News

It is simply to highlight the new focus in journalism in Barbados today that we deemed it necessary to return to these two issues if only because the manner in which they are being handled by some media houses and journalists set a very dangerous precedent for the role of the press in emerging societies like ours.

The press includes both the print and the electronic media. So important are they roles in the building and safeguarding of democratic societies that their have been given a full and free range to watch and protect the interest of the public.

The book "The Fourth Estate" written by Donna L. Quesinberry reports that the phrase was originally a synonym for newspapers but with the dawn of radio, television, news magazines, the meaning broadened to all mass media. Edmund Burke (1729-97) son of a Dublin attorney and statesman, said "there were three Estates in Parliament, but in the Reporter's Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all."

Presumably the three Estates of which Edmund Burke referred were respectively the Church, the government and the people. As a direct import from the House of Lords in England and summarized in Edmund Burke's book, - "The Fourth Estate as a respondent to the first three estates rests on the idea that media's function is a guardian of the public interest and as a watchdog of the activities of government."

It is against this background that we analyze the very serious charge leveled at the Editor in Chief of the Nation Newspaper Mr. Harold Hoyte by the Rt. Hon Prime Minister, Mr. Owen Arthur and we hastened to add a Prime Minister who after twelve years of leading this Government has never been found guilty of misconduct or corruption of any form or fashion.

That Mr. Hoyte will have some political affiliation is understandable. That his style of management and the use of the resources of his newspaper can so blatantly reflect that bias goes beyond the high tenets upon which the Fourth Estate was founded. This will ultimately erode public confidence not only in the true role of the press but in all our institutions that hold up our democracy.

Barbadians will not forget that this Newspaper employed much resource to send one of its senior journalist out of this country to spy on our Prime Minister but failed to expend even the time to investigate and inform the electorate of the veracity of the very serious charge contained in a letter apparently written by a Ms. Lazlo concerning the unwholesome behavior of a DLP's former candidate and election strategist.

In the U.S.A, Canada or England journalist would have been trampling over each other to investigate and report their findings in this matter and if a molecule of truth was found Hartley Henry would have been brought under public scrutiny. What is the purpose for the difference in our approach to journalism? Is it because with the exception of CBC and the Advocate Newspaper all other major media houses are majority owned by the same Trinidadian conglomerate?