The Press Freedom Challenge in the Caribbean

World Press Freedom Day 2011 is special for more than one reason. Not only is it 20 years since the endorsement of the Windhoek Declaration in Namibia that gave birth to these observances all over the world, but this year also marks the 10th anniversary of the inauguration of the Association of Caribbean MediaWorkers (ACM).

In many respects, the circumstances that led to the assembling of international journalists in the southern African state in 1991 were not much different from the imperatives that brought Caribbean journalists together in Bridgetown, Barbados in 2001. Neither can we discern many fundamental differences from the world we meet in the year 2011, with respect to the over-riding concern that freedom of expression faces stark challenges in the face of wider social, political and global military conflict.

There is the unfortunate tendency in this part of the world to assume a level of global insulation - that it is possible to erect some kind of impervious shield against approaching outbreaks of democracy and liberation. There is also the assumption that a defence of cultural relativism is sufficient to address hybrid versions of free societies that provide the right to choose political administrations but restrict the right to hold them up to wider and deeper inspection through the work of a free and unfettered press.

For this reason, World Press Freedom Day provides a worthwhile avenue to stress the indivisibility of the right enshrined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – freedom of expression in all its manifestations. It is important to note what Article 19 actually says: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

Relate this now to the year 2011 and the theme of this year’s World Press Freedom Day observances: “21st Century Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers.” It is clear the social and political requirements to achieve the ideals of free expression declared in 1948 remain absolutely pertinent to the challenges of 2011. In the Caribbean, there is particular relevance, especially within the context of our essentially authoritarian, post-colonial culture.

Regional telecommunications regulators whose political genetics predispose them to command and control, wish to explore new barriers to the new frontiers of smart phones, tablet PCs and a tireless, besieged worldwide web. Politicians insist on retention of criminal defamation statutes despite the evidence that they pose a danger to free speech and freedom of the press.

In this regard, we call on the government of Jamaica and all other Caribbean community countries to take action to erase the common law offences of criminal libel including blasphemous, obscene and seditious libel from their statute books. It is a position endorsed by a Joint Select Committee of the Jamaican parliament in 2008, following submission of the Justice Hugh Small Report that very year.

Though the media landscape in the Caribbean is undergoing a measure of change, such change is not being matched by a corresponding revolution in official mind-set. Despite repeated promises, the government of Guyana persists in its refusal to award new radio broadcasting licenses and has used state advertising revenues as a tool of media punishment and reward. The state media in Trinidad and Tobago still wrestle with the spectre of political control and there is evidence that a coercive broadcast content quota system will return, courtesy state regulators, to the front burner in due course.

The majority of Caribbean Community countries have also not passed access to information laws. The presence of such laws is a prerequisite to declaration of the bona fides of a Caribbean country as one committed to transparency and accountability. In instances where such laws exist, it is also important to ensure they are truly providing unfettered access to official information in the way originally intended.

We would further urge political figures to shun the inclination to blame media messengers in an attempt to vilify the media for stories unfavourable to them.

Finally, the ACM also finds cause to note the extent to which factors within the media industry itself are providing obstacles to the achievement of a truly free press. Poor media performance, oppressive industrial relations environments, endemic self-censorship, incompetent media leadership and a lack of professional commitment by media practitioners provide a tragic basis for erosion of free expression and a free press.

We note with concern that the loss of jobs in the news media industry can serve to weaken the fabric of press freedom and free expression. This is particularly disconcerting when we witness declarations of increased corporate profits even as poor financial performance has been cited as the reason for layoffs and cutbacks.

The ACM and its national affiliates and focal points are building a platform for media workers to undertake the work necessary to address some of these shortcomings. It has taken us 10 years to reach where we are.

We look forward to the day the regional media leadership takes up the challenge as well.

We note the work of the Media Association of Jamaica, the Trinidad and Tobago Publishers’ and Broadcasters’ Association and the fledgling Guyana Media Owners’ Association. Hopefully, like the media workers, the captains of the regional media industry will someday provide a united, cohesive front in the face of the new and old barriers to new and old frontiers, as they did in the past. In the ACM you will in fact meet a worthy ally. We wish for the people of the Caribbean to find in us some assurance that the freedoms we fought for in the past remain lived realities and do not slip from our grasp.

What do you mean "media convergence"?

I think while a lot of fuss is being made and has been made about the issue of media convergence in the Caribbean, there is a need for it to be disaggregated according to the key constituencies – media enterprises, media workers and media consumers.

The main advantage of convergence to media owners and managers, based on precedents I know of, simply reflect the use of a smaller group of journalists to produce more content. The bottom line has been that for the price of, say, a radio newsroom, media owners and managers hope to use the banner of media convergence to receive more radio, television and even print content.

The advantage of all of this to media workers would include improved marketability within the context of this trend through the acquisition of a more intimate acquaintance of mass media across disciplinary platforms. Today, for example, more journalists are aware of or have worked across media disciplines throughout the Caribbean. Journalists who started out in the print media now do radio and television and vice versa.

