Rights and responsibility
Editorial
DELEGATES to the Caribbean Broadcasting Union (CBU) meeting opening here today are expected to be looking at a range of issues affecting the electronic media. Their agenda almost certainly includes the challenges for the media in the region in the new millennium and how to cope with the awesome and rapid changes in a fast shrinking electronic world. The CBU has to its credit maintained a series of television and radio programmes which have served to keep Caribbean people more closely linked. A noteworthy success has been the Caribbean Song Festival and the organisation has gone to great lengths to ensure fans can follow on television the fortunes of the West Indies cricket team on the field. As they focus on maintaining and expanding these links and on the challenges of the times, we believe CBU members should recognise that they also have to take a hard look at not only the rights of the media but the immense responsibility that goes with the calling. Most of their fraternity in Guyana have a lot of catching up to do in the ordered scheme of things. The television industry is still largely unregulated and while mainstream media here are generally bound by the accepted rules and laws, TV stations usually operate according to laws all their own. The dangers of this approach came clearly to the fore several times last year and this year when some persons on television sought to exploit tense situations for clearly political purposes in the name of freedom of expression and a free media. The situation was so ominous that visiting Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders, after the `peace' accords were brokered between the two major political parties here following the anti-government street demonstrations in Georgetown, felt compelled to appeal to the electronic media not to exacerbate the rising tensions. One envoy even convened a special meeting of media representatives at the CARICOM Secretariat in Georgetown for a free and frank assessment of the situation and the dangers inherent in media reporting and coverage that clearly lacked responsibility. Guyana CBU members know the situation only too well but other delegates at the current meeting here should appreciate that this country is still on the rocky road of consolidating a fledgling democracy and that the media have a special role under the unique circumstances. Freedom to run television stations cannot mean freedom to abandon all the rules and operate in a Wild West and if the CBU can somehow help to drive home this point at its conference here, it would be doing a good turn in a CARICOM member state that holds so much promise for the wider regional community. We join in welcoming all overseas delegates here and wish them success at this CBU meeting with the hope that the responsibility that goes with the rights of the media may be more firmly impressed upon their local fraternity by the time they are ready to leave.
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