Information Minister encourages media to amplify good stories

Durrant Pate/ Contributor

As Jamaica commemorates this week as National Journalism Week, well-respected clergyman, Bishop, Merrick “Al” Miller, is emboldening local journalists and the media fraternity in general to seek the truth always in this current scenario where misinformation and disinformation are abound. 

Acknowledging that a lot of misinformation and disinformation are making their way in the public space as news, Miller, who was delivering the sermon at the National Journalism Week Church Service yesterday, encouraged journalists to pull back from this apparent status quo whilst affirming that “the Press (in Jamaica} has served us well.” 

At the service held at Fellowship Tabernacle, 2 Fairfield Avenues, Kingston 20, where he is the Senior Pastor, Miller emphasised that journalists are charged with the responsibility of telling the truth, unlike columnists and analysts, who share their opinions, which might not necessarily be the truth.

Journalists charged to be proclaimers of the truth 

With the theme for Journalism Week this year being: Media Power: Shaping Democracy or Serving Agendas? Miller posed the question to journalists: Are you shaping democracy or serving an agenda? And whose agenda will we serve? He encouraged them to evaluate what they say on the basis of truth, saying they should be proclaimers of truth and defenders of righteousness in order to support justice.

Continuing, Pastor Miller said, “Justice is based on truth. If there is no truth, then there is no justice. We must carry the agenda of God to proclaim the truth; journalists are called only to proclaim truth,” and as such, “the centrality of the journalists’ focus must be proclaiming truth.”

Getting to the truth

The clergyman went into a deep reasoning about truth, saying truth is to impart an understanding for knowledge; understanding proceeds knowledge; wisdom is supreme, but journalists must go for understanding; in all you get, get understanding; once you have knowledge, seek wisdom to apply it.” He highlighted that “truth to liberate and set free so that you may have hope, so that it will cause you to catch a vision so that you will work to see that becoming a reality.”

He stated that a vision that is not rooted in truth is dangerous, but a vision that is rooted in truth will cause transformation, and journalists must find at its centre the truth. He concluded by making the point, “True journalism will assist in monitoring the democratic process in our nation and the world.”

Political leaders added their voice.

Minister of Education, Digital Transformation, and Information, Senator Dr. Dana Moris-Dixon, who also spoke at the church service, encouraged the local media fraternity to amplify good stories and ferrit out the positives happening around us so that the people can have hope that there is more to Jamaica than crime. 

She argued that the churches and other civic groups are doing good work in society, charging the media to report on these things. The Minister reiterated her government’s commitment to a free press, acknowledging that the administration needs help to rescue the schools, where the mayhem of crime has playing out itself, citing the need to ensure that no child is left behind. 

She spoke about her social work with inmates, saying, “When I talk to inmates, they are brilliant, but they just didn’t get the opportunity. Ask yourself, What am I going to do to help the children in my sphere of influence? The government alone cannot do it to get them on the right path.“

Political campaigner Raymond Pryce, who represented the Opposition Spokeswoman on Information, Nickeisha Burchell, in her absence, pointed to the complicated eco-system for journalists to ferrit out the news. He also spoke about the free press in Jamaica, which has long been respected by respective political administrations.