STABROEK NEWS
Stabroek News is an integral part of my life. Were it human I would have owned it as family. For longer than I can remember, my mornings began with coffee and Stabroek News, first the hard copy and later the electronic copy. Over the past decade plus, Stabroek News has published a weekly article I write for my blog, Conversation Tree. From Friday afternoon to Saturday midday, I am consumed by efforts to find a subject and, when I do, to find words to fill the subject. The disappearance of Stabroek News will leave a yawning chasm in my daily life, particularly in the mornings. Morning coffee and Stabroek Newsare inseparable twins.
The most important challenge in Guyana is to maintain and strengthen its democracy. Our past history has shown how easilya determined effort can overturn democratic institutions and the nature of suffering it engenders. Our more recent history has demonstrated in no uncertain terms the fragility of the democracy that Guyana has obtained with much pain and suffering. Between 1986 and 1992, Stabroek News was a leading media advocate for free and fair elections and the only national newspaper that campaigned relentlessly for freedom and democracy in Guyana. When our hard-won democracy was under siege in 2020, it was Stabroek News that led the media in the charge against attempts to subvert the elections. Many who criticize Stabroek News and are unhappy with some of the positions that it takes should consider whether the restoration of democracy in 1992 and its survival in 2020 would have been possible without Stabroek News. Consider the arid media landscape just prior to 1992 without the Stabroek News and what that would have meant for democracy! Guyana owes this newspaper an everlasting debt of gratitude.
Stabroek News was started by David de Caires, Doreen de Caires and Miles Fitzpatrick. David de Caires and Miles Fitzpatrick were the principals in the law firm of de Caires and Fitzpatrick. They had been earlier involved in publishing. Between 1964 and 1966 they published the New World, a news and analytical magazine of high intellectual quality. Unfortunately, lack of business expertise put paid to this venture. This early effort at publication appears to have left a sweet itch with David de Caires. He seized the opportunity of what many thought to be the opening that was created by the Presidency of Desmond Hoyte to ask Hoyte for permission to start a newspaper to which Hoyte surprisingly agreed. And so the Stabroek News was born. Horrendous early difficulties were overcome. De Caires gave up law, Doreen applied her formidable managerial skills and Fitzpatrick sat on the board of directors and was a valued contributor.
In the first half of the 1970s, the only privately owned newspaper that existed was the PPP-aligned Mirror. There were other publications such as the Catholic Standard, Dayclean, a news sheet published by the WPA, Open Word. The Mirror, which had been driven off the streets by violence to vendors, had a nationwide reach, but the others were of limited circulation only to some in Georgetown. In 1972 the Government promulgated orders that required a licence to import newsprint. In a court case, Hope v New Guyana Limited,the Mirror challenged the orders as being unconstitutional – a hindrance to freedom of speech. In 1976 Justice Vieira agreed and struck down the orders. In 1979 the Court of Appeal reversed Justice Vieira’s decision. By doing so it placed an official imprimatur on the Government’s intention to limit freedom of speech. With this decision the starvation of the Mirror of newsprint became lawful. The newspaper shrank from a vibrant daily and 40-page weekend edition to a four-page sheet thrice weekly. It was in this era when independent news and analysis struggled to keep their noses above water, and were often bubbled, that Stabroek News appeared on the scene. Stabroek News liberated the news, opened up a vibrant discourse in its letter column and was unconstrained in its calls for democracy. It helped to create and sustain a democratic culture in Guyana.
The Stabroek News replaced and superseded the media culture of both the colonial and authoritarian eras and led the way in developing and promoting a modern journalistic regime of independent reporting and independent analysis suitable to a modern, independent, Guyana. It has enhanced the image of Guyana to the outside world, especially to investors. Its existence has promoted Guyana as a country that respects an independent press and freedom of speech. The information and analysis provided to investors by Stabroek News are indispensable.
A newspaper with the stature of Stabroek News exercises the right to criticize power fearlessly and maintains editorial independence. It often sets the agenda for national debate and exercises intellectual leadership. It improves governance through exposure and encourages transparency. It promotes debate by publishing serious commentary across the political divide as in its letter columns. By supplying reliable information to the public, it encourages transparency. It supports the independence of the judiciary. Its news reporting and analysis of events preserves the national memory. A newspaper that fulfils these functions, such as the Stabroek News, becomes not merely a publication but a national institution. The fall of such an institution is always a national tragedy.
