BE RESPONSIBLE

Journalists in Barbados are being asked to act responsibly when reporting on issues that affect the country’s image.

Minister of Industry, International Business, Commerce and Small Business Development, Donville Inniss, said what has been happening in Barbados today, is that some media houses have been highlighting bad news, without first checking the facts.

He also charged that the media had been disseminating information to the public from international rating agencies without checking the authenticity of the report, or the credentials of those who are presenting it.

“But what happens, you get on the front page of the papers, online, or otherwise, things that people say about Barbados and you run with it as though it is gospel.

“And then you have a few individuals who really don’t give a damn about this country or the Government, and who believe that the best thing that they can achieve is to see the back of Democratic Labour Party,” Inniss said.

As DLP supporters who attended the party’s third FACTS conference at Belfield Resource Centre, Black Rock, St. Michael, on Sunday evening, applauded Inniss for the tongue-lashing he was giving the media, the outspoken Minister reminded journalists that they “are all are Barbadians and your country must come first and foremost”.

“It becomes the talking point of the call-in programmes. It becomes the talking point of social media, and then the whole country then, gets caught up in an atmosphere of negativity. I am not going to call the name of any journalist, or any media house, I am speaking what I consider facts,” he said.

The Minister said he was aware that members of the media must do their jobs. He also said he believes in the independence of the media and that not only favourable things about the Government should be reported.

“I want to talk to the media persons present here today, because you are not doing your own country that you were born in, any service at all. I don’t care if you don’t like Donville Inniss.

“I don’t care if you don’t like [Prime Minister] Freundel Stuart. I don’t care if you don’t like the Democratic Labour Party, but I say to you as journalists, that you have a duty to act more responsibly,” he said. (AH)