Caribbean Media Corp. opens new H.Q.
The joining of countries of the Caribbean into a single political and economic block has been the dream of regional integrationists from even farther back than the creation of CARICOM in 1973. And while there has been progress in bringing the peoples of the region closer together, when it comes to sharing information, there are bugs in the system that even the technological revolution has not eliminated. The entity that is working to bridge the information divide is the Caribbean Media Corporation, a collaborative venture of the Caribbean Broadcasting Union and the Caribbean News Agency. On Saturday the C.M.C. dedicated its new media centre in Barbados. Its aim is to enhance the creation of an integrated regional network covering radio, television and print media. Barbados Prime Minister Owen Arthur, speaking at the opening ceremonies, said that like the move towards economic integration, the establishment of the Caribbean Media Centre is a historic necessity.
Owen Arthur, Prime Minister, Barbados
“We are seeking to constitute the Caribbean as a community of nations. It is to be a community which draws its purpose from the shared and common desire to rise above the blistered aspects of a tortured past. It is a community whose building blocks are the bonds of a common destiny shared and common values. And a sense of kit and kin that comes from being one people with a unique and a common culture. It is to be a community whose development as well as that of its constituent members is to be promoted not by or reliance on the forces of competition but by drawing on an attribute that has become quaint in today’s world: the capacity to pool resources, to pull together and to cooperate in the design and the workings of the instruments of our well being. We have to make integration a lived and a pleasing experience in the lives of the people of this Caribbean. And it will be impossible to conceive of how that can be achieved without the vital and the vibrant involvement of those who will work at this Caribbean Media Centre.”
In related news, C.M.C. will also act as the coordinating body for a C.B.U./CANA project funded by the European Union. Under that initiative, eight Caribbean countries will receive television uplinks that will be used to promote the increased flow of information across the region. Belize’s uplink, which will be hosted by Channel 5, will enable us to transmit news, sports, entertainment, or any other information live to virtually any spot on the globe. The project, which should come on stream by mid 2004, includes Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Suriname, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
