The Press Association of Jamaica on Tuesday officially opened its newly refurbished training room at its East Avenue, St Andrew, headquarters.

The training room is equipped with a mahogany table and 10 comfortable office chairs and was funded by the Globe Insurance Company of Jamaica to the tune of $1.2 million.

PAJ president Byron Buckley said the training room will greatly aid the association in providing training for its members and is the prelude to the establishment of an institute early next year.

“… The Jamaica Press Institute will provide specialised job-related training and to conduct research to aid media bosses and will serve the wider communication sector,” Buckley said at Monday’s unveiling ceremony.

Buckley is among a five-member steering committee that was selected to oversee the establishment of the institute. The other members are communications consultant Yvonne Nicholson; human resource manager at the Gleaner, Mary Dick; Hopeton Dunn, acting head of the Caribbean Institute of Media and Communication; Dr Canute James; and Leighton Thomas.

In reaffirming his company’s commitment to assisting the PAJ, general manager for marketing at Globe Insurance Gordon Arnold said a free press was a key spoke in the wheel of democracy.

“The most successful indicator of any successful democracy is a free and fair press,” Arnold said.

The PAJ has already conducted two workshops – one on Media Relations, which was conducted by Buckley and another on ‘Advanced Techniques in News Writing’, which was presented by veteran broadcast journalist Cliff Hughes.

The eight journalists who participated in the workshops were presented with certificates during Monday’s ceremony.