Guyana air crash: new media loses out to old

Flight BW 523 came to a screeching halt beyond the end of the runway at Cheddi Jagan International Airport, Guyana, at 1.32am. It broke in two. The pictures tell the story.

But all 163 passengers and five crew escaped largely unharmed in this 'miracle'. Just three are still hospitalised.

The reporting of the story makes for some object lessons for journalism.

Within two hours, President Bharrat Jagdeo and an entourage of ministers had arrived at the crash scene to direct operations. So too had some of the local press, woken from their beds.

The first story I can find is timed at 2.12am on the normally excellent Demerara Waves (left). I saw it at 6.30am, followed by brief updates on the websites of the two major local newspapers, the Kaieteur News and the Stabroek News, mainly consisting of a dramatic picture and some copy. The morning editions of both papers managed to get news of the crash in too.

But then silence for the rest of Saturday.

No live blogs on their sites; no updates to the first story. The Guyanese press simply do not yet 'get' the internet. (My new collection of edited papers with the University of Guyana, 'Face the Future Guyana', covers just this.)

It took the world press to run and develop the story. BBC News online led with it all day on its World News. Others far away but entrepreneurial found new angles based on first-hand reporting from Guyana by Bert Wilkinson, the excellent local Associated Press correspondent, and using Google Earth.

But the event which put oxygen into the reporting was the arrival of Trinidad and Tobago prime minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar at the crash site on Saturday evening.

Caribbean Airlines is her national carrier. She was tearful and powerful. More, she had the Trinidad press corps with her. It is sharper and more competitive than its Guyanese counterpart. That was reflected in the Sunday Trini papers, and even more so in the Monday ones, which had up to six pages of analysis, new angles including Trini relatives of the crew and speculation on the cause of the crash.

Guyana's online press was meanwhile all but silent. The printed press caught up a bit on Sunday but limited itself to pure reportage. Monday's was not much better. Some resorted to their default position of blaming President Jagdeo for tardiness. Much of the press in Guyana sees itself as the real political opposition.

It has been intriguing being here at the centre of a world media story. But the lessons are clear: the big boys do it better; they have more skills, more nous and, most important, more ambition. Much for the local media (and others) to learn.

John Mair is a senior lecturer in broadcasting at Coventry University. He is in his native Guyana on an applied research fellowship at the university.