Guyana’s Stabroek News daily newspaper announces closure

The Caribbean media landscape continues to face mounting pressures, with one of Guyana’s longest-running newspapers announcing it will cease operations.

Stabroek News, one of Guyana’s daily newspapers launched in the 1960s, announced Friday that it has taken what it described as the “extraordinarily difficult and painful” decision to shut down operations.

The closure makes the publication the second media entity in the Caribbean to cease operations in recent weeks, following the shutdown of the NEWSDAY newspaper in Trinidad and Tobago.

In a lengthy statement, Isabelle and Brendan de Caires, the two main shareholders of the newspaper, cited mounting financial pressures and outstanding government debt as key factors behind the decision. They said that over the past year, the state-run Department of Public Information has accrued more than GUY$80 million (approximately US$320,000) in unpaid advertising fees owed to the newspaper.

“The debt persists despite repeated private and public entreaties to clear it. This tactic could equally be construed as an attempt to starve this company of its operating fund,” the shareholders said.

They noted that publishing has always been a precarious undertaking in Guyana and across the wider Caribbean, pointing to limited readership and other market constraints.

“While the company has never been driven by a concern about profit, it must function as a business,” they said. “It is a given that any business needs to continually diversify and adapt and to seek alternative sources of income. We have faced significant obstacles.”

The shareholders also said the newspaper’s attempts to expand into broadcasting were repeatedly blocked. According to the statement, the company was denied a radio licence multiple times and, despite operating a television subsidiary for several decades, faced an uneven playing field compared with competitors that enjoyed significant privileges.

“The anticipated progression from newspaper to multimedia broadcaster has been impossible,” they said.

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Meanwhile, the Guyana Press Association said it was “deeply saddened” by the closure of what it described as the country’s first independent newspaper in post-independence Guyana, calling the shutdown “a significant loss to the nation’s media landscape and to the democratic fabric of our society.”

The association reflected on the newspaper’s historic role, noting that it was first published in November 1986 as a weekly before eventually becoming a daily. At the time, it provided a new level of openness within what was then a tightly controlled information environment.

It added that the publication went on to serve as a vital platform for public information and national discourse throughout its decades of operation.