Guyana's Stabroek News shuts down over government debt

A mounting cash squeeze just wiped Stabroek News off the map, shrinking Guyana's media space in real time.

Stabroek News shuts down in Guyana
  • Stabroek News, founded in the 1960s, is closing shop.
  • Isabelle and Brendan de Caires confirmed the pull-the-plug call.
  • Their statement framed it as a gut-wrenching choice.
  • Guyana just lost one of its daily papers.
Unpaid state ads and cash strain
  • Over the past year, the Department of Public Information racked up GUY$80 million in unpaid ads.
  • That bill equals roughly US$320,000 owed to the paper.
  • Repeated requests to settle the tab went nowhere.
  • Shareholders said the arrears choked off operating cash.
Broadcast ambitions blocked
  • Attempts to snag a radio license kept getting rejected.
  • Despite running a TV subsidiary for decades, its footing stayed uneven.
  • Rivals enjoyed advantages that Stabroek never got.
  • Hopes of turning into a multimedia outlet stalled out.
Regional media squeeze
  • NEWSDAY in Trinidad and Tobago recently folded as well.
  • That makes Stabroek the second Caribbean outlet to shut down.
  • Limited readership has long boxed in publishers regionally.
  • Shareholders admitted profit was never the driver, but bills still mattered.
Industry reaction and legacy
  • Guyana Press Association reacted with visible grief.
  • The group called it the first independent post-independence paper.
  • November 1986 marked its debut as a weekly.
  • Decades later, it had grown into a daily forum for national debate.
 

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