There was clearly a lot of arrogance in the now-famous outburst of Alston Stewart that detractors should "shut their damn mouths" unless they had actual evidence of corruption at the National Solid Waste Management Agency (NSWMA) over which he presided until a few days ago.

Claude Robinson

But in a far more troubling way, the remark suggested that discourse on controversial public issues should be severely restricted unless and until there was actual proof of corruption or malfeasance. That boundary is far too restrictive.

Like every other citizen, Mr Stewart has a constitutional right to his reputation which cannot be thrown onto the garbage dump on the basis of hearsay or unsubstantiated allegations. But this cannot, and must not, prevent robust debate on public issues, especially on matters to do with public expenditure.

At issue is where and how the boundary lines should be drawn? Or, to put it another way, what is the proper role of the media in creating and sustaining good governance.

The question is timely. It was well nigh impossible to pick up a newspaper or tune in to talk radio over the past week or so without being exposed to repeated stories alleging absent or weak accountability or corruption in the discharge of public duty.

At the NSWMA, it was about spending "nearly a billion dollars a year in taxpayers' money without having in place formal contracts with persons with whom it contracted for service", (Observer editorial April 27).

It was about a US$45-million cost overrun (so far) at Sandals Whitehouse, the joint venture luxury hotel between the government and the Sandals hotel chain owned by Gordon 'Butch' Stewart (the principal owner of this newspaper).

'Target Corruption' was the banner headline over a Gleaner report (April 22) of Bruce Golding's contribution to the budget debate in which he bemoaned "too many instances of abuse of contract award procedures" and called for tough laws to punish officials who illegally award contracts.

Prime Minister PJ Patterson, in his own post-budget press conference and interview (Breakfast Club, HOT 102-FM) pleaded for more clarity in the debate. Too often, he asserts, what is labelled corruption may be no more than failure to follow correct procedure or just a management error.

Maybe, but what is the remedy? In business, the markets punish major management errors without mercy. Share prices fall when market expectations are not met. CEOs are fired. Firms go bankrupt.
Of course, markets are not perfect.

Sometimes they are manipulated. Sometimes insiders profit from special knowledge and connections. That's why we have regulators who have the power to go after such violators and lock up the ones who abuse shareholder trust for personal profit. In a place like Jamaica, that's not likely to happen very often.

In the public sphere voters can and do punish errors, misuse or abuse of public assets and resources by voting out the government in a democracy like ours. But what are voters to do in the four or five years between elections.

For starters, they can't just "shut their damn mouths". They have to insist on good governance. The term is becoming somewhat of a cliché with many a meaning. But whatever it means, it means societies work better when governments have to answer unfriendly questions in parliament from a political opposition and face condemnation from the public media.

This is not to say we should have government by 'bangarang' or journalism by gossip and sensationalism. It's an argument for thoughtful action to ensure that democracy works for all.
We spent much of the last week thinking about the prime minister's decision to take $5 billion out of the National Housing Trust to invest in the critically important and vastly under-funded education sector. There's no law for this but he says one will come soon.

Should we only think about the clearly benign purpose of this transfer of funds or should we also think about the awesome power of the prime minister to take an action and make it lawful afterwards - like declaring an unscheduled holiday after the national team had qualified for the World Cup.

This business of good political and corporate governance is not something of concern only to us here in Jamaica. Indeed Media and Good Governance is the theme of this year's World Press Freedom Day, to be observed internationally on May 3.

UNESCO, the UN agency with responsibility for media and communication issues, is observing the 'day' in Dakar, Senegal with an international conference on the subject and the award ceremony of the 2005 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize.

One of the main issues at the conference is the media's direct input in promoting good governance exemplified by such things as public participation in policy-making, free and fair elections, anti-corruption and the rule of law.

Media and poverty; media and human rights; freedom of information and access to information; journalistic ethics and investigative journalism training are also on the agenda.

This year's recipient of the UNESCO/Cano award is Chinese journalist Cheng Yizhong, who was chosen by an independent international jury of media professionals chaired by Kavi Chongkittavorn, executive editor of the Bangkok English-language daily The Nation.

The panel includes Oliver Clarke, chairman and managing director of the Gleaner, who was instrumental in having UNESCO stage the 2003 observance of World Press Freedom Day in Jamaica - the only time the event was held in the Caribbean since it was inaugurated in 1991.

The Guillermo Cano prize is named for the respected editor of a leading Colombian newspaper, El Espectador, who was murdered by Colombian drug kingpins for publishing stories about their dealings that they would rather keep secret.

Meanwhile, observances in Jamaica this year, also under the broad theme of "Media and Good Governance", will be highlighted by a panel discussion Tuesday evening at the Knutsford Court Hotel in Kingston among senior journalists and civil society advocates of democracy and governance.

There will be much to talk about: It is universally accepted that free and independent media act as guardians of human rights and watchdogs against abuses by authority, so that will be re-affirmed.
Practitioners will also have to talk about ways to strengthen professional standards, independence and economic viability of media and information institutions.

And there is a need for our national and regional tertiary training institutions to prepare better media personnel to function independent of political and business interests while maintaining the highest standards of professional ethics and media responsibility.

We also need to use the 'Day' to remind ourselves that the purpose of journalism is to provide citizens with the information they require to exercise their democratic rights and to disseminate information that is crucial for the life and development of communities.

Hence, one of the great challenges for media and governance is how to ensure that civil society have greater access to media to tell their stories and to help shape the media agenda and so determine the issues that are important for us to think about.

The challenge is greatest for groups without financial or social power to pay for the public relations machinery that determines so much of what is broadcast or printed.

Big government and big business control much of that machinery. Small shareholders have to find new ways to make big corporations accountable or send corrupt officials to jail.

Equally, citizens and institutions with a genuine interest in community development have to find ways to train more community people to develop media skills so they too can have more access to tell their own stories and frame the media agenda. Free, independent and caring media are vital to both processes.

Claude Robinson is senior research fellow in the Research and Policy Group, Mona School of Business, UWI.

Trousers in Denim

Cream of the 'Crop'

Cheeky's World