Kaieteur News smear campaign smacks of envy, vindictiveness

The recent smear campaign launched by the Kaieteur News against the Queens Atlantic Group of Companies, in the wake of their launch of Radio Guyana 89.5 FM has once again raised the issue of media responsibility in Guyana, according to the owner of the corporation, Dr Ranjisinghi Ramroop.
Following the Kaieteur News’ and Stabroek News’ intemperate attack in their ‘news’ items which were more ‘opinion’ pieces, if not ‘hatchet jobs’, Dr Ramroop had noted, “Firstly, there are absolutely no ‘questions’ about the licence. We purchased VCT and all its operations in June 2009. This included its rights to a radio licence for which it had applied since 1993. In what even Stabroek News admitted was a ‘landmark’ decision, the Appellate Court in October of that year, according to the newspaper ‘did direct the NFMU to consider and determine VCT’s application for a radio broadcast licence’.”
Kaieteur News’ claim that “the decision was never handed down until Queens Atlantic bought the television station” is a slander on the independence of the Court of Appeal. It implies that the court held back their decision until our purchase,” Dr Ramroop had pointed out. “This is a serious charge.”
In a letter published in the Stabroek News, Tony Viera, the former owner of VCT, reiterated Dr Ramroop’s position. Asked by Guyana Times International (GTI) to react to the issue, Dr Ramroop said, “We’ve been making the same point until we’re blue in the face, to no avail. When we purchased the corporation, we purchased all of its assets and rights as a corporate body. One of those was the right to a portion of Guyana’s radio spectrum as the Appellate Court later directed.”
Below is a transcript of a wide-ranging interview GTI conducted with Dr Ramroop (DR) on Friday, in an effort to get to the bottom of Kaieteur News’ vendetta.
GTI: You have pointed out before, the attacks by KN started after you launched Guyana Times. Can you speculate why?
DR: Some may point to the increased competition, but I believe it went beyond that in the beginning. After GTimes’ launch in 2008, Lall’s paper fostered an intense campaign that the intent was to push for a third term for the then President Jagdeo. Lall had previously claimed to be a friend of Jagdeo, so it is possible that he might not have received some expected favoured treatment. When we acquired VCT Channel 28 the following year, that conspiracy theory was in KN almost daily.
GT: But after President Jagdeo bowed out to fulfill the two-term limit he himself had introduced, why didn’t that stop the attacks.
DR: Because by then, Lall had become quite irrational, in addition to raising the intemperate tone of his attacks. Take for instance his attacks on NEW GPC. As a privatised company that had been owned by the government and dealt extensively with it, even the KN did not find the volume of our pharmaceutical business to the GHPC surprising. Yet after 2008, suddenly, a conspiracy was trumpeted by KN! They even claimed that President Jagdeo helped us to acquire GPC – when in fact he was not even president at the time of the transaction. Another irony is that one of KN’s most virulent allies, Christopher Ram, had been retained in preparing the documents for the purchase of GPC.
GT: You say that in the beginning, increased competition might not have been a factor in triggering Glen Lall’s wrath. What about today?
DR: I believe this is a major factor at this time. Our circulation has grown steadily in the demographic, we consciously chose to target with our newspaper: the educated, more discerning Guyanese, who ultimately will develop this country. The opinion makers and shapers, so to speak. And as savvy advertisers have discovered, these are the individuals that don’t have to spend 80 per cent of their income on just food. They have more disposable income. As advertisers begin to use polling data, more as they do abroad, and our demographics also expand, our product will become stronger. KN will be left by the wayside.
GT: Is the launching of Radio 89.5FM the completion of your communication vision?
DR: (Laughing) Hardly. I don’t want to tip off our competitors, but not because Guyana is small means that we have to think small. With ICT incorporating satellites and computers, the sky’s literally the limit!
GT: Is this why Lall also has attacked your purchase of a TV and a radio station?
DR: Precisely. Our corporation had a vision of a complete communication package that our customers and consumers can seamlessly utilise. The model of the sensationalist rag, which exploded in the nineties, and followed by KN is now over. Murdoch’s misuse of News of the World has led to the Leveson Report, which is going to clip such tabloids’ wings. We hope that similar legislation, as introduced in Britain and India, will be introduced here in Guyana.