The Association of Caribbean MediaWorkers (ACM) is wrapping up its busiest year since about a dozen
of us assembled in Barbados in November 2001 and decided that we needed to
re-invent an organisation of Caribbean media workers to carry the flags of
press freedom advocacy, journalistic networking and the promotion of higher
professional standards.
This year tested the abilities we have developed over the
past 11 years in unprecedented ways. We undertook, for example, to function as
local organisers in Trinidad and Tobago for the 61st World Congress
of the International Press Institute (IPI). It was one of the biggest media
events ever hosted in the Caribbean with over 400 participants from North,
Central and South America, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Pacific.
I pay special tribute to Kiran Maharaj, president of the
Trinidad and Tobago Publishers and Broadcasters Association who co-chaired the
Local Organising Committee and made many things possible that would have otherwise
not taken place. Nylah Ali, Adelle Roopchand, Naylan Dwarika, Wendy Sealy,
Fazilette McIntyre and Frances Lakatoo also contributed meaningfully to much of
the preparatory work that needed to be done.
This year, we also partnered with several international and
regional organisations for subject-specific journalistic workshops on food and
agriculture journalism, reporting development issues, the environment, international
trade, reporting on violence against children and covering international human
rights. Close to 100 regional journalists would have participated in these
events sponsored by UNDP, UNICEF, UWI, CARDI/CTA, Caricom Secretariat and UNEP.
In 2012, we also participated in press freedom missions in
Jamaica and Barbados led by the IPI, with which we have a meaningful
cooperation agreement, signed in 2011. Special thanks to IPI Director, Alison
Bethel-McKenzie, for ensuring that the Caribbean remains in international focus
on matters related to media development. IPI remains an important resource for
professional guidance and institutional support.
We also signed a cooperation agreement with the Pacific
Islands News Association (PINA) with which we share many things in common. We
hope to work with PINA in 2013 specifically on development of journalistic
training resources on covering food and agriculture issues and generally on
information-sharing measures. Like the ACM, PINA is engaged in media
development work in a region of island states facing very similar challenges.
Unlike the ACM, PINA is on the road to financial sustainability through its
dual role as press freedom organisation and news agency (PACNEWS). We have
agreed that there is much to learn from each other and the ACM has shared
information on our work with developing journalistic guides on covering
elections and climate change and our effectiveness on press freedom issues.
During the course of 2012, we also continued our active
engagement in the work of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange
(IFEX) – another very important partner and generous source of institutional
support. Through the IFEX Latin American and Caribbean Alliance (IFEX-ALC) we
were able to contribute to the first publication of a report on impunity in
Latin America and the Caribbean and also to launch it in Guatemala in time for
international observance of International Day to End Impunity 2012. The ACM also
sits as a member of the Council of IFEX and is currently engaged in planning
for the next General Meeting of the body in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in June 2013.
We have also been elected as an alternate member from the
Latin America and Caribbean region of the Global Forum for Media Development
(GFMD) which is an umbrella body of international media development agencies.
Several Caribbean countries currently benefit from programmes extended by
members of the GFMD. Our internal mandate
has been to attract greater attention to the needs of Caribbean media outfits
and their operatives. Most of these bodies are currently actively engaged in re-building
media plant and operations in Haiti and several English-speaking Caribbean
journalists have benefited from training programme and symposia hosted by other
GFMD members.
But much more work needs to be done at home to build
capacity and support for our national affiliates: Antigua and Barbuda Media
Congress (ABMC), Barbados Association of Journalists (BAJ), Media Workers Association
of Dominica - MWAD (dormant), Media Workers Association of Grenada (MWAG),
Guyana Press Association (GPA), Association of Surinamese Journalists, Media
Association of Saint Lucia (MASL, born in 2012), Media Workers Association of
St Kitts and Nevis (MWASKN), Media Association of Trinidad and Tobago (MATT) and
Press Association of Jamaica (PAJ).
In the New Year, we hope to work more assiduously with
colleagues in St Vincent and the Grenadines to help establish a national
association; with journalists in Haiti to identify a new partner organisation
and with the Colegio Dominicano de Periodistas of the Dominican Republic to
determine the terms of its engagement with the ACM.
We have achieved much with very little in 2012. All of our
work is done on a voluntary basis by persons otherwise engaged in journalism
and other communication work. This is not easy.
The current executive committee has established a series of
sub-committees with responsibility for specific areas of activity. I wish to
identify one sub-committee in particular, led by Second Vice President, Byron
Buckley, which has focused on training. Through Byron’s fine work, we have been
able to develop our own online training curricula for application in courses to
be offered via the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas in 2013. My
personal congratulations to Byron for the work he has done in this area.
As a result of commitments made by an international partner
in 2012, our Assistant General-Secretary, Clive Bacchus, is also leading an
attempt to launch a concerted programme of training on the coverage of food and
agriculture issues in the Caribbean in 2013.
After 11 years of existence, there are a few people who
merit special mention. Hopefully, we will someday recognise these colleagues in
more tangible ways: Peter Richards, Bert Wilkinson, Nylah Ali, Clare Forrester,
Angelica Hunt, Dale Enoch, Julius Gittens, Marvin Hokstam, Michael Bascombe,
Tony Deyal, Lennox Grant, Raoul Pantin, Desmond Allen, Adelle Roopchand, Naylan
Dwarika, Theresa Daniel, Nita Ramcharan and Vernon Khelawan come to mind.
We know we have not done everything as well as we should have
and it is no great comfort that our international partners often marvel at what
we achieve on an entirely voluntary basis. We are also aware that there are
detractors who believe that our widening focus on human rights and freedom of
expression is misplaced in the Caribbean context and that we would be better
placed focusing exclusively on networking and strengthening the stock of
journalistic resources. The fact is these imperatives are all highly inter-related
and inter-dependent.
The ACM platform is also a Caribbean space which
acknowledges a changing media landscape in which the new players are not only
knocking at the door, but are actually shaping an entire infrastructure for the
future.
The agenda we promote proposes greater freedom for all. We consequently
oppose more restrictions under the dubious umbrella of “responsibilities”
which, in most instances, has been code for self-censorship.
Press freedom, you see, is not an esoteric principle
borrowed from libertarian “westerners” but an actual condition shaped by
tangible laws, regulations, principles and practices. It is also not subject to
cultural-relativism, now used as an excuse for human rights blindness and the
belief that we are all too poor, too small and too ignorant to be free.
This is the broader challenge of the ACM as we enter 2013
and beyond – raising awareness, both within and without the new and old media
industries, of the immediacy and pervasiveness of the threats that abound.
I wish all our members, friends and associates the best for
the New Year and look forward to even greater support in 2013.
