Co-ordinator of the September 3rd Foundation and Attorney-at-Law, David Comissiong, is calling on media houses in Barbados to pay close attention to how they cover events.
Speaking at a press conference at the Clement Payne Centre recently, he said that first of all, the media houses here seem to be following the trends coming out of North America when it comes to the way in which they cover events, one which seems to be dominated by an individualistic and materialistic culture.
“Our media system nowadays are so dominated by a mass communications culture coming out of capitalist North America, that if we are not conscious about it, if we simply allow ourselves to be swept along by what are the prevailing trends – what are the prevailing international trends – as opposed to you know, really taking stock and saying that this is not the direction that we want to go in and therefore doing deliberate things to change that mass communications culture, then we would continue along the road that we are currently on – a more atomised, self-centred, individualistic, materialistic, money by hook or by crook, money lock up or dead, seeing ourselves as winners or losers divided and that would be to our ultimate destruction...”
Another trend which seems to be prevailing is one where the media houses give more coverage to events organised by persons of a higher socio-economic status and the media really needs to rethink the kind of message they are sending to the society when they do this, he stated.
“Poor people are celebrities too, so when you cover your celebrity functions and you are sending a message that only a people of a certain status are worthy of covering their parties and their social functions, you need to rethink that. What is the message that you are sending? You need to rethink that.”
Comissiong said that the general public also has a role to play here as they can send out a message of their own to the media houses, letting them know that they need to take their roles more seriously.
“Even though as citizens we may not be in a position of great individual power, that if we can pinpoint some of the key institutions of socialisation in our country and we can raise our voices and we can insist that they take their responsibilities more seriously in creating that social ethos in which we value every human being, in which we show interest in the fostering of the development of every human being in this society, we would be helping to correct the situation that led to the tragic deaths of these six beautiful young women six years ago.”
He continued, “So we are saying once again to the Barbadian people, yes, we may not be in positions of Government, but we can raise our voices, we can send a message to our media practitioners – to our television stations, to our radio stations, to our newspapers – we need you to do more.” (PJT)
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