Over the years, people in the media development field have
been paying increasing attention to industry performance and sustainability at
times of natural disaster. It had previously been the case that strategies for
media durability would focus almost exclusively on the tendency of dictatorial
governments and criminal elements to attempt to silence the free press through subterfuge,
threats, death and injury.
Journalists were (and still are) silenced by physical
attacks, bribery, media regulation, and social environments conducive to
self-censorship. Media houses are also deliberately starved of important resources
in order to cripple their operations. There are advertising boycotts and
targeted official attacks of different kinds, and today there is an attempt to
undermine the credibility of mainstream media through concerted campaigns to which
the label “fake news” is being gratuitously attached.
Through it all, we had somehow continued to ignore the fact
that among the most effective ways a media enterprise can be wiped out, and
therefore terminally silenced, is through a natural disaster of one kind or another.
In 2005 at the inaugural conference of the Global Forum for
Media Development (GFMD) in Jordan, the two Caribbean representatives there put
the issue on the table: press freedom can also fall prey to disasters and the
responses to disasters.
It was only one year after Hurricanes Ivan and Jeanne – both
of which had badly affected Hispaniola (Haiti in particular); while Grenada was
virtually decimated by Ivan. In all instances, the media had been severely
disabled.
I was one of the two delegates in Jordan. The other was
Jean-Claude Louis of the Panos operation in Haiti. Five years later, it was
Haiti’s turn, following the deadly earthquake there.
At the Jordan conference, I was elected to the GFMD Steering
Committee and thereafter continued pressing the point. When Irma and Maria
devastated Dominica and other islands last year, it was therefore not a hard-sell
to propose assistance for affected journalists, via the Association of
Caribbean MediaWorkers (ACM). The Caribbean Broadcasting Union (CBU) admirably focused
on damaged media plant and equipment.
Then came last week’s floods in T&T and media performance
that silenced the “fake news” purveyors and outright enemies of the free press.
Employing the same social media platforms so often engaged to undermine them,
our cadre of young, tireless reporters swamped the landscape with first-hand,
verified reporting. The Guardian Media team excelled at this, as did some
colleagues from other media. This was exemplary media practice.
It was, among other things, reminiscent of Irma and Maria
when social media mischief-makers all appeared to remain silenced and under
their beds while journalists and other media workers were out on the field
diligently doing their work.
Of course, last week, some of the regular suspects found
time from the sanctity of their homes or caves or nests to attempt to divert the
news agenda in the direction of mischief and falsehood. In the midst of a
disaster this is unpardonable, to say the very least. But to the credit of media
media audiences these pathetic characters were largely ignored.
Last March, the ACM assembled journalists from around the
Caribbean and sat them down alongside climate change specialists, development
experts, and public agencies responsible for regional disaster management and
relief to discuss two main issues.
The first had to do with the resilience of media enterprises
to withstand the effects of different kinds of disasters, and the second was to
determine the requirements of sound journalistic practice under such conditions.
Out of that exercise, we produced a small document – a
“pamphlet”, I have been calling it - which is now also available in Spanish.
But we still need to get our act together as media and as a
society. For example, the ODPM needs to sit with the Telecommunications
Authority as a matter of great urgency to discuss the need for an Emergency Alert
System, and other requirements of this country’s National Emergency
Communications Plan. Minister Stuart Young needs to find the time to ensure
this is done.
This Plan must urgently become practised strategy. The local
media have already announced partnership status and their journalists proven
their worth.
*Originally published in the Trinidad & Tobago Guardian - October 31, 2018
