Press body, editors demand greater access to Gov't

While welcoming the announcement that post-Cabinet press briefings would be resumed next Wednesday, the Press Association of Jamaica (PAJ) and several senior editors have said that they still had concerns that needed to be addressed by the Andrew Holness-led administration.

"Even while the press briefings were being held last year and the year before, they were not regular and would sometimes not be held for weeks at a time," the group said in a joint press statement yesterday.

"We therefore call for the administration to commit to holding these briefings regularly, and, preferably, to schedule the briefings for a fixed day and time every week and as soon as possible after the Cabinet meetings so that media houses are able to properly deploy their reporters," the PAJ and senior editors stated.

The group questioned why briefings could not be held every time there was a Cabinet meeting and maintained that in a democratic society, it was necessary for the press to interact regularly with and ask questions directly of the Government.

"We are concerned about the announcement that the administration is reviewing the format of the briefings. We regard the format to have been adequate for the purpose and are particularly concerned about the prospect that the briefings could be led by a non-Cabinet government spokesperson who may not have authority to answer questions on certain issues emanating from Cabinet," the joint statement read.

The PAJ and senior editors noted further that although social media was a convenient way for the Government to get its message out, they strongly rejected the assertion by Information Minister Ruel Reid in a recent radio interview that social media could serve as a substitute for interaction with the press.

The media practitioners also rejected the idea posited by the information minister in that same interview that a quarterly press briefing by the prime minister, which is necessarily limited in time, can in any way be a substitute for a weekly press briefing on matters of concern that arise from time to time.

They cite the current situation with Petrojam as a fitting example of a critical issue facing the country about which there have been no press briefings so far.

"We also take the opportunity to raise concerns about the administration's policy of generally limiting media interviews with the prime minister to one day a year, the so-called 'Media Day'.

"Our media houses have all put in requests to the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) over the past two years, and the general approach of the OPM in channeling all requests to this one day of the year has resulted in limiting rather than increasing access to the prime minister," the PAJ and senior editors said.