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Contact:
Primus Hutchinson
Tuesday, December 02, 2003 - There has been a strong appeal for Caribbean
media workers to gird up their loins to help redirect the focus of the Caribbean
society.
Speaking at a two-day biennial general meeting of the Association of Caribbean
Media Workers, held here over the weekend, President of the Association of
Caribbean Media Workers, (ACM), Wesley Gibbings, called upon his colleagues to
put their shoulders to the wheel to help steer the region in the right
direction.
Gibbings emphasized that Caribbean media workers need to be more assertive in
their endeavour to intervene in various developments in the region. He added
that at such a critical period in the history of the Caribbean region, it is
incumbent upon media workers to play a key role in that regard.
“We need intervention at all different levels. Our societies are in crisis; they
are dying, they are going to crash. We need to provide leadership to our people
in the region, to help us get to the next stage of development,” Gibbings said.
Gibbings also drew the attention of media managers and owners to the important
responsibility they owe to their staff. The ACM president emphasised that media
workers specialised methods of operation, demand that they receive particular
attention.
According to Gibbings, the single most important resource in any media
institution, are those people in the news room, and the credibility and
integrity they bring to that media institution will all be lost, if they
continue to be treated with indifference and insignificance.
Media workers from a number of Caribbean countries attended the two day meeting
which took place, November 28, and 29, at the Alliance Francaise at Point
Seraphine. Among the issues discussed, were a Caribbean media pass, the
performance of national associations, and the Journalist of the Year Award.
Meanwhile, senior lecturer at the Caribbean Institute of Media and
Communications, CARIMAC, Mona Campus, at the University of the West Indies in
Jamaica, Canute James, called upon Caribbean journalists to adopt a new approach
to reporting on issues in the region.
James, who delivered the keynote address at the meeting, indicated that
reporting on social issues particularly, has placed greater demand on
journalists to develop a new attitude. This new attitude, James said, is
compelling journalists not only to take account of developments, but also to put
such developmental issues in context with a high degree of interpretation and
analysis.
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