By Robert A. Emmanuel
The President of the Caribbean Broadcasting Union (CBU), Dr Claire Grant believes that the media must be the ‘guardians of social justice’ in the region.
Speaking on Observer AM, yesterday, Dr Grant said the media needs to ensure context was added into their reporting.
“It is not necessarily saying we are not reporting, but how we are reporting and putting context in terms of to what happens as a result of [crime and disinformation] that we face in the 21st century as media in the region,” she said.
The CBU held its 54th Annual General Assembly this week in Antigua and Barbuda where keynote speaker and President of the Caribbean Development Bank, Dr Hyginus Leon stated that the media had “the responsibility to inform and help promote development by influencing the social psyche through the active management of content”.
This year’s awards ceremony saw climate change reporting taking centre stage with the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC) sponsoring many of the awards.
Winner of the Best Climate Change Print News Item was Trinidad and Tobago’s Guardian Media which reported on the topic “Antigua and Barbuda Moving into the Blue Economy”.
“Certainly, there is no state in the region that hasn’t been impacted by climate change and doesn’t understand that this is something that we can take lightly because it has serious impact that we develop as small island states,” the CBU President noted.
Dr Grant said that it was important for working journalists to be recognised by the Assembly in person for their work.
The president said that her organisation will be pushing for regional media organisations to air the winning content at this year’s awards ceremony to build regional communication capacity and integration.
“What we want to enhance is how those stories can be shared in a meaningful way in other territories, meaning that there are things that are happening in Antigua, for example, that are probably very similar to things that are happening in Suriname, or Trinidad, but we might not know about them,” Dr Grant explained.
