Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller and those who sometimes speak on her behalf make no secret of their belief that she feels set upon by the press.

In public and private they point to what they interpret as unfair and unwarranted criticism and suggest that the media's action is in protection of vested interests. That the Prime Minister and her handlