…roasts Guyana Times, Chronicle over publicationsAs it published its first report on coverage of the 2015 elections campaign, the Media Monitoring Unit (MMU) of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has taken at least three print media houses to task over their reportage over the past month.The report, released last Tuesday, came just over a month before General and Regional Elections and noted the imbalances between the negative and positive coverage offered by various media houses in the lead up to May 11.The political entities covered in the recently released document are the government, People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) and A Partnership for National Unity and Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC).According to the report, a cursory sweep of the more serious infringements of the MCC committed by media houses over the duration of this reporting period showed that the violations included, but were not limited to the following: peddling of unsubstantiated information, misrepresentation/distortion of facts, and publication/airing of language that was inflammatory, racially divisive/inciting.In this vein, the MMU urged reporters to not allow the politics of the day to trump their professionalism.In the print media, citations were the order of the day for the Guyana Chronicle Newspaper for the publication of two editorials that were “blatantly inflammatory” and a letter that was deemed racially divisive. The Guyana Times, which has long been touted as a pro-government entity, also came under fire for an inflammatory article. The newspaper was also accused of a distortion of facts and the publication of a “racially divisive and distorted” article.The MMU based its criticisms on a self-regulatory Media Code of Conduct (MCC) that media houses earlier this year signed on to guide reporting of political, social, governance and electoral issues, in the run-up to and after the May 11, 2015 General and Regional Elections.Guyana ChronicleThe Guyana Chronicle, Guyana’s state-owned newspaper, came under criticism for its pro-government slant in its editorials and articles. The MMU stated that neither the government nor the PPP/C came in for any negative comments from Guyana Chronicle.On the other hand, APNU+AFC received a large dose of negative publicity by the newspaper’s editorial writers. The MMU made specific reference to the newspaper’s March 10 editorial captioned,NFL Jerseys China Wholesale, “Make the right decisions on May 11”.The MMU took issue with the editorial department of the newspaper for the “general tone of the editorial, the unsubstantiated allegations made therein, and its unmistakably inflammatory nature.”“For starters, it did not miss our attention that in a somewhat devious ploy to justify what came after, the editorial started off by making specious and unsubstantiated allegations of a violent nature against the Opposition political parties, namely APNU and AFC,” MMU stated in its report.The body went on to say that the writer then conjures up a dismal future for Guyana should the coalition accede to Government. It said, too, that the staff members of the MMU are of the collective opinion that the editorial measured by any journalism standard, much less the MCC,NFL Jerseys From China, was politically extremist and? telegraphed a pernicious and sinister intent to create unnecessary fear, tension and insecurity in the country.“In every respect also, it was antithetical to good order, peace and stability – the pre-requisites for a smooth and trouble-free elections process,” the MMU said.The newspaper’s March 14, 2015 editorial captioned, “Participatory leadership” was also accused of being blatantly negative towards the opposition. The unit said it observed that the writer penned a discursive narrative touching on a number of issues.It noted that for the most part it was scathingly critical of the PNC and AFC on one hand and highly praiseworthy of former president, Dr. Cheddi Jagan and the PPP/C, on the other.Nothing,Alexander Nylander Jersey, it said, is wrong with that. Commendably, the writer, in the latter paragraphs of the editorial, provided examples where the PPP/C and the Opposition political parties worked together in the best interest of the country.“However, inexplicably, it all fell apart in the final paragraph, where it was written, ‘The hardcore veterans whose charter includes utilization of all the Machiavellian strategies contained in the diabolical X-13 Plan are making the nation cry rivers of blood while the voice of reason has been silenced in the thunder of the canons that devastate the nation’s hope for a brighter future.’”The MMU said that it tried in vain to figure out the connecting thread between the preceding paragraphs in the editorial and the gist of the final one as quoted.“For us, th