No every journalist walked out of USAID seminar
Guyana Chronicle
February 1, 2004
SECTIONS of the media reported last week that all the journalists covering the USAID-sponsored seminar at Le Meridien Pegasus Hotel on Thursday walked out after the chairman/convener of the seminar refused to allow a Stabroek News reporter to respond to Dr. Make Sarhan's remarks.
That's not true; not every journalist walked out of the USAID seminar. I was there throughout, and there were others who either remained or trickled back in after superficially following the Stabroek News and like-minded reporters.
Dr. Sarhan, the Mission Director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), had earlier expressed his displeasure at a Stabroek Business Supplement editorial on Thursday, January 29, 2004 which quoted figures about the migration of Guyanese from a 2002 draft report on the importance of migrant remittances to Guyana, presented by Dr. Manuel Orozco at a USAID-sponsored seminar, also at Le Meridien Pegasus, on November 7, 2002.
In the Stabroek editorial, a copy of which I have before me as I write, the author said: "50,000 Guyanese emigrated in 2002 and it is estimated that, annually, 20,000 to 30,000 persons are leaving these shores."
That's the contentious part.
As I recall, Dr. Sarhan generally did not have a problem with Stabroek News' agenda. He actually said that one of the topics of the editorial was timely and that there was "some good information in the editorial."
What he had a problem with was the repeating of the migration figures, even though the USAID conceded shortly after the presentation of the draft report at the seminar back in November of 2002, that those figures were printed in error!
In all fairness, I, too, would have been displeased and would have publicly expressed my displeasure.
Someone of Dr. Sarhan's caliber knew the intent of the author when those wrong figures were repeated in the editorial. What disturbed him was the fact that the author used a USAID document to carry out that intent.
Concluding that the writer had gone a little too far, Dr. Sarhan made no bones about his perception of the editorial's intent when he said that, in his opinion, that was "nothing short of irresponsible journalism."
The Stabroek News reporter was not allowed to "defend" the quoting of those wrong figures in the editorial because, as was pointed out loud and clear, Dr. Sarhan did not identify the newspaper by name. Besides, I personally did not think that Le Meridien seminar was the place for that kind of face-off.
The reporters at Stabroek News are my buddy colleagues. I know that we take our jobs seriously and we pursue our mission with zeal. And all of us make mistakes.
But I strongly believe that as journalists who have committed ourselves to informing, enlightening and entertaining people must be prepared to judge ourselves by the same standards that we use to measure, judge and condemn others.
Yours faithfully,
Journalist
(Name withheld by request)