President's Bharrat Jagdeo's statement that the decision to withdraw all ministry advertisements from the Stabroek News was a business decision is not credible, David de Caires the editor-in-chief of the newspaper said yesterday.
Mr de Caires noted that the decision followed a series of attacks on the newspaper by the President. He also noted that the People's Progressive Party did not give the Stabroek News a single advertisement in the recent elections campaign and though they are perfectly entitled to make that decision as it is their money, this suggests a continuing pattern of discrimination.
De Caires said that the circulation of the Stabroek News is audited each month and can be published at any time. He said the circulation of the other two newspapers, to the best of his knowledge, has never been professionally audited. A print figure is quite different to a paid circulation after returns have been taken into account.
De Caires proposed that a member of the Audit Bureau of Circulation be invited from a neighbouring territory to professionally audit the circulation of the three newspapers including their Sunday editions.
He went on to say that throughout the world the quality of the newspaper, in addition to circulation, was taken into account by advertising agencies in placing ads. For example, though in England the downmarket Sun tabloid had a circulation larger than all the quality newspapers combined, the latter still received a large amount of advertisements.
De Caires said he was convinced that Dr Prem Misir, the head of the Guyana Information Agency (GINA) which controls the allocation of ministry ads had made no scientific evaluation of any kind, had no idea of the paid circulation of the three newspapers and had conducted no survey of the response to advertisements. Here again, he suggested that an independent advertising agency from the region could be retained to carry out a suitable survey.
De Caires repeated that the withdrawal of advertisements was nothing but a naked political decision and constituted an attack on the free press. He said the newspaper will continue to fight this decision in all available fora, local and regional.