At the recent Organisation of American States meeting in Chile, Foreign Affairs Minister Fred Mitchell spoke of the media’s vital role in strengthening democracy by covering government and opposition views. <\/P><\/p>\n
He also supported a “vigorous application of the principle of free speech… which finds its purest expression in the freedom of the media.” <\/P><\/p>\n
\nWe agree with Mr. Mitchell’s remarks, but we wonder if his government is on board with these sentiments. Whenever the press asks questions we usually get the royal run-around. <\/P><\/p>\n
\nAnd whenever the press criticises the government we are accused of being irresponsible. But that is our job. <\/P><\/p>\n
\nOften journalists are told that only a minister is able to answer questions. Then it becomes an issue of tracking down the minister, who may or may not be willing to answer. <\/P><\/p>\n
\nIf this is the reality, how can freedom of the press and democracy be strengthened? This is undermining rather than improving press freedom. We should not have to wait on a politician to discuss the people’s business. It is our business. <\/P><\/p>\n
\nFrankly, we are tired of being told to be responsible when government officials do not make themselves accessible and seek only to frustrate the people’s right to know. <\/P><\/p>\n
\nTalk is cheap. We need to see the application of Mr. Mitchell’s high-sounding principles, not official threats and evasion. <\/P><\/p>\n
Editorial, The Nassau Guardian <\/B><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We need to see the application of Mr. Mitchell’s high-sounding principles, not official threats and evasion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","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":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-242268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242268","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242268\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}