MANDEVILLE, Manchester — Manchester Custos Garfield Green has criticised the media for what he believes is exaggerated and unbalanced reporting.

“I want to say that they need to place more emphasis on some of the positives in the country. I think they sensationalise stories for attention and sometimes the stories are not necessary and not of value to society,” he told the Jamaica Observer last Wednesday as he sought to clarify a statement he had made a day earlier.

“The media is a source of information. We have a lot of good [and] a lot of bad happening, and if we keep focusing on the bad and the unnecessary things, that is what people will focus on,” he added.

On Tuesday Green, had blasted the media during a crime summit organised by his office at Neil’s Auditorium in Mandeville.

“I would really love for the media to help us to promote a lot of the good that is happening in our society. The bad things make headline news too often,” he had said.

“I want to cite two examples; There is a case going on now with [a] missing person. I listened to the interview on radio with the mother… She was asked if she went to the police station to report on how she was treated,” Green said in reference to the case of social media personality Donna-lee Donaldson.

“She [mother] had a good report of the police when she got there [police station],” Green claimed.

“Immediately it was dismissed by the moderator and the subsequent newscast kill the police. ‘What the police doing? And what the police doing to help? The police need to do more,’ in the newscast, but yet the mother had good to say about how she was treated at the police station,” the custos claimed.

Green, while not being specific, hinted at the coverage of last year’s withdrawal of a resignation letter by Mandeville Mayor Donovan Mitchell as he expanded on his criticism of the media.

“There was another matter [with] one of our leaders where it was rumoured that he was resigning from office; it was out in the news. A few days later at a function that leader said ‘this is the reason why I was [resigning]’, and immediately media people rushed to the front and it made news before the function was over,” said Green.

“Is that more important than some of the good that is happening in our society?” he asked.

Among the security leaders at the crime summit were head of the police’s Area Three, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Michael Smith and newly minted commanding officer for Manchester, Superintendent Shane McCalla.

A chuckling Green triggered laughter from the audience when he suggested that if he were to physically assault Smith, who was seated close to him, it would immediately make news.

“When the good things happen it has to go through processes to become news, but let me knock the ACP here so now, you hear ‘Bwoy, custos knock out the ACP’ and it is [a] news item immediately,” he said.

“On a very serious note though, it is just a handful of people destroying us — just a handful — and they seem to be more important than the rest of us,” said Green.

“Let us avoid rumours and gossip and misinformation. We have seen how they have destroyed us as a nation,” he advised.