The Association of Caribbean Media Workers has published its annual “overview of major developments affecting the practice of journalism and freedom of expression in the Caribbean.”
Different countries, different circumstances, but almost everywhere concern that factors internal to the workings of the media and various external elements including, but not exclusively the state, pose threats to the practice of free and independent journalism.
The report highlights, amongst other threats, the creep of censorship through state-imposed media councils as well as Government punishment of media outlets by withholding state advertising. It all sounds so miserably familiar. Bermuda gains some particular comment:
Last month, in Bermuda - an Associate Member of Caricom but not covered by our mandate as an organisation – the government announced a cutback in state advertising in the print media and terminated its subscriptions of newspapers meant for government offices and departments.
The Royal Gazette, the island’s only daily newspaper, has protested these acts claiming they were in response to the media house’s independent editorial line. Our position is that the withdrawal of state advertising has been widely recognised by governments all over the world as a method of punishing media houses for behaviour viewed as being recalcitrant or not in keeping with their political agendas.
They go on to remind of the hemispheric commitments contained in the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR):
The exercise of power and the use of public funds by the state, the granting of customs duty privileges, the arbitrary and discriminatory placement of official advertising and government loans; the concession of radio and television broadcast frequencies, among others, with the intent to put pressure on and punish or reward and provide privileges to social communicators and communications media because of the opinions they express threaten freedom of expression, and must be explicitly prohibited by law.
The PLP is carrying Bermuda onto dangerous ground through its attempts …
- to suppress the free media in the courts (Dr. Brown’s Privy Council fiasco)
- to damage the media through commercial manipulation (advertising carrot/stick)
- to favour certain media outlets (HOTT, CITV)
- to potentially extend control through a media council
- to threaten public figures who challenge the Government in the media.
Support for freedom of speech is like being pregnant. You is or you ain’t.
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