Ken Chaplin

In 2006 the Jamaican press - and the word is being used in the traditional sense to mean newspapers, magazines, radio and television - carried out its primary role of informing, educating and entertaining the people quite well. Because of this I do not think any Jamaican government, now or in the future, will be able to fool the people who are perhaps best placed than at any time since independence, to weigh the issues intelligently.

For this reason, what appears to be propaganda by junior minister Harry Douglas that fire at the Riverton City Landfill (which caused so much distress among large sections of the population in St Andrew) was political sabotage, is not going to hold traction.

The fire was one of the usual conflagrations at the landfill and the problem prolonged as a result of the lack of proper equipment to put it out. This is an election year and one can expect propaganda. However, propaganda can be counterproductive.

If at times the press seemed overaggressive, there was justification for this because some of the ills in governance which it mirrored and magnified were recipes for economic and social instability. Professional journalists - reporters, editors and commentators who earn their livelihood from the practice of journalism - ought not to be blamed for reporting what was happening in the country. They told it as it was - accurately, fairly, impartially and without rancour or malice. All this is what objectivity, the password to quality journalism, is made of. Professional journalists ought not to be expected to turn bad news into good news.

The good performance of professional journalists reflected to a large extent the training given by the Caribbean Institute of Media Communication at the University of the West Indies. Of course the press made errors, but these were few and far between. Blame must be attributed to the poor performance of the government whose radar was too much on retaining power.

It was not a particularly good year in many areas of national life, especially in government and politics, and the press had a field day. The economy staggered along, social services like health care, education and sanitation deteriorated, crime was out of control, the new highways were lovely to drive on, but they were were awful to reach as almost all the internal roads were in a state of disrepair. The press carried the cry by the poor for justice across the plains, into the valleys and up the hills. This moved the government to bring a Canadian team to Jamaica to tackle the urgent matter of reform of the justice system. Until the report of the Canadians has been received, government needs to put pressure on the police to end injustice to the poor in the form of extra-judicial killings and unlawful detention by the police. Then there was widespread corruption in government and inequity in the distribution of government benefits and contracts.

The campaign for the offices of president of the People's National Party (PNP) and prime minister was a nasty affair and brought disgrace to a party which was once distinguished for its dignity and honesty, its sense of purpose and direction. As the year ended, this seemed to have been behind the party. In the early part of the year, some supporters of the PNP and government were saying that corruption in government was "no big thing" as all past governments were tainted by it. But later there seemed to have been a significant change in this attitude when people were told by sections of the press that corruption in government robbed taxpayers of money needed to take care of the poor and maintain social services and infrastructure.
Only a few people, including some politicians, got rich out of corruption. It was a great credit to professional journalists that they exposed corruption, especially in the form of cost overruns on public projects to the extent that they did.

Professional journalists, including commentators, have to be set apart from those who write columns. There are columnists who are quite independent and others who serve special interests. However, in a country where freedom of expression is highly regarded, the mix is serving us well. The country needs more professional journalists writing columns. When I joined the Press Association of Jamaica in the l950s people who worked for newspapers, magazines and radio and television were eligible for ordinary (full) membership. Public relations officers and information officers for the state and firms were honorary members because they served special interests and were not considered journalists. But things have changed and the category of ordinary membership has been broadened.

Governance in 2006 was dominated by corruption. Strangely enough, no one went to prison although we had one notable resignation in government. A galore of scandals in government hit the news. They included the Sandals Whitehouse Hotel construction cost overruns, Trafigura Beheer "pop-off", and "sink-off" in the National Solid Waste Management Authority. In all of the scandals, the press kept the people fully informed, and the news and editorials discredited the government. While government has done some things right, a great deal of wrongdoing has taken place. As a friend said at a New Year's Day gathering, "There seems to be a lack of political will to bring about change, so the people will have to demand change."

As far as the private sector was concerned, the reporting of business and financial development by journalists in 2006 was superb.

The role of the press in 2006 cannot but redound to the good of the country.

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