nearly three decades in the wilderness, and I felt excited that a young Guyanese could play a dynamic role in building the future. My friend Joseph O’Lall mentored me through this phase of my life, and his efforts to build a hydro-electric project at Teperu played a big role in encouraging me to go for the impossible. Those were exciting times for the country, and I felt confident in stepping out as a young Guyanese.

I drafted a business plan, and approached a few businessmen to back a weekend newspaper. I received strong interest from three businessmen, including the late Ramdial Bhookmohan, a savvy business leader from Berbice. Four of us formed a group and planned the project, and everything was going smoothly. I was very young, with no business experience or training. All I had was a vision for an investigative reporting organ to help rebuild the country and prepare the nation for the fast approaching 21st century, then less than 10 years away. However, at the last moment, Bhookmohan and the others pulled out of the project.

Planning was well advanced and I felt I could not drop the project, so I started looking elsewhere for financial backing. O’Lall knew the Ambassador for Libya, and organized for me to meet this gentleman to talk to him about the possibility of Libya investing in the project. I wanted the newspaper to be firmly Judeo-Christian in its editorial spirit, so I was wary of asking Libya to invest. But I went along to meet the Ambassador. I met with him, and he invited me on an all-expenses paid trip to Libya, where, he said, I would meet with someone who would discuss the funding of the project. I was encouraged to bring along a friend or two. I talked to a couple of my friends, and we all excitedly took up the offer to travel, so far away. I was aware of Libya’s radical extremism, and felt wary about the trip, but nevertheless I was excited at the prospect of travelling on a free trip.

I spent about a month away, and not once did anyone discuss the project with me. I found that we were part of a large group of mostly Muslim people from Guyana, whom the Libyan government brought there. Libya did such things to spread its propaganda, and I voiced my displeasure to the man appointed to be our guide on the tour. I came back to Guyana realizing that there was no way I wanted such views behind a newspaper I was going to operate.

Back in Guyana, a school friend and I started a bottom-house TV production business on a shoe-string budget, again encouraged by Mr O’Lall, a man who instilled the entrepreneurial dream in me. In the process of soliciting advertising sponsorship for these local documentaries, I encountered Mr Glenn Lall, who owned a shoe store in the Stabroek Market. I found Glenn to be generous in his advertising, and an extremely nice and kind person. He made friends easily, and was always pleasant and easy to talk to. One day he told me the horrible account of how his family was robbed and beaten and tortured by an alleged army of ‘kick-down-the-door’ hooligans. It left me feeling his pain, and how much he must have suffered. Yet he had achieved such business success at such a young age.

I wrote a profile on him in a column I wrote that was published in the Stabroek News, comparing him to F Scott Fitzgerald’s famous character, Jay Gatsby, in the exotic novel The Great Gatsby. I was fascinated by Glenn and his rich friends. I was yet in my early twenties, and I had lived a sheltered life, secured in church from the world, with my head buried in books. I hardly knew Georgetown’s social world. In Glenn I started seeing a side to life that, in my naïvete, I found fascinating.

One day I mentioned the newspaper project to Glenn Lall, and he readily agreed to think of being my business partner. I spent hours talking to him and spending time at his house. He was always a wonderful person, and his family very pleasant and welcoming. Glenn became my business partner. But he was also a great friend, humble, loyal and ambitious.

He never discussed his business life with me, except the shoe business. I knew he imported shoes from Taiwan by the container load, and bought cheap and sold for a healthy profit. People around him mentioned back-tracking, and although I felt disgusted at this, I did not take it seriously. My understanding was that he was making lots of money with shoes. Sales at his stall in the market was brisk, for sure, and he employed quite a few workers. Shortly after we agreed that we would be business partners, I travelled to Canada to buy the printing press with the check from IPED.

In Toronto, Glenn asked me to call his friend, a Mohamed Sharif. I called this gentleman, who went out of his way to accommodate me, and drive me around, and help me navigate Toronto, and close the deal on the press. During this process, with Sharif so nice, Glenn mentioned to me on the phone that we could make Sharif a partner too. I readily agreed. Sharif agreed to invest, and he travelled to Guyana, and signed up as a partner on the registered company.

After Glenn purchased the land at Saffon Street and constructed the building, we installed the press and started the newspaper with Henry Skerrit as editor and myself as publisher. I chose to call the weekender the Kaieteur Weekend World. However, within months, Glenn, who had by now invested far more money than my Dad’s IPED loan that I had invested, decided he wanted a bigger say in the editorial of the newspaper. I objected that he was a mere investor and the editorial should be left up to media experts. I cannot remember a lot of the details, as those days were extremely traumatic for me, but one day I chose to resign, much to Glenn’s disappointment. He was very upset when I told him I wanted out of the project.

By this time, sources I had cultivated as an investigative reporter were warning me of associating with “that crowd.” I received second-hand information of business practices that I did not think fitted in with the high professional ethics I set myself as a journalist and the publisher of a weekend tabloid. When I resigned, these were the thoughts in my mind. The events of those days cause me psychological trauma to this day, as I saw my dream as a young man shattered. Eventually, I heard that Sharif had also relieved himself of his stake in the company.

This, in a nutshell, is the history of the founding of Kaieteur News, and my role in it. Shortly after resigning and relinquishing my shares, I migrated. IPED was also very unhappy, as it suffered because of the events affecting the business.

I will say again, however, that in my dealings with Glenn Lall, I have found him personally to be a gentleman, extremely generous, a superb host at his house, and a loyal friend. I admire his business acumen to make a success of Kaieteur News, and although it would have been nice to be credited for the intellectual property as founder of the newspaper, I am happy that he made my dream into a historic icon in Guyana. As to his alleged activities outside the realm of accepted business practice, I have no first-hand knowledge. In Guyana rumour circulates freely. But in the years I have dealt with Glenn Lall, over 15 years ago now, I have no experience or personal knowledge of him using nefarious means to accumulate wealth.

Editor, in a small society like ours, it’s easy for one’s associations to be read the wrong way, as appearances can be misleading. But for my part, I tried as a young man to make a difference for my country, to contribute to the shaping of the future and to the building of a workable society for future generations. Unfortunately, the state of the society had deteriorated so badly by the early 1990s that such efforts were bound to fail. I have my own theories as to why things turned out the way they did, and in fact I explore a lot of that in a book I wrote, which is in the publishing process, about my journalism days in the 1990s.

Now, in response to this anonymous letter writer, I would like to clarify that my role in Kaieteur in its founding days aimed only to create a professional, independent, credible and informative weekend journal focused, as said above, on investigative reporting. Alas, it was not to be, and today, in 2011, we have Wikileaks doing that work for us, with the ever enduring Stabroek News continuing to be the flagship of hope for ethical public behaviour and independent thought in our land.

I hope in writing this to set the record straight about my role in the founding of the National Media and Publishing Company and the Kaieteur newspaper. I have had no contact or communication with either Glenn Lall or Mohamed Sharif over the past 17 years.

Yours faithfully,
Shaun Michael Samaroo

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This beauty boy Shaun can write.