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HOME	JANUARY 08th, 2005

JAN 08

Media practitioners have been told to embrace training to improve the quality of their work so that they will become marketable with the coming on stream of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) scheduled for February.

The word of advice came from Senior Officer in the Ministry of Finance, Planning and International Trade Oliver Joseph. At least three countries, mainly Barbados, Trinidad and Jamaica are expected to sign on to the agreement in the middle of February when the new CARICOM Secretariat opens in George Town, Guyana.

The other member States are scheduled to complete their agreement after constitutional and other changes in their different territories. Joseph was addressing practitioners at their annual Christmas function last Thursday at Mama's Restaurant on Lagoon Road.

He told journalists that when the CSME does take effect in some countries, there will be competition in the profession since practitioners from other islands would be allowed to reside and work in Grenada without hindrance.

He believes the onus is on the Media Workers Association of Grenada (MWAG) to ensure its members receive adequate training so that they can keep their jobs or be able to find employment in another country. How the free movement will work is this, practitioners are expected to make applications out to the Ministry of Finance who will then issue them with certificates for a work permit.

Once accredited media practitioners will only be allowed to practice in their field unlike other professionals who can work in other areas outside of their profession. Acting President Michael Bascombe who presented the 2004 report noted that 2004 has been a challenging year for practitioners.

He spoke of them having to deal with threats of libel and slander suits in their quests for the truth as well as the devastation caused by Hurricane Ivan which brought its own difficulties. Bascombe pointed out that in May of last year, the tenacity of the media was tested when some practitioners defied a Government Information Service (GIS) release which threatened the full force of the law on those who reproduced a story in the Miami-based Offshore Alert publication.

It had to do with allegations that Prime Minister Dr. Keith Mitchell accepted a bribe of half a million US dollars in a briefcase from German Eric Resteiner for him to be appointed Trade Counsel for Grenada. This according to the acting president, triggered a sequence of events which included the walk-out of journalists at a press conference as well as them being booed at the General Council of the ruling New National Party (NNP).

It also resulted in the detention and questioning of freelance journalist Leroy Noel, the suspension and subsequent resignation of Odette Campbell as News Director at the Grenada Broadcasting Network (GBN), as well as a meeting by practitioners that brought about the resignation of the then elected president of MWAG.

According to Bascombe, there was no winner but rather an eye-opener for many who thought that the media was dead in Grenada. "Here we found a group of young enthusiastic journalists stunning the critics with some even putting their jobs on the line, in defence of media rights" the MWAG acting president noted.

Bascombe stated that practitioners have to find ways as an organisation to engage media managers to get them to understand that the striving for excellence should not only be a goal of media workers, but owners as well. "We have to convince media managers that it is a worthy investment to put more money and effort into the training and general exposure of their staff and in better facilities that will ensure better and more efficient production and output" he pointed out.

He stressed the need for practitioners to strive for excellence in 2005 since poor, sloppy work undermines the profession, as much as the attitudes of politicians and businessmen who would want to intimidate practitioners into silence.