01 February, 2008

Journalism


The Role of the Media in Exposing Corruption. I was very interested to read a recent speech by Victor Hart. He is the Chairman of the Trinidad and Tobago Transparency Institute. He was addressing the 27th General Conference of the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association. The meeting was held in Nassau from 23-26 January. The theme of the conference was Innovative Ways of Exposing Corruption – The Media and the People. Anyone wishing to read a copy of his speech, just email me.

He urged journalists to bring to their job more professionalism by proper checking of sources to ensure factual, legal and ethical content in their reports.

He asked them to show more balance in their reporting by eliminating all personal, political and other bias and challenged them to expand their areas of interest and to do more research.

He encouraged them to practise more investigative journalism.

Turning to the owners and managers of Media Houses, he urged them to give more support to their journalists by providing adequate resources and a work environment free from interference.

He asked them to reject the indolence of those reporters and editors who accept and publish 'set pieces' of news and press releases without searching to find the real stories behind the headlines.

They should make their journalists understand that quality and not quantity is what is expected of them and should encourage them to ask the hard questions without fear or favour.

It seems to me that we in Anguilla could have benefitted from our various media houses attending this conference. I sense that Anguillians would love to see any investigative journalism at all taking place. Anguillian media houses have made a science of accepting and publishing “set pieces” of news and press releases. We never search to find the real stories behind the headlines. We have no interest in quality, only in quantity. We never ask the hard questions. We only act from fear or favour.

Or is this an exaggeration?


5 comments:

  1. Dear Mr. Don Mitchell,
    I would love a copy of the speech.
    I plan to sent it as a reminder to HBR every time they broadcast another piece of shallow PR as news

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous -

    Send me your email at the address on my home page and I will send it to you at once.

    IDM

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  3. Just because he is from Trinidad, doesn't mean any investigative reporting is done in Trinidad. In fact they don't.

    Keep up the good work on your island.

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  4. Investigative reporting in its self is a good thing but we have to be aware of the fact that these reporters are frequently doing this service at great risk to both their families and themselves. There are not many reporters who would be willing to take on such risks. There is also the fact that many people are reluctant to provide or furnish the information to our reporters. Despite this, reporters should nevertheless strive to get the relevant and necessary facts to accurately report their articles. Freedom of the press is vital in exposing any form of corruption whether within the gov't or the public sector.

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  5. We will never have that here.
    Can you see The Anguillian doing that??

    Never

    ReplyDelete

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