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Hi Miguel: On this issue, I think you're justifying the unjustifiable.
What needs to be ascertained is whether the Goa government (politicians or through bureaucrats) have threatened GT with the withdrawal of advertisements. If so, it is unjustifiable by any account.
There can be no quid pro quo in terms of exchanging advertisements (paid for by taxpayer's money) for favourable publicity.
Gomantak Times' reporter Reuben Proenca has publicly stated, through the Goajourno mailing list, that the paper has been warned that it will not be getting the IFFI adverts. It would have perhaps carried more weight if someone senior in the publication had come out with the statement. Anyway, the issue is simply this: if it is true, it is despicable.
Sections of the Press and journalists are being openly influenced by various blandishments. IFFI contracts are no exception. Local news-channels have got earlier similarly influenced, and some even get paid for every boring official item they cover (no wonder there's so much of it!)
A few papers which have been taking a critical stance. (GT has been coming down hard for the past few weeks, and this is obviously hurting those who believe they have mastered ways of trimming out the inconvenient news from the Goa reader's eye of sight.)
To argue that other governments have used a uneven policy towards some papers (Herald), and suggest that this is a justification for the current policy, is indeed shortsighted. If tax-payers could insist that advertisements should not be used as a carrot for the press, but handed out on merits, then surely we would have had a less pliable press in Goa. Goa needs it for its own good; the politicians of the time may not! -FN
On Sun, 21 Nov 2004, Anthony Barretto wrote:
Dear Miguel Braganza,
If there is any sarcasm in the questions you have raised over my mail I have missed it. I thought the answers to the questions you ask were obvious. Never mind if I have to say the obvious if it needs to be said. Here are the answers.
If the Government stops releasing advertisements to a particular newspaper, it is no new thing. oHeraldo has suffered the same fate in the past...and has >overcome it, and grown.
