Dionne Jackson Miller was yesterday re-elected president of the Press Association of Jamaica (PAJ) for a second term and immediately set her administration’s focus on three main goals — dismantling barriers that frustrate journalists using the Access to Information Act; the the re-establishment of a welfare fund for journalists; and the establishment of a welfare committee to support as well as maintain contact with past or ailing members of the PAJ.

“I’d like to see us focus a little more on the Access to Information Act. We’ve been getting lots of concerns from media workers about how it operates and the barriers they go through in terms of trying to get information,” Jackson Miller said at the PAJ’s annual general meeting held at the association’s headquarters in St Andrew.

The PAJ president also made the suggestion to look at a welfare fund that members can access whenever they are in financial need.

“I do want us to try at least, even if we start small, to re-establish that welfare fund, whereby people in need, for whatever reason — medical or otherwise — can get either soft loans or grants from the fund,” she said.

In relation to the welfare committee, Jackson Miller said: “We hear about people who are ill, who are older members, who are shut-ins. I think we need to find a way to ensure we really keep in better contact with our members, such that somebody dies and it is not a shock to a lot of people… We would have been there, whether in terms of us visiting people or providing any little assistance we can. Sometimes it will be little, but just so people are aware that the PAJ is there for them, not just when you are a working journalist, but in the years after that. Those are three of things I’d like to see done.”

The other members of the executive elected yesterday are Michelle Wilson Reynolds, first vice-president; Karen Madden, second vice-president; Ceila Morgan, treasurer; Archibald Gordon, secretary; and Karen Findlay, assistant secretary.