Editorial | A free press, democracy and data protection

Dionne Jackson-Miller, president of the Press Association of Jamaica (PAJ), is right. The erosion of press freedom can be - and in liberal democracies it often is - insidious - a little like the start to the boil of the proverbial lobster in cold water. It remains comfortable before it's too late.

That's why while we celebrate Jamaica's two-place improvement, to sixth, among 180 countries, on Reporters Without Borders' (RWB) World Press Freedom Index, we ought not to be complacent. The situation can be reversed. So, as Mrs Jackson-Miller advised: "We must be vigilant ... !"

To be sure, Jamaica's rank on this global index is a big deal, positioned ahead of countries with such vibrant and competitive media markets as the United States, Britain and Australia. That this is the case makes two fundamental statements, one about the media themselves.

The RWB index is based on an index of qualitative and quantitative analyses in information gleaned from questions posed to experts around the world. It takes issues such as media independence, pluralism within the market, the quality of the infrastructure available to journalists in work, and so on.

These are, in no small part, economic issues, which, for Jamaica's press, don't make for a particularly friendly environment. In some respects, it is downright hostile. Jamaica's long-term, low-growth economy has squeezed advertising income, which, as is the case in many other countries, is the foundation of the business model of traditional and other media.

Moreover, this is a small economy, both in absolute and relative terms. Media companies here, unlike their counterparts in many developed countries, don't easily have the luxury of throwing resources at the immediate problems, hoping to ride out a perceived a short-term storm. At the same time, the media environment remains in a state of flux as rapid change in technology lowers the bar and brings new entrants into the media market. Yet in that environment, Jamaica accommodates three daily newspapers, two free-to-air TV stations, numerous cable channels and more than two dozen radio stations, most of which maintain a feisty independence, often given to irreverent journalism.

Media committed

That, in the circumstance, is no easy accomplishment and speaks of the commitment of the media, at the level of management and journalists, to that compact they form with the communities they serve - that is, they transcend business to being watchdogs for freedom and democracy. The second point relates to the first. It is a credit to Jamaica, and to the English-speaking Caribbean largely, that though its institutions sometimes fall under stress, they don't fall apart. Democracy remains intact. Political leadership shares the credit here, but the fact is that a vibrant press helps to hold them to account in the protection of liberal norms. Indeed, the value of a free and brave press is nowhere more apparent these days than in the United States in the age of Trump, where the institutions of a mighty democracy, but for the press, succumb to the vulgarian instincts of a wilfully corrosive president.

They have their Second Amendment. Jamaica must have vigilance. It is in that context that we have to be watchful against laws such as the planned Data Protection Act, which, despite the valued intent of protecting privacy, has the seeds for the insidious erosion of press freedom.

Indeed, the media should be totally exempt from the provisions of that bill, which would not compromise the laudable intent of the law.

And that would accomplish of great value: the protection of a critical institution of democracy.