However, the combination of enforced convergence in the newsroom and new technologies – smart phones, digital media, online media – means that journalists are now routinely expected to produce much more than they have in the past. In days past, the newspaper was put to bed and that was that. Today, for example, online versions of newspapers are updated at anytime.

Output has however increased in a situation not reflected by upgraded industrial relations practices. Trade unions, where they exist in the media (and media are under-represented by trade unions as a sector), are not in tune with recent developments and work contracts are routinely discussed in the absence of such a consideration.

Media consumers have benefited through the increase in productivity. However, because of the exploitative nature of the process, there has not been a corresponding increase in quality. More has not necessarily meant “better.”

We must however conclude that media convergence is not an aspiration, it is already a lived reality. But our media and other social institutions have not responded to engage questions related to its impact on media workers and general quality of content. This is the responsibility of all constituents to address for the sake of a free press and a free society.

Traditional Media Join the Dots

New social media in the form of blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others are unfolding as important primary sources of news and information on life in Trinidad and Tobago.

They have played a vital role in unveiling important information on a number of recent, high-impact news stories. These have included issues such as the Reshmi Ramnarine assignment and developments linked to the work of the Tourism Development Company (TDC).

International media development experts are beginning to agree that while social media have been able to identify the “dots” on the social and political landscape, traditional, mainstream media are best placed to join those dots.

A discussion convened by the Washington-based Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA) and the Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD) last week explored the issue.

The context of the discussion was the pervasive and effective use of social media during what James Deane of the BBC World Service Trust, described as “democratic outbursts” in North Africa and the Middle East.

Most speakers suggested that the “new” media can be used appropriately as content in mainstream media but that more needed to be done to establish the bona fides of the new platforms.

Luis Botello of the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) for example said the challenge of social media usage resided in being able to sift through a growing mass of citizen-generated content.

His said his own organisation, which promotes journalistic development and press freedom globally, continued to ask hard questions about “who gets to be trained” in order to promote greater credible use of social media as a source of news and information.

Deane suggested it might well be a case where the benchmarks of performance by the bloggers and other social media users would be the extent to which there is “self discipline” and a “commitment to peace” on their part.

He said it was clear “we will need to go beyond what we have seen in the Middle East” since both repressive governments and organised criminal networks are equally capable of using the new media to their advantage as propaganda tools.

Veet Vivarta, Executive Secretary of the Brazilian News Agency for Children's Rights (ANDI), argued that whatever the new media brought to the table, “old style journalism” was still “a very important tool” in telling the stories of societies.

He pointed to the reliance of the “old tools” on values including accountability and transparency.

The debate is however tempered by the realisation that Deane’s “democratic outbursts” are essentially the product of social movements with tentacles that extend way beyond the reach of the new media.

It was a point stressed by A.S. Panneerselvan of Panos South Asia and India who said it was the “power of Tahrir Square” in Egypt that brought the Mubarak regime to its knees and not the influence of the new media. He said a lot of time was being spent on looking at something that was simply the expression of a much deeper-seated process taking place throughout the globe.

Gabriel Baglo of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) operations in Senegal said, for example, that “what is happening in North Africa today is what happened 20 years ago in the rest of Africa.”

He said it was important that the momentum of the movements in North Africa and the Middle East expand since there was a recognisable “democratic recession” throughout the African continent. A similar comment was made about democratic “roll backs” in some parts of Europe including countries such as Hungary.

There was general agreement that the facilitative role of the social media was becoming increasingly difficult to reverse since, in most instances, digital media are an integral part of the digital economy.

This made it difficult for repressive governments to tinker with free expression in the new media without hampering the greater use of online technology in the development process.

The general conclusion was that the social media are not only here to stay, but will continue to be an important source of potentially revolutionary change, reinforced and validated by old fashioned newspapers, television screens and radios.


* Originally published in the (Trinidad) Sunday Guardian - http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/2011/03/20/social-media-takes-place-alongside-old-media

Impending Closure of BBC Caribbean Service

January 25, 2011 - The Association of Caribbean Media Workers (ACM) is saddened by the announcement by the British Broadcasting Corporation that its popular Caribbean Service is to be closed.

The ACM wishes to pay tribute to the West Indian men and women and their British counterparts who strove for more than 40 years, and more recently, in more than 15 years of unbroken service to present a balanced, comprehensive and intelligent picture of life in the Caribbean. The Caribbean Service has also been an invaluable source of insightful analyses and commentaries on the effect of world economics and politics on the region.

While the BBC has created several incarnations of the BBC Caribbean Service going back to the Second World War, the ACM honours the contribution of the late Hugh Crosskill, who as editor of the modern Caribbean Service shaped the unit into a significant source of regional radio news. We pay special tribute to the fine work of his long-standing successor, Debbie Ransome, a veteran journalist who increased the Caribbean Service's output and made it an essential part of radio listening diets across the region.

The Caribbean Service's journalists and producers deserve the highest commendation. They also deserve the unequivocal assurance that their names -household names for thousands of Caribbean people - will not be lost to egional broadcasting. The ACM believes that this is an opportunity for bold, collective ction by Caribbean media owners and managers to ensure that the careers of en and women who contributed significantly to regional information and nderstanding can continue.

