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 27^th 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?