The opposition media

Mouth open

Emile Mervin is one of those retired overseas Guyanese with too much time on his hands. He’s sold his soul to the AFC, and obviously from his scribblings, has a pipeline to the thinking of its top leadership.  To keep himself busy he inflicts those interminable and tedious AFC gripes against the government in the spit press. One was tempted to say ‘polemics’ but he goes over the same ground so many times that his drivel becomes a literal vast and bare wasteland.
But as we always insist, it’s not a bad thing with these loquacious opposition types – sooner or later they’ll trip themselves up. Mervin did just that in his latest anti-government sewage – this time agreeing with Granger of APNU that the opposition had forced “accommodations” from the government.  And it’s not just their refusal to see that ‘accommodations’ forced by illegal actions will eventually be self-defeating.
Mervin conceded that whatever the opposition achieved against the government – with all the illegal protests at Linden and Agricola etc – could not have been possible without “tons of help from Kaieteur News and Stabroek News.” There you have it – right from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. We’ve been saying it all along – these two practitioners of yellow journalism are part and parcel of the official opposition – but somehow they’re allowed to get away with it. Some have the temerity to actually label them the ‘independent’ press. Independent of what? Fairness?
Well we’re about to enter a new year. Is it too much to hope that the authorities will finally take action to establish a permanent Media Monitoring Unit with legislatively sanctioned ‘teeth’? The excuse that these rags use – to wit that they have to be reflexively opposing to the ‘Leviathan’ state – does not justify the frightening images they create of our country in the minds of investors – and indeed in the minds of all Guyanese. Studies have shown that these slanted “news” people are given credibility by ordinary persons and colour their decisions.
The miscreants refuse to accept that responsible newspapers do not allow reports of news that are redolent of the opinions of the reporter and its publisher. Even in the U.S., President Obama had reason to reprimand Fox News for its virulent  pro-opposition, anti-government stance. Surely there are also positive news that can also be reported, no?  But since they are part of the opposition – to which they furnish free space for their propaganda – it is not in their interest to present such news. So what if the country gets a black eye.

City Hall Augean stables
The efforts to ‘clean-up’ City Hall is like one of those old time Cecil B De Mills biblical productions. Older folks would remember the advertisements that boasted “TEN YEARS IN THE MAKING”!  Ever since Hamilton Green took out his venom against Desmond Hoyte and captured the mayorality back in 1994, everyone knew the city’s administration was in the hands of a den of vipers.
It was but a short step to transform the place into a den of thieves. Green and Good might have been the official name of Green’s party, but “Greed is Good” had always been Green’s motto that he lived by. So as the city sunk inexorably under a mass of uncollected garbage the city’s coffers just as inevitably were raided by the criminals ensconced in high office.

Hercules
The latest Herculean efforts to clean the City Stables were encapsulated in the recommendations of “Burrowes’” report of 2009. Time passed and nothing happened. So the inimitable Raymon Gaskin 2010 looked into why the lack of implementation and fingered six officials. The auditor general and police were informed; the officials were suspended. The AG then issued a report.  Now cabinet has looked at this report.
Will some heads please roll soon??? Or will we be getting a new report in the new year?