Today is World Press Freedom Day. It is a time when we pause to reflect on, and highlight, the importance of a free press in any society. Of course, we must vow to ever-protect the press from scurrilous attacks on our integrity and our independence.
Our Founding Fathers here at OBSERVER MEDIA (cum NEWSCO), Winston Derrick, and Samuel ‘Fergie’ Derrick, recognised the need for a free and independent media entity here in Antigua and Barbuda. After all, as recently as thirty-one short years ago, there was only THE WORKERS VOICE, a government-affiliated mouthpiece, the truth-seeking OUTLET newspaper by the Antigua Caribbean Liberation Movement (ACLM), the ruling-Party-affiliated, family-owned Radio ZDK, and the government-owned Antigua Barbuda Broadcasting Service (ABS). It was difficult to hear opposing/dissenting voices, until the founding of THE DAILY OBSERVER in 1993.
Case in point, as to the difficulty in hearing an alternative voice. The late, great Dame Edris Bird, never mind that she was married to Mr Oscar Bird, a brother of our first Prime Minister, Sir Vere C Bird, organised a broadcast media program under the auspices of the Extra-Mural Department of the University of the West Indies, where students could share their thoughts and ideas on matters pertaining to our forward progress as a country. Some of the students that participated in that effort were former Member of Parliament and former political leader of the United Progressive Party (UPP), Mr Harold Lovell, Attorney Jackie Walwyn, and our Ambassador to the United Nations, Mr Aubrey Webson. Quite an erudite and visionary group of young students.
Needless to say, Sir V C Bird, aka Papa Bird, was having none of this new-age, radical thinking from the young people. He called up his sister-in-law (the aforementioned Dame Edris Bird) and scolded her for accommodating and encouraging these revolutionary young people, and he ended his rant by telling her not to have them on his TV/Radio station (ABS) again. To her eternal credit, Dame Edris rebuffed him in the strongest of terms, and declared that if the students could not come back on the show, then there would be no show. She quit. And the show died. May her ilk increase.
Of course, we can be a bit facetious by imagining what the conversation between Papa VC and his brother, Oscar, must have been like over that matter. In a rage, Papa VC must have called Oscar, castigating him for not keeping his wife in check, and allowing her to coddle and encourage these radical young students with their communist talk and their revolutionary views. We can imagine that Papa VC ended his diatribe by exhorting Oscar, “Yuh betta tark to she!” And the unflappable Mr Oscar Bird, quite calmly, as was his wont, suggesting to Papa VC that he talk to the good Dame Edris Bird himself. (Chuckle)
That was they way it was, back in the day. Press Freedom was anathema, until the Derricks decided, at enormous personal sacrifice, to provide an alternative voice to the prevailing political narrative. Observer by fax was launched as a breath of fresh air, much to the relief and delight of Antiguans and Barbudans. The masthead of the Observer featured the words, LET THERE BE LIGHT. It is still our motto.
So too, the words of Thomas Jefferson, who, in a letter to Charles Yancey, wrote, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilisation, it expects what never was and never will be. The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will, the liberty and property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these, but with the people themselves; nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.”
Mr Darren Derrick, a former CEO of Observer Media was quite fond of heralding that our remit was to “shine a light in the dark corners,” and “give a voice to the voiceless.” We still subscribe to that noble ideal, it is still our ‘raison d etre.’
Sadly, there are misguided elements in our society that derive a perverse pleasure in disseminating false information, and denigrating the media houses that are earnestly engaging in the unvarnished search for truth. They slander and malign. Their only reason for being is to obfuscate and muddy the waters. A pox on those entities.
Interestingly, in the the thirty-one years since THE DAILY OBSERVER burst on the scene, paving the way for more voices of protest and dissent to be heard, we here in Antigua and Barbuda have had a plethora of new radio stations and newspapers. Whereas back then, we had only three radio stations – Caribbean Radio Lighthouse, Radio ZDK and ABS Radio, we now have over twenty. And not to mention the many private broadcast offerings by way of social media.
The earliest newspaper in Antigua was the Antigua Free Press, published by Benjamin Mekom, Benjamin Franklin’s nephew. The weekly Register, founded in 1814 by Henry Loving, followed shortly thereafter. It ceased publication in 1839. The Herald Gazette was founded in 1831, the Antigua Almanac and Register in 1843, the Antigua Observer in 1843, the Antigua Times in 1851, the Antigua Standard, founded in 1874, changed to the Antigua Sun in 1909, and ceased publication in 1922. The Magnet was founded in 1931. The Progress, and the Antigua Star were both founded in 1940. The aforementioned Workers Voice was founded in 1944 by the Antigua Trades and Labour Union. It ceased publication in the 1990s. The Anvil was founded in 1956. The Antigua Times, in the late 1960s. The Outlet came into being in 1968 under the Afro/Antigua Caribbean Liberation Movement (ACLM), and ceased to exist in the 1990s. The Trumpet was founded in 1968, and The Sentinel, in the late 1980s by Vere Bird Jr. The Antigua Sun was born in 1997 and ceased publication in January 2018.
Recent additions to the newspaper landscape in Antigua and Barbuda are Pointe Express, closely associated with Prime Minister Gaston Browne, and Antigua Newsroom. All the publications in our fair State are now online, and when all the other online sources of information are taken into consideration, it is clear that the face of journalism has changed. People are getting their news from snappy sound-bites, and from any number of opinion pieces that are readily available online as well. Investigative journalism and exposes are perhaps not as widely read and appreciated as they once were, at least, here in Antigua and Barbuda.
Of course, we ought never to forget that The Outlet and The Daily Observer had to fight, up to the highest levels, for the right to publish. They had to fight against the reactionary V C Bird government that was hell-bent on stifling press freedom.
On this World Press Freedom Day 2024, let us endeavour, perhaps, to be a bit more appreciative of the work that our journalists do. Ours is a difficult task, especially when there are so many forces attempting to muzzle our freedom of expression – to restrict our right to publish, broadcast or report on any matter without “fear, favour or ill-will, and without worrying who feel one way or another.” [Winston Derrick] In a paraphrased version of La Tumba’s, CULTURE MUST BE FREE, we declare, ‘Media must be free, they can’t muzzle we.’
We invite you to visit www.antiguaobserver.com and give us your feedback on our opinions.