GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC – The following is the full text of the statement issued by Stabroek News announcing its closure on Friday.
“The decision to close Stabroek News has been extraordinarily difficult and painful. As the two main shareholders and as members of the Board of Directors for the past few years, we have been leading participants in that process. We were guided by events that took place many years ago, and by others of more recent vintage.
“In the early 1960s, a group of young idealists and intellectuals came together in Georgetown to form the New World Group, determined to analyse Caribbean economies and societies from within. They launched New World Fortnightly, a slim, locally published journal. It engaged in serious discussions about local industries, policies, and culture. Each edition was closely typed, with few images or illustrations; advertisements were rare.
“New World, in its various regional iterations, is now acknowledged as a pathbreaking publication. The local journal came to an abrupt and premature end, however, due to an epic miscalculation. An overambitious print run for its Independence Issue led to losses, making further publication impossible. The experience was a chastening one for all involved. “David de Caires was the editor of New World Fortnightly; Miles Fitzpatrick, his lifelong friend and legal partner, assisted, and Martin Carter contributed poems and co-edited an issue.
“Our father took two lessons from this experience: a wariness of intellectual hubris and an unshakeable belief in the value of open discourse in a democracy. A generation later, when he started Stabroek News, two New World colleagues, Miles and Martin, would serve as “Stabroek News was born in a media environment very different from the one that exists in Guyana today. In the mid-1980s, there was only one daily newspaper, the state-owned Chronicle.
“There were only state-owned radio stations. Local TV coverage was in its infancy. “The society was, in many respects, a closed one. Independent voices were scarce: public discourse was reduced to a whisper. Consequently, from the outset, this newspaper’s independence has been pivotal to its role. A few decades ago, the opportunity arose to merge Guyana Publications Inc. with other media outlets in the region. “Our father, methodical as always, considered the options and canvassed opinions, analyses, and advice from multiple sources. Ultimately, the Board decided against it. The newspaper’s independence was considered sacrosanct.
“Shortly before our father’s death, the newspaper endured a period when advertisements from state-owned companies (a significant source of revenue) were withheld – a rather crude attempt to muzzle the free press. In the past year, the state-run Department of Public Information has accrued a debt of more than G$ 80,000,000 to this newspaper for unpaid advertisements. The debt persists despite repeated private and public entreaties to clear it. “This tactic could equally be construed as an attempt to starve this company of its operating funds.
“Publishing has always been a precarious undertaking in Guyana and the Caribbean due to the modest size of the potential readership, and to other market constraints. No one becomes a publisher in Guyana to grow rich. While profit concerns have never driven the company, it must function as a business. It is a given that any business needs to diversify, adapt continually, and seek alternative sources of income. We have faced significant obstacles. We have repeatedly sought (and been refused) a radio licence. Although we operated a TV subsidiary for a few decades, our main local competitors enjoyed significant privileges. The playing field was not level. The anticipated progression from newspaper to multi-media broadcaster has been impossible.
“And the country and the world have moved on. Most people, here and elsewhere, now get their news from other sources. The model of reportage that this paper has cultivated in its lifetime is out of step with the algorithmic formulae that now control the circulation of news online. Balanced coverage is not good clickbait.
“These considerations and conditions have shaped this moment and its outcome. But that is only a small part of the story. Viewed in its entirety, our history is a triumph. For 40 years, Stabroek News beat the odds – economic, political, and cultural – every single day. We published an independent daily newspaper in a country where conditions conspired against any form of daily product, doubly so against any form of independence. The brunt of this Sisyphean task was initially borne by the Editor (David de Caires) and the General Manager (his wife Doreen). Both sacrificed their health, their prime years, and their energy in this cause.
“Subsequent editors (Anand Persaud, Anna Benjamin, and Cheryl Springer) and Managers (Shaleeza Khan) have shown similar levels of dedication and have kept the company afloat. Much gratitude is also due to Ian McDonald, whose conscientious stewardship of the company, after our father’s passing, ensured its continued relevance. To all of them, we extend our unreserved thanks. Essentially, though, the company has been the sum of many irreplaceable parts: its editors and managers, auditors and accountants, advertising and circulation, pressmen and reporters, its drivers, cleaners, technical staff, and security. All have played a role. We thank them.
“Our parents built a company based on compassion. When workers struggled to find childcare, the company started a creche: it lasted for 20 years. When transportation to and from work proved challenging, the company provided it (for decades). Pension and medical benefit schemes were introduced.
“These measures help to explain our extraordinary rates of staff retention in a job market characterised by churn. Nearly half of our employees have been with us for a decade, many for several decades. It also explains why the newspaper functioned without a break through the disruption of the COVID years. We are immensely proud of this legacy and deeply appreciative of those who maintained the ecosystem that was created. “Concern for the welfare of the staff has been the paramount factor in the Board’s final deliberations.
“So, in a sense, we exit as we entered. Unbowed. Heads held high. Beholden to none. It will be for others to take the full measure of this newspaper’s contribution to the democratic process in Guyana, and to the nation’s ability to talk and listen to itself in civil tones, without invective, rancour, or malice. Stabroek News has nurtured a generation or two of readers, writers, thinkers, and pundits. It is time to hand over the baton.
“Last year, just before a stroke deprived her of speech and left her bedridden, our mother copied out the poem Invictus in its entirety. Without her remarkable tenacity, this newspaper would never have lasted this long, nor would it have had the chance to mean so much to so many. It feels right to close with a few of the lines that she found worth remembering:
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
— Isabelle and Brendan de Caires
and then 