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Thursday, May 21, 2009
Nationwide News Network is now demanding a retraction and apology from the Press Association of Jamaica (PAJ) for singling out and publicly chiding the station over a report last week Friday of the landing of a private aircraft transporting former Prime Minister P J Patterson and executives of telecoms provider Digicel.
Yesterday's demand for an apology came shortly after the publishing of a report of the full investigation ordered by Prime Minister Bruce Golding which indicated that the station may have been fed bad information by upper-level Custom sources.
The station also groused that the PAJ did not take the necessary steps to gather all the facts prior to the public scolding. Nationwide also took issue with the fact that the Byron Buckley-led press group singled it out for chastising, even though other media houses carried the story.
"... In light of the report of the full investigation of the prime minister... we demand an apology from the PAJ," Nationwide said in a press release. "As revealed by the prime minister's report, there was a solid foundation to the Nationwide news story. The PAJ must now make a genuine attempt to repair the breach it has created by acting prematurely and without due process."
The PAJ, in a letter on Tuesday to Nationwide head Cliff Hughes, said it was "alarmed and dismayed that the tenets of journalism were not followed" by the station in reporting the story.
"The entire embarrassing episode has caused injury to the integrity of the profession of journalism and has cast practitioners in a negative light in the public's view," the letter stated, while calling on the station's management to "adhere to strict internal measures to prevent a recurrence of these professional breaches".
But yesterday morning, Buckley admitted on a Nationwide programme that he erred in not publicly chiding the other media houses which carried similar and independent stories on the airport saga.
However, Nationwide said this was not enough, noting that there needs to be an apology "forthwith through the same media the scathing release was originally sent by the PAJ".
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/...Y_FROM_PAJ.asp
Nationwide News Network is now demanding a retraction and apology from the Press Association of Jamaica (PAJ) for singling out and publicly chiding the station over a report last week Friday of the landing of a private aircraft transporting former Prime Minister P J Patterson and executives of telecoms provider Digicel.
Yesterday's demand for an apology came shortly after the publishing of a report of the full investigation ordered by Prime Minister Bruce Golding which indicated that the station may have been fed bad information by upper-level Custom sources.
The station also groused that the PAJ did not take the necessary steps to gather all the facts prior to the public scolding. Nationwide also took issue with the fact that the Byron Buckley-led press group singled it out for chastising, even though other media houses carried the story.
"... In light of the report of the full investigation of the prime minister... we demand an apology from the PAJ," Nationwide said in a press release. "As revealed by the prime minister's report, there was a solid foundation to the Nationwide news story. The PAJ must now make a genuine attempt to repair the breach it has created by acting prematurely and without due process."
The PAJ, in a letter on Tuesday to Nationwide head Cliff Hughes, said it was "alarmed and dismayed that the tenets of journalism were not followed" by the station in reporting the story.
"The entire embarrassing episode has caused injury to the integrity of the profession of journalism and has cast practitioners in a negative light in the public's view," the letter stated, while calling on the station's management to "adhere to strict internal measures to prevent a recurrence of these professional breaches".
But yesterday morning, Buckley admitted on a Nationwide programme that he erred in not publicly chiding the other media houses which carried similar and independent stories on the airport saga.
However, Nationwide said this was not enough, noting that there needs to be an apology "forthwith through the same media the scathing release was originally sent by the PAJ".
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/...Y_FROM_PAJ.asp