(CMC) \u2013 Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister, Dr Keith Rowley, has called on journalists in the Caribbean to focus, investigate, interpret, educate and report on the development processes of their countries.<\/p>\n
Delivering the feature address at the opening of the 53rd General Assembly of the Barbados-based Caribbean Broadcasting Union (CBU) on Monday, Rowley, a geologist, who has spent 40 years in electoral politics, said he has been a close observer of the media as he sought to make himself clear on the thorny issue of development journalism.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe that journalists, in what is loosely called the developing world, should see it, in their professional charge, to focus, investigate, interpret, educate and report on the development processes of their countries.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey must take ownership and be guardians, and given the Caribbean\u2019s history, they must be understanding and sympathetic to the realistic challenges of the fledgling development processes,\u201d said Rowley.<\/p>\n
He told the media executives from the English, French, Spanish and Dutch-speaking Caribbean that most importantly, journalists must be able to carry out their function in the new environment \u201cwithout any government guidance or intervention.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAs such they must cultivate, and view their world, with the so-called \u201cJeweller\u2019s eye\u201d, interpreting, educating and helping their fellow citizens to locate themselves and their interests in the wider world,\u201d he said, lamenting however \u201cI\u2019m afraid that is not the journalism I see being widely practised.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is the journalism of \u201cpublish and be damned\u201d, \u201cGotcha!\u201d, or simple, \u201cHe\/She said that\u201d \u2014 all largely without context or recorded history. A listener, reader or viewer is not helped or educated \u2013 in the democratic process, when a journalist has a story, then searches for a counterpoint. Full stop. That is, it!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere must be a context, a wider, deeper background within, and to that story, which helps the receiver. Journalism today has to go beyond such limits of the current line of \u201cattempts to reach Mr\/Ms So-and-So for comment, failed\u201d. Again, that is, it!\u201d<\/p>\n
Rowley said he wanted to suggest that journalists in the Caribbean, must see \u201cevery story they write, as report within the history and uniqueness of the Caribbean condition.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAlso, journalists and journalism today must visit and keep re-visiting the volumes, written on the dangers of cultural imperialism, and what it has done, and continues to do to the minds of the West Indian people, and its youth,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Rowley said that it is in this context that he applauds both UNESCO and the CBU for promoting the discussion on its theme \u201cMedia and Information Literacy in Journalism\u201d, as a relevant counter to the clear and present dangers of misinformation and disinformation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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