The UN-sponsored commemorative “Days” are usually innocuous events that let various and sundry interest groups tell the world they’re alive and (possibly) kicking. Now don’t get your Eyewitness wrong…he has absolutely nothing against these goings-on and he himself throws in his two cents on causes he supports. Like violence against women, for instance, – as in the “Intimate Partner Violence” (IPV) commemorated recently.
So when he sees the firestorm raging in Guyana about “press freedom” the first thing he wondered was why there wasn’t this kinda buzz about “IPV”? We’re all solipsistic! Now mind you, as a card-carrying member of the “Fourth Estate” he has skin in the game…but there are priorities in life, no? So let’s talk about this whole “free press” business. Like with everything else nothing’s really “free”. The Press is owned by somebody or group – private persons, corporations, or even governments! – and they’ll inevitably have their perspective on matters. Which controls their curating of the news – picking from the billions of things happening in the world to print. So even though the NYTimes speaks for the press when they boast about publishing “all the news that’s fit to print”, it’s the owners – read publishers – who decide what’s “fit”! So the curating becomes filtering!!
Let’s start right there with the NYTimes. Did you realize it’s owned by a NY Jewish family and in every edition, they’ll have a positive article about Israel or Jews? Can someone find me a newspaper or TV station in the entire world that doesn’t have its own slant on things?? So let’s not get on our high horses with our drawers in a knot about “bias” in the press. Just consider who publishes the paper and factor in their “perspective” when we consume their news. Now on to the next issue being raised – the government press being biased in favor of the government. Well…hello?? Just read the above!!
Now since the theme of this year, press Freedom Day was “Journalism under digital siege”. This was supposed “to spotlight the multiple ways in which journalism is endangered by surveillance and digitally-mediated attacks on journalists.” Now right away your Eyewitness hopes you can see the premises of this perspective. It declares that journalism is “under digital siege”.
Now for sure, this Pegasus spyware’s been used to spy on some journalists. But wasn’t the question posed by the GPA to the President – whether his government’s spying on Journalists like the question, “have you stopped beating your wife?”
What exactly could the president say that would satisfy the GPA? Be like George Washington and admit he cut down that cherry tree?
But there’s no evidence any tree was cut in Guyana!!
…on women’s rights
They say when countries up north catch a cold, we sneeze…. or something to that effect!! You know…whatever happens there, we feel it’s effect here. So now that a leaked document from the US Supreme Court suggests they might be ready to overturn their landmark Roe v Wade case. a strong murmur’s rising here from certain quarters. Now that case delineated the parameters of the factors that must be taken for women to abort their fetuses. Pretty much making a Solomonic Judgement between the rights of the mother versus the rights of the child.
Most critically, the 1973 case turned on a “right of privacy” that the Justices decided all women possessed over their bodies. Now the Americans might be debating that “right” till the cows come home, but your Eyewitnesses want to know what that has to do with us in Guyana? Our Termination of Pregnancy Act was Legislated on completely different grounds.
We have enough challenges of our own without importing Americans!!
…on Amerindian land rights
This UN CERD’s decision to demand our government explain their position on mining permissions on lands near Amerindian settlements is crucial.
One wonders what this same agency has said about the Russians taking over Eastern Ukraine!!
