BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – JOURNALISM is a noble profession and its underpaid practitioners must be honest, fair and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information.
To be credible, journalists must test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error, because deliberate distortion is not permissible. But how can a journalist in St. Kitts and Nevis test the accuracy when information is hard to come by?
Yesterday (Jan. 9), six journalists from five media houses held a panel discussion on WINN FM’s ‘Inside The News’ programme to sensitise the public on their respective top stories covered in 2015 and the challenges faced. Coming out of that discussion was the difficulty media practitioners experienced and still experiencing in acquiring information of public interest from most government departments and the private sector as well as from the Police Force.
It was noted that the social media are in competition with mainstream media and many people would either see events and issues posted on Facebook or sent via WhatApps and would seek out the mainstream media houses for verification. In doing so, many of them could be heard on call-in programmes, while others would post comments asking: “Why is your media house not reporting on this matter?”
On many occasions this publication, like a number of other reputable media houses, would see what is on Facebook and WhatsApp as well as hearing from concerned citizens, only to investigate and discover that what was posted and heard was false. And at other times when the information might be true, efforts to verify their authenticity have proven to be very difficult and, because news is timely, these media houses would only be brief in their reportage.
In relation to false information, for example, this publication had received a message via WhatsApp that a traffic accident had occurred along the island’s main road in some village on the western corridor of Basseterre which resulted in the death of six people. A driver was summoned and a reporter tasked to gain information on that accident, only to find out that no such thing occurred after driving around the island for some two hours and questioning residents in almost every village.
The fact is that many people in the Federation tend to take as gospel everything they see on Facebook and WhatsApp and accuse mainstream media houses of not reporting on them, even though the parties concerned are tight-lipped when questions are asked of them.
One of the most important matters that came out of the panel discussion was who owns Times Caribbean and who are the sources that provide the owner or owners with specific and sometimes classified information that do not reach mainstream media. And if they do, it is long after published by Times Caribbean.
Times Caribbean, classified by mainstream journalists as a page, claims that “Not even the sun covers the Caribbean better”. But the big question is: “Who are its journalists that cover the Caribbean?” Every journalist in the Federation is aware that the owner or owners, without seeking permission, take their published articles and post them on that page. Is that being professional? There is a cost attached to the gathering of information and providing coverage for events. But the most costly is when journalists are engaged in investigative journalism. This speaks to transportation, telephone calls that sometime run for more than an hour, time spent investigating, depravation of sleep and quality time lost with family and friends.
Times Caribbean, whose owner or owners operate from behind the curtain, does not have to bear those costs. Media houses depend on advertisements for their survival. This is not applicable to Times Caribbean! Therefore, who finances the page? The panel highlighted that there were a large number of articles published on that page with information that could have only been provided by someone close to the Government. And to substantiate this accusation, they made reference to nine articles, including one about the Financial Secretary and another on the recent private visit to the Federation by Canada’s Prime Minister and his family.
A number of media house were aware of Prime Minister Jutin Trudeau’s 10-day vacation in Nevis and were asked not to make it public; a request to which they all complied. Yet an article appeared on Times Caribbean headlined “Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Vacation in the Beautiful Paradise of St. Kitts-Nevis”, written by “Times Caribbean Online Staff Writer”.
Did the ghost writer and ghost owner(s) display a sense of professionalism in publishing that article when neither the Government’s arm that is responsible for disseminating information to media houses for public consumption (SKNIS) and mainstream media houses did not? With the current global situation of terrorists targeting various countries and their leaders, was it right for Times Caribbean to say in which country the Prime Minister and his family were at that time, knowing that their safety could have been jeopardised? It is a known fact that whenever a foreign dignitary is scheduled to visit a particular country, the first entity to be informed of such is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Therefore, are we to conclude that Times Caribbean got the information from someone in that Ministry?
SKNIS had also publicised the Canadian Prime Minister’s visit to the Federation and media representatives believed the Director-General of that entity was forced to do so because of the disclosure made by Times Caribbean. What was also surprising is that although mainstream media operatives were not invited on Friday (Jan. 8) to the airport when the Prime Minister and his family were leaving the Federation, Times Caribbean had again published that event before SKNIS, and there was a photograph that accompanied it.
Would the powers that be seek out the owner or owners and reprimand them for their unprofessional behaviour?
Conclusively, on a recent visit to Facebook, it was noticed that a certain individual had posted a photograph with the following caption: “The dynamic duo that makes things happen . #unitycommunicationsdirectors”
It was posted at 11:35 p.m. on Saturday, January 2, 2016.
