What do people think of the press?

I am fascinated by a debate that is underway in Jamaica about that country's libel laws, which touches on press freedom and protection of individuals' reputations. Ahead of any conclusions, some interesting observations are coming out. A very good editorial this morning points clearly to the tensions between these two needs (see Jamaica Observer editorial). Whatever one thinks about the traditional press, it is enlightening that a recent survey shows that only 29 per cent of those interviewed in Britain, the United States and Germany thought their media did a good job in reporting news accurately (see Gleaner report). That seems like an abysmally small proportion; put otherwise, about 80 percent of people think the media are misinforming or lying.

The Gleaner report adds that the International Communication Forum, an affiliate of Moral Rearmament [MRA], and which strives to improve integrity and public trust in media, has reported that in many places public perception of media is not much better than perception of politicians (meaning not very positive). The report adds that "Internet-based open media is now a big damper to [the] threat [to press freedom]". It also flags that money in the form of "big advertising dollars" can also be wielded to influence the press, especially when these dollars can be cartelized. Truth is that "big money" can adversely affect press freedom in other ways, for example, when it comes to uncovering wrong doing and corruption.

I really do not have a position I want to push on this topic. At the moment I am motivated by thoughts that we have in the Caribbean one of the best modern democratic structures, and a reasonable amount of press freedom has been an important part of that. In Jamaica's case one is seeing that in a series of articles coming out during the past month about corrupt policemen (e.g, running a car stealing ring, and fabricating evidence), and a bubbling scandal about misappropriation of funds by Ministers in the just-defeated People's National Party, to cite just a few instances. This is not surprising for Jamaica.

I will be interested to see what aspects of this debate percolate to other parts of the region, especially here in Barbados.