Complacency robs Jamaica two places on Press Freedom Index — minister
MINISTER of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Senator Kamina Johnson Smith, says that Jamaica slipping two places in the world press freedom index this year was primarily due to complacency.
Speaking in the Senate on Friday, she said that one of the messages taken from Jamaica’s slippage from number six to number eight in the index, was the fact that the country cannot be too complacent about its position in the top 10.
“So, it may never be a fact of Jamaica having done less (over the past year), or our (press) fraternity having done less or our Government having done less. But, the fact that other countries have done more, while ours remained the same: Robust, but the same,” Senator Johnson Smith said.
“We note that we shouldn’t rest comfortably where we are, but that we don’t need to berate ourselves or seem to ascribe fault. We just need to work harder to maintain the place, and we also just need to celebrate the fact that we are still number one in the region,” Senator Johnson Smith added.
She noted that the two countries which swept past Jamaica
in the latest index — Denmark and New Zealand — did so because of striving harder to improve their freedom of the press record.
“And we should take note that we shouldn’t rest comfortably with where we are,” she stated.
She was reacting to the responses from the Government benches to a message from minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, Senator Pearnel Charles Jnr, who had acknowledged the work of the local press in highlighting the positive things that have been happening in the society.
Senator Charles Jnr made his presentation after President of the Senate Tom Tavares Finson acknowledged Friday as World Press Freedom Day and urged both sides of the Senate to salute the local media.
Charles praised the local press for “excellence and consistency”, and being such an “integral part of the democracy”.
“The media plays such an integral role in ensuring the participation of our people in the process of pursuing our goals,” he said, pointing out that the local press was able to play their role in the democracy, without the threat of serious violence.
However, Charles warned against the threat of “fake news or inaccurate information” from social media sources, and urged the traditional media to highlight where wrong information is being circulated.
Opposition Senator Floyd Morris expressed profound appreciation to the media fraternity for their contribution to national development.
He said that the media is at the centre of national development, and contributing to the free flow of information in the society “that sets the stage for a thriving media fraternity in our country”.
However, he expressed concern at the slippage of two places in the index which, he claimed, may have been attributed to the absence of the weekly Post-cabinet press briefings at Jamaica House for some time.
He said that there is need for more penetrative and intense media coverage of events, and investigative journalism. But, he suggested that the quality of investigative journalism may be due to the lack of proper compensation for journalists.
“I want to take the opportunity to make a call for those who are operating in the media fraternity to make sure that the journalists are properly compensated, so that they are emboldened to do the sort of work that we want them to do,” Senator Morris said.
“We want serious investigative journalism, but serious investigative journalism comes with a price,” he noted.
Another Opposition member, Senator Lambert Brown, said that press freedom was not about the performance of the journalists.
“It is about the measurement to which the State fails to interfere or obstruct the work of the journalist,”’ Brown said.
“Freedom of the press can’t be celebrated when you deny them or prevent them from getting information to inform the public,” he added.
The top 10 countries as rated in the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders in the 2019 World Press Freedom Index are:(1) Norway; (2)Finland; (3) Sweden; (4) Netherlands;(5) Denmark; (6) Switzerland; (7) New Zealand; (8) Jamaica; (9) Belgium; and (10) Costa Rica.