J’can media appear biased
Dear Editor:
My job is to follow media in the Caribbean and report trends for a US Think Tank.
Media everywhere have their agenda; however, it is more transparent in the US. I don’t have to guess the politics of Fox News or the New York Times: they publish their endorsements.
True freedom of the press requires declaration of interests. It doesn’t diminish the credibility of reporting, but rather it completes the information that audiences have to make better judgement. And it is just the fair thing to do. Otherwise you could have journalists disguising their personal views and secret affiliations as the impartial compass for public opinion.
I see this facade of impartiality in Caribbean media generally, and Jamaica particularly.
I analysed the content of editorials and columns in both major papers over the past eight years. An overwhelming number of negative columns and editorials have been written about the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), Bruce Golding, and Andrew Holness, compared to the People’s National Party (PNP) and Portia Simpson Miller. It could be there are more negative stories with the JLP than the PNP and editors and columnists are merely reflecting reality. However, this view doesn’t square with the content analysis of straight news reporting. There are more negative reports associated with the PNP during the period than with the JLP. It is only reasonable to expect that the facts of the news would drive editorials and columns. Not so in the overall analysis.
For example, editorials have chastised Holness on lack of policy but, in my analysis, Holness has had more than double the number of important policy statements than Simpson Miller over the same period. Most of those policies were captured in official statements, budget speeches and carried in news reports of the very papers that criticise him.
From my last report on media in Jamaica, my boss concluded that there indeed was a bias against the JLP and its leaders, based on the editorial and opinion stance over the last eight years.
Rosie Richardson
chocolate66@live.com
