The media watching For March elections
by Sharief Khan
GUYANA has chalked up another 'first' in Caribbean Community media and election politics with the formal establishment and functioning from last Thursday of an `Independent Media Monitoring and Refereeing Panel'.
The panel comprises two outstanding Caribbean journalists with wide
experience - Jamaica-born Dwight Whylie and Barbados-born Harry Mayers. Their expertise covers the print and electronic media and news services.
In the current volatile political climate, and with just 11 days away from Nomination Day for the March 19 elections, they will need all the cooperation and goodwill possible to ensure their assignment proves worthwhile for the journalism profession and the Guyanese electorate.
The independent Electoral Assistance Bureau (EAB) of Guyana had reported that the conduct of the December 1997 elections - over which appeals are still before the Court - was not only "free and fair", but the "best witnessed in three decades".
Now it seems as if next month's poll may be distinguished as the one with the most effective media monitoring mechanisms, in addition to being widely monitored by international, regional and local observers.
Those who, like Guyana's Hugh Cholmondeley, the former UNESCO Caribbean area representative, were instrumental in the establishment of the Whylie-Mayers monitoring and refereeing panel, deserve to be complimented.
The Whylie-Mayers panel was preceded by the creation of a Media Monitoring Project of the Guyana Elections Commission, that is internationally funded, and with an American specialist, Robert Norris, as Media Monitoring Advisor.
Then came the initiative that resulted in the formulation of a Media Code of Conduct signed by the overwhelming majority of media enterprises that included some 18 of an estimated 23 "television" stations - largely pirating outfits - radio and print media.
I am in possession of the Media Code of Conduct - which I understand has the endorsement of the Elections Commission - as well as the initial report of the Commission's Media Monitoring Advisor with an explanatory note on its methodology.
I have some reservations about the Media Code of Conduct, and have reasons to feel that they are shared by some media houses and senior journalists in the region, including Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica. But we shall see how it all plays out in the coming weeks of the elections.
It is not known that such mechanisms and media codes exist elsewhere in the region for national elections.
But then, in no other CARICOM state are such mechanisms considered necessary, as in Guyana. Or, for that matter, the involvement with the media by an Elections Commission, as is the case.
On Guard
They are, after all, in a country whose other but uncomplimentary 'firsts' would include a unique history of rigged elections, as a CARICOM state, from 1968 to 1985 under the People's National Congress (PNC), and a muzzled and grossly misused state-owned media.
There is also, of course, the phenomenon, scandal really, of the unregulated growth of what passes for "television networks", many of whose `news' programmes, and particularly "talk shows", are as reckless as could be and, again, unique within CARICOM.
There is a current well-orchestrated effort, not without either a self-serving or political motive, to focus unduly on the public sector media, print and electronic.
The monitors and referees would know of some media and other people in Guyana and elsewhere in the Caribbean who have a pathological dislike for state involvement in the ownership of the media.
State Media
Whatever the reservations about the real or imagined problems with state-owned -as distinct from government-managed media - the performance of the "wild west" electronic media in Guyana makes a compelling case why, in the national interest and fairness, there remains a place for public sector ownership of the media.
Important Difference
There is also a need, one quite relevant in the current elections monitoring in Guyana, for a distinction to be made between state-owned media reporting and commenting on the business of the government, its policies and programmes in the national interest, in contrast to propagandising for the party that heads the government.
The Guyana Elections Commission in general and its Media Monitoring Advisor in particular, as well as the Independent Media Monitoring and Refereeing Panel can only contribute to controversies more than anything else if they collectively or separately fail to demonstrate their own appreciation for this important difference.
And the public sector media, as well as the privately-owned media, would be failing in their obligations should they, either by incompetence or misplaced fears, be pushed on the defensive against providing the coverage deserving of government policies, programmes and activities during the elections campaign.
The Elections Commission is dealing with the government of the day, as it should be, as well as the contesting political parties. Justice Claudette Singh - whose rulings, have been challenged by lawyers on both sides of an election petition on the December 1997 elections - has made it pellucidly clear: "I have no jurisdiction to order the President or the Government to demit office".
The `talk show' hosts engaging in scurrilities, like a certain political organ, and spreading race hatred, must be reminded about this simple truth as the nation awaits the outcome of the appeals filed with the Court of Appeal and, more significantly, the results of the March 19 elections.
In the meantime, the Elections Commission and the `monitors' themselves would, I guess, be subjected to monitoring.
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