Martin Henry, Contributor

Students display placards during a rally to commemorate World Press Freedom Day in Manila, Philippines, on May 3, last year. - file

Modern democracies and the modern newspaper have more or less grown up together. And they need each other. So much so that the press has been labelled the Fourth Estate of the state. To the newspaper has been added radio, with commercial broadcasting beginning in the early 1920s, television since the 1950s and computer-based 'new media' since the 1980s.

While free media is vital for democracy and vice versa, there has always been a tense relationship between media and government. A son of Jamaica in Britain (University of Birmingham), Stuart Hall, has done distinguished work on the complex, mutually supportive yet antagonistic relationship between media and government in democratic states.

The first newspaper published in the New England colonies, which became the founding states of the United States of America, was the Publick Occurrences, both Foreign and Domestick in Boston, 1690. The editor, Benjamin Harris, announced that he would issue the paper "once a month, or, if any glut of occurrences happen, oftener". But only one issue came out. The colonial authorities, wary of any free publication of news and opinion as a threat, shut down that first attempt at a newspaper.

Roger Mais served prison time here in Jamaica in the 1940s during World War II for publishing his critical views on the colonial state in Public Opinion.

Today, all over the world, in every kind of political system, media workers are harassed and sometimes murdered, and media houses handicapped or shut down. For 2007, more than 100 media workers were killed; in 2006 it was 110, almost doubling the 58 the year before. Many journalists are in jail, most in Cuba and China.

The enemies of the media are not just state governments: Powerful interests who feel threatened by media exposure also take retaliatory action against the media. Recently, there was a chilling story of a Mexican reporter exposing the drug trade in his region who was chased down on his motorcycle and murdered in front of his home, apparently by hit men hired by the drug bosses.

The founders of the American Republic keenly understood, from practical experience, the importance of a free press to the conduct and maintenance of democratic government.

Erudite writers

During the debates out of which the United States Constitution emerged, a trio of erudite writers: Alexander Hamilton, James Madison (later second president) and John Jay fired off a series of newspaper articles to argue for and win public support for the propositions of the Constitution.

These articles became the famous Federalist Papers. As one introduction claims, "The Federalist is the most important work in political science that has ever been written, or is likely ever to be written, in the United States."

There are those who argue that newspaper columnists, writing at a time when the press faced its greatest pressures from the State in independent Jamaica, were influential in 'saving the day' for democracy at a critical juncture in our political history.

The very first amendment to the US Constitution protects freedom of the press, among other things: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

As we contemplate constitutional reform, the process is unthinkable with popular understanding and discussion without the operation of a free media. In fact, the conduct of democratic politics and the presentation of competing candidates and issues to mass audiences cannot reasonably take place without free mass media.

Jamaica, fortunately, has a robust free press. Reporters Without Borders, in a recent ranking, has placed the country at Number 24 out of 167. There are some concerns here about the restrictions placed upon investigative journalism and reporting by the libel laws of the country and the retention of the Official Secrets Act despite the promulgation of an Access to Information Act.

Struggle

There is a perennial struggle between privacy of the individual and confidentiality in state affairs on the one hand and the right of citizens to know and freedom of the press to investigate and tell them on the other. With freedom comes responsibility and the press, here and there, has not always been as responsible as it wishes to be free.

Concerns about the press are not just a response from hostile states. Private citizens, too, have their concerns. Media workers and their institutions are not always viewed by the public as they view themselves; knights in shining armour rescuing the people from dragon governments.

The BBC, one of the most respected media organisations in the world, albeit state-owned, has recently conducted a global survey of public opinion on press freedom as part of activities to mark its 75th anniversary.

Independent pollsters found that, in many developed countries where people strongly believed in the importance of press freedom, they were nonetheless critical of their own media's honesty and accuracy.

Only 29 per cent of those interviewed in Britain, the United States and Germany thought their media did a good job in reporting news accurately. The International Communication Forum, an affiliate of Moral Rearmament [MRA], and which strives to improve integrity and public trust in media, has reported that in many places public perception of media is not much better than perception of politicians.

While the state may rank as 'Enemy Number One' as a threat to press freedom, it is also well recognised that a concentration of ownership in a few powerful private hands also poses risks to freedom of the press.

But Internet-based open media is now a big damper to that threat. Big advertising dollars can also be wielded to influence the press, especially when these dollars can be cartelised.

Naturally, we must do everything possible to sustain and expand freedom of the press in Jamaica with appropriate fairness and responsibility. But we do have much to celebrate.

Martin Henry is a communication consultant.