In an ominous sign for the traditional print media houses, two of the Caribbean’s leading daily newspapers will have disappeared from the landscape by the middle of this month, with both blaming staggering operating costs, a dramatic fall off of the advertising pie and the emergence of the digital and social media for their demise.
In late January, the Trinidad Newsday, credibly considered as the republic’s third daily newspaper, dropped a “bombshell” on the nation as it shuttered its doors after 32 years, linking its demise to a perfect storm of events and changes over time. In the last five years, the Barbados Advocate Managing Director Grant Taylor had said that the “storm of challenges led to where we are now: closure.”
“The elements of this perfect storm are as varied as they are damaging, with no single factor exclusively to blame,” he told tearful staff as he announced its closure. “This is also not a ‘this just suddenly happened’ scenario, but rather, a symphony of events playing out over a decade.”
Now less than a month after, Guyana’s leading newspaper, the daily Stabroek News, announced recently that there will be no more editions after March 15, as it is exiting the business after 39 years. The paper has been one of four operating dailies in Guyana, but soon will be no more. In the last four years, the daily Barbados Advocate closed its doors after operating since 1895, also citing unsustainable daily operating costs.
As it pertains to the Stabroek News, the paper had been widely regarded as Guyana’s main independent voice in a nation that is normally wracked by racial and political tensions and it strove for impartial reporting. The publication appeared on the national scene in late 1986, breaking the stranglehold that the government-run and abused Guyana Chronicle had had on the print media in Guyana for nearly two decades.
Chief Editor Anand Persaud picked on several issues for the state of play as he spoke with reporters, explaining the reasons for voluntary liquidation in a matter of weeks.
“The collapse of the advertising market has been a serious issue. You know, there may be some advertisers who did not advertise because they didn’t want to be seen to be affiliated with Stabroek News because that might put them out of favor with the government.”
He also cited the emergence of real time news reporting on digital gadgets like mobile phones and tablets, noting that “younger readers are just not buying newspapers because they’re not accustomed to that. What they’re accustomed to doing is picking up their phone or their tablet in the morning and scrolling, and that is really the thing so I think that’s really the major factor.”
The paper is also going out even while pleading with and persuading the Irfaan Ali administration to pay up close to $500,000 in advertising receivables which have been outstanding for months. The government has also not hidden its disdain for the paper and its editorial writers in particular, sometimes accusing them of being biased and elite in their world views. Like Newsday in neighboring Trinidad, dozens of long serving staff are heading for the proverbial breadline.
And in a rather interesting observation, Newsday’s Grant Taylor noted that the paper was the only one in the country not owned by a conglomerate company, which could have absorbed daily losses as a subsidiary of a wider business family as it was owned and founded by journalists and always wanted to remain independent.
“Newsday is no different in most respects from the other players in the market; this is an industry under severe pressure. But one crucial difference is that, as a stand-alone entity which is not part of a media conglomerate, there is nowhere for Newsday to hide the year-on-year losses all the local daily newspapers are suffering. The world has also changed, and TT is no different. The value placed on traditional media has diminished and the political campaign to discredit them for nefarious reasons has ramped up.”
