That it took a question from this newspaper’s Editor-at-Large Mr Arthur Hall for the Government to respond to the nasty attack on journalists at the Gleaner is unacceptable. However, we welcome Senator Dr Dana Morris Dixon’s declaration of the Government’s support for journalists being free to conduct their jobs and the importance of the media’s role in our society.

The question was put to Senator Morris Dixon, the minister with responsibility for information, in response to a disgusting video posted on social media this week naming
Gleaner journalists, accusing them of being supporters of the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) and using their journalism to try to bring down the Government.

So far, the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) has not issued a statement condemning the video, and without proof of its origin we can only speculate that it was produced and posted by people sympathetic to the party. In fact, a second video, making even more damaging allegations against the Gleaner journalists, appeared yesterday in response to a statement from the newspaper’s management rejecting the claims made in the first video.

We have no issue with politicians and their supporters accusing media houses of being aligned to political parties. That is the usual response from politicos and fanatics when stories that are not favourable to their party are published.

This newspaper, in particular, has been a target of both parties in our 31 years of existence. We were first labelled a PNP newspaper in the run-up to the 1993 General Election after publishing the photos of that party’s candidates. Before the publication we had reached out to both the PNP and JLP for candidate photos in order to give them equal treatment.

The PNP responded with their photos within a week of the request. We held the photos and again contacted the JLP. After another two weeks passed without them sending the photos, we went with what we had. At the time the Observer was a weekly.

Some years later, when the National Democratic Movement (NDM) was formed and was receiving a lot of ink, a senior member of the then PNP Government, angered by our coverage of the new party, labelled us an NDM paper.

Since then, the labels have changed to JLP, then to PNP, and now to JLP again. We are accustomed to it, and it is no skin off our backs.

However, when politicos, or their blinkered supporters, start placing journalists’ names with those accusations, we have a problem, because that, in this very polarised political environment, is setting up journalists for violent physical attacks.

The current videos naming the Gleaner journalists are reminiscent of PNP General Secretary Dr Dayton Campbell’s accusation, just over a year ago, of Nationwide News Network as being an “incubator for the Jamaica Labour Party”.

Had he stopped at that we would have written it off as him being upset at the radio station’s output. However, he crossed the line by naming journalists who were no longer at the station but are now working with the State.

As we have said before, we have no issue with being criticised. Indeed, the fact that we criticise State officials and other individuals engaged in politics gives them the right to say what they feel about us. However, painting a target on people’s backs is dangerous and, frankly, smacks of desperation.