[www.inewsguyana.com] – Presidential Adviser on Governance, Gail Teixeira said that the media in Guyana has a responsibility to be balanced and when it comes to development, must make true decisions based on the nationalist point of view.
Speaking on a panel discussion in observance of World Press Freedom Day on Sunday (May 04), the Presidential Adviser noted that the media’s role is to be the fourth-estate, to observe, watch, write about, inform, analyse, criticise on all aspects of development that are taking place in the country.
Also on the panel was ere Adam Harris, Editor -in-Chief of Kaieteur News.
Teixeira said that the media must not be seen only as a critic of government, but also a critic of civil society and as such must hold themselves to a higher standard of not being a proponent of any particular view.
“Unfortunately a lot of what comes out now is – ‘are you for the government or are you against the government?’ -and who loses in the end is the people in terms of, they are not being given the full scope of the information that is available,” Teixeira noted.
She pointed out that the government also loses, and as well the country as the media anti-development reporting not only hurts the image of the press, but also the image of the country, as it hinders the country’s ability to attract investors.
She noted that other media houses and owners recognise this in other countries, and as such if one were to examine some of the newspapers in the region, one would realise that all the crime issues are way down in the newspapers because the media understands that their countries’ economy depend on tourism.
“These are decisions that editors, that the owners of the media make…that kind of balance is not here and we have to find a balance,” Teixeira urged.
“That is not to say that you are asking them to sweep things under the carpet, but you are asking them that when you are raging headlines that you are hurting the country.
“You may have enough influence to change the government eventually and that might be the intention, but the impact on the country and the impact on development cannot be replaced,” she noted.
[Extracted and Modified from GINA]