It is in this regard that the ACM calls on the Caribbean Media Corporation and the Caribbean Broadcasting nion, whose mandates and functions mirror that of the Caribbean Service, to move immediately to create a viable alternative. The CMC, especially, which has inherited the Caribbean News Agency (CANA), a trusted and independent organisation that gave so many of the BBC Caribbean staff their start, must now seize the opportunity to ensure that the region does not skip a beat in making the transition from a London-based Caribbean news organisation to a Caribbean-based news agency.

While the ACM applauds the sterling work of its colleagues in London, it has long believed that only a truly Caribbean institution that is to the region what the BBC has been to the world can be a vital part of the communications mix in a Caribbean single economy and a Caribbean single marketplace of ideas.

The Caribbean needs a distinctive service of high quality news and information that is collected, distilled and explained by some of its veteran journalists, not a hodge-podge of duplicated copy from national media houses.

Let it not be said that in a moment of adversity, the Caribbean media failed to shed considerations of parochialism and profit to create a trustworthy source of Caribbean news and information.

It would be a sad commentary on the fruit of regional independence and integration and the greatest possible disservice to the people of this region if the Caribbean broadcast media, who do possess the resources, lack the will to do what the moment demands of them.

Organising Caribbean Journalists - The Journey

After nine years of existence, the Association of Caribbean MediaWorkers has defied the doubting Thomases (and there have been many) and has been able to engage the multi-faceted tasks of networking journalists, promoting professional development in the Caribbean media and holding fast to the principles of free expression and a free press.

This has not been an easy journey. For one, we have attempted to accomplish our tasks largely through the volunteer efforts of resourced-starved national associations and focal points and the vision of a group of elected individuals functioning at the regional level and who serve on our executive board.

This, though, is not exactly the right model. Our counterparts who form part of the Global Forum for Media Development and the International Freedom of Expressions Exchange are both professionally outfitted and also receive the regular support of international media development agencies. Perhaps in the Caribbean we have too successfully sold our image as a tropical paradise to many who continue to believe that the threats to our freedom are imagined, if not over-stated and that “we cool”.

However, because of the partnerships we have forged through international partners who are finally getting the message, the ACM has been able to complete assignments over the years that have included a journalism mentoring programme, more than 20 training workshops and projects, collaboration on the publication of a handbook on covering climate change and production of our handbook on covering elections in the Caribbean.

The ACM serves on the steering committees of the Latin American and Caribbean operations of IFEX and GFMD and sits on the IT Sub-Committee of CARICOM. We also have working relations with the International Press Institute, the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression in the Americas.

Our agenda is transparent and obvious. It is what I often describe as the “freedom perspective” – meaning that we need to maintain constant vigil over freedoms and rights that cost us dearly through our experience of slavery, indentureship and colonialism. It is incredible that in a part of this globe characterised in the past by these phenomena on such a large scale, human rights NGOs are so sparse and, where they exist, are of questionable value in the context of the right to maintain hard-won freedoms – freedom of expression in particular.

Such a task has fallen to those of us who believe this is something worth fighting for, however much it challenges the fashionable instinct to opt for personal privilege over the collective good.

This, of course, is not altogether an altruistic aspiration. Media workers insist on press freedom so that media enterprises flourish and grow and create environments in which we thrive and achieve professional rewards and satisfaction.

Press freedom calls on those who wield economic and political power to account for their decisions and their actions. It not only pursues the facts, but relishes the truth. It is an important pillar upon which we can build our true independence.

This, perhaps, is not the season to dwell too much on these lofty, esoteric matters, but it is certainly the time for us to focus on where we go from here. It’s almost like that star more than 2,000 years ago when those who believed in something came up against those who did not believe. They fixed their gaze upon that star and never gave up.

It might be as we approach 2011, we are being called upon to re-dedicate ourselves to a cause that is not always popular - one that costs us money, time and, sometimes, friends.

Photo Blog

Spent some down time today updating my Photo Blog. Some of it recent. But I do include some shots from 2003 in Fiji.

Many things to write about as we look back at 2010 and forward to 2011. Let's see how things go.

Finding Neruda

Toes hurt. It is misleading to say Baquedano station takes you to this place. Lost in the translation are the long, summer streets of kissing school girls and boys with cold, oversized Escudo cervezas just right for the piss of mountain horses.

I have come here to Neruda’s blue wall along “Constitution” – what a name for the street on which he lived and wrote of rules to break under the heaving weight of love.

Mikhail on my mind as I pass the hippie murals. A “crapaud foot”, upper case tribute to the 35^th year since the poet’s passing and a red stony climb to the blue wall.

I had realised two streets before, near the drunken guy with the credit card thingy in his loose hand, that the hapless, tag-along Nikon over my shoulder was as cardless as the endangered thingy.

Hearts do stop and start again … faster.

Shit.

Here I was at the shrine. It is important that you not only touch and feel and smell, but capture with both hearts and take with you a piece of this place. Hold like arms to a newborn.

So, back again I go. Tomorrow, if it ever comes.