INDEPENDENT REFEREEING UPDATE #1

2 AUGUST 2006

As the 2006 election campaign came into effect with
the naming of a date and the taking of nominations,
the media were not only reporting the news but also
making it.

Media-related news stories that engaged the attention
of the Independent Refereeing Panel,  appointed by the
Guyanese media, which is watching media performance in
the context of the Media Code of Conduct, include the
following, to which applicable comments are attached:

* About 10 working media people, among them,
signatories last January to the Media Code of Conduct,
have signed up as election candidates.

COMMENT: Running for election is incompatible with the
mission of working journalists engaged in the
gathering and reporting of news. In an election
season, the public, which is entitled to expect from
the media news that is credible and bias-free, stands
to be disappointed if reporters and presenters are
politically aligned to the extent of being party
standard bearers and candidates.

The Code of Conduct obliges media people "to hold
themselves independent and free of any, or all,
control and direction from any of the political
parties registered to control the elections." Those
candidates who, as permitted under Guyana law, are
also media owners,  are bound under terms of the Code
not to use their publications or broadcasts for
campaigning and clearly to separate the news from
political comment.

* One newspaper's (Stabroek News) report contained the
unverified assertion that the ruling PPP/C had paid at
least one participant to appear in that party's
Nomination Day parade.

COMMENT: The (July 27) Stabroek News story, "Eleven
line up for poll", which reported the "allegation"
that a woman had been paid $3,000 to join the PPP/C
parade, fails the test of fairness and simple
professionalism. The newspaper reported no attempt of
its own to substantiate the woman's claim, and instead
gave gratuitous publicity to a damaging assertion
related to a sensitive political question. Remarks
attributed to the editor in the July 28 paper
compounded the offence by misleadingly stating that
"a Stabroek News reporter quite properly investigated
the matter and reported on it."  In fact, as of this
writing, the report is still to be retracted or
substantiated, and the editor was quoted as dismissing
the PPP/C complaint as "the usual election campaign
rhetoric".

* Condemnation of that story by the PPP/C general
secretary; and condemnation of the Stabroek News as an
"opposition newspaper" both by the President and party
leader and by the PPC/C's general secretary.

COMMENT: The PPP/C leaders went way beyond
denunciation of that instance of reckless reporting by
the Stabroek News to impute political motives to the
paper, assailing it as an "opposition press". In an
election campaign, the temper of exchanges will
inevitably become heated. Still, the PPP/C's
over-reaction to the story, to the extent of accusing
the paper's publisher of plotting politically against
the ruling party, sets an ominously bad precedent of
ad hominem attacks capable of lowering the tone for
the rest of the campaign.

* Open identification with the PPP/C of staff at the
Government Information Agency by wearing party
T-shirts at the Berbice rally on Sunday.
 
COMMENT: Their appearance in ruling-party
electioneering garb is consistent with the findings of
GINA's political alignment published in the June
report of the Media Monitoring Unit.  The undisguised
identification with the ruling party defeats any claim
to professional performance of an information service
for the state--as distinct from the party for the time
being in control of the machinery of state.

Lennox Grant
Independent Refereeing Panellist