Simpson Miller
MINISTER OF Tourism and Sport, Portia Simpson Miller, yesterday delivered both encouragement and a rebuke to local media professionals and communication consultants.
Challenging them to use their power and influence to promote positive values and attitudes in the society, Mrs. Simpson Miller suggested that they develop the bigger picture of Jamaica and its needs as she spoke of her own policy for growth in tourism business. It was one, she said, which aimed to broaden and deepen participation in the industry "by emphasising community-based tourism projects".
The Minister was addressing the luncheon meeting of the Public Relations Society of Jamaica, at the Devonshire Restaurant, Devon House, St. Andrew.
"You are the experts. You can help to set the national agenda. You can help to inject sanity and balance in national debates," she told them.
"In our society today, more importance is given to playing politics than to policy. More emphasis is placed on personalities than on performance... and much more weight is put on failures than on successes. We spend a great deal of time on the trivial. The line between truth and falsehood becomes blurred. One sentence is taken out of context and is used to haunt a public figure forever and ever. Anything that is repeated often enough is allowed to become fact," she said.
She questioned the extent to which many public relations practitioners were helping clients to use well-publicised speeches for a positive purpose. "To me, in this time when our country has so much catching-up to do, the desired effect of what people of influence say or write, is to make us change, grow and become better people.
"Blaming, shaming and prophecies of failure do not help," the Minister insisted.
She challenged the audience to make a serious commitment to using their influence to restore the balance in matters designed to engage public attention, suggesting that more time be given to highlighting success stories and to uncover "out-of-the-way" stories.
Mrs. Simpson Miller said tourism marketers had found that crime and violence were tarnishing Jamaica's image while the narrow focus of the overseas media on the few wrongdoers presented a distorted view of the country.
"I am all for reporting the news -- telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But there is such a thing as news selection, and fairness demands a balance between bad news and good news," she said.
The Minister said she did not believe it to be that difficult to present a balanced picture of Jamaica and she was mindful of "the fact that the overseas media often take their cue from the local media."
"Surely every day somewhere in Jamaica people can be found doing uplifting and valuable things that are newsworthy?
"Positive human interest stories should also be considered as news," she said.
