{"id":205763,"date":"2017-11-20T21:12:23","date_gmt":"2017-11-21T02:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/target\/pm-lashes-press-over-bias"},"modified":"2017-11-28T08:38:09","modified_gmt":"2017-11-28T13:38:09","slug":"pm-blasts-press-at-awards-ceremony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/2017\/11\/pm-blasts-press-at-awards-ceremony","title":{"rendered":"PM Blasts Press at Awards Ceremony"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis <span class=\"dc_bld \"><span class=\"b_demoteText\" data-applinkhookid=\"demoteText\">excoriated<\/span><\/span> local newspaper editors in an address at the 3<sup>rd<\/sup> annual Bahamas Press Club Awards held at the British Colonial Hilton on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n<p>The Prime Minister criticized the apparent conflict of interest and the sensationalizing of political journalism.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile I understand that journalists in The Bahamas must take on multiple roles given the number of reporters and limited resources; it is still surprising that some who serve as editors, also regularly write or offer commentary. This is not a practice that would be allowed by journalists in other countries. I am not speaking here of editorial writing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA journalist and a columnist are distinctly different roles.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe editors of <em>The New York Times <\/em>or <em>Globe and Mail <\/em>in Canada, nor the editors at the British Broadcasting Corporation would allow their editors to write commentary or to host a radio program driven by personal opinion, as well as commentary that purports to be news analysis.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe 24-hour cable news shows in the United States have in a number of ways led to a lessening of standards that would not have been allowed in previous times. There has been a considerable blurring of reporting and commentary.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is telling when certain standards have been breached, that some in the press do not even realize that a standard has been breached. Journalists are not supposed to be champions of any political party, business, group or interest in a country,\u201d Dr. Minnis said.<\/p>\n<p>The Prime Minister also said that the business sections of the local papers are doing a better job by providing more insight that found on the front pages.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bahamasnational.com\/?q=node\/9320\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Full Text of Prime Minister Minnis&#8217; speech<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis excoriated local newspaper editors in an address at the 3rd annual Bahamas Press Club Awards held at the British Colonial&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-205763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","category-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205763\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}