EDITORIAL - Media, justice and the rule of law
“When the public’s right to know is threatened, and when the rights of free speech and free press are at risk, all of the other liberties we hold dear are endangered”
– Christopher Dodd
The caption here is taken from this year’s theme for the international observance of World Press Freedom Day, “Keeping Power in Check: Media, Justice and the Rule of Law”. This year the day fell on Wednesday last, but locally, there appears to have been no official recognition of this significant occasion. There was no press statement from the Minister with responsibility for the media or even an acknowledgement from the print or electronic media.
It might be that our attention is currently preoccupied with the upcoming general election, but as the epigraph suggests, the notion of a free press is integral to the continued enjoyment of our fundamental rights. That is perhaps why, in some jurisdictions, repression on press freedom is a necessary characteristic of totalitarian rule.
According to a Freedom House report on Israel, “Several challenges to media freedom remain, including military censorship and the use of gag orders to restrict coverage, curbs on journalists’ freedom of movement, political interference at the public broadcaster…”
This has clearly not been our experience in Barbados where, even in the absence of an express constitutional guarantee of freedom of the press such as exist in Trinidad & Tobago, the press is not restricted in its freedom of expression otherwise than by the law relating to defamation and general good taste.
Even so, reform of the law in these contexts has been promised, hopefully to broaden the degree of freedom of expression of the press while paying appropriate regard to the reputation of individuals, lest they be irresponsibly abused.
It is in this context that we should wish to utter a word of caution with respect to the “new journalism”; the use of social media to publish items of the most prurient and salacious character imaginable. While these media have served on occasion to assist in the detection of criminal activity and the prosecution of offenders, they thrive on sensationalism without regard to the feelings of those who are likely to be offended or otherwise negatively impacted by viewing the image of a loved one in extremis or in another vulnerable state. In our view, this is not an exercise in journalistic freedom, but one in misuse of that freedom.
One blot however remains on the freedom of the regional press and that is the retention on the statute books of a number of jurisdictions of the offence of criminal libel. While states such as Antigua & Barbuda, Grenada and Jamaica have removed this offence from their laws, others, including Barbados, have not followed suit. We urge the authorities seriously to reconsider their stance on this matter and would remind that the low incidence of prosecution for this offence in recent years does not serve to remove the chilling affect of its existence on the freedom of expression of the media in a democratic society.
It should be noted too that assaults on press freedom might be far subtler than physical attacks on journalists or the censorship of independent media. In a piece on the World Press Freedom Index written to commemorate the day, the well-known CNN journalist, Christiane Amanpour, argued, “Developments in the United States have been particularly troubling. Reporters without Borders says that Washington slid down the list [to 45] due to a “series of verbal attacks toward journalists, attempts to block the White House access to multiple media outlets, routine use of the term ‘fake news’ in retaliation for critical reporting, and calling for media outlets broadcasting licences to be revoked.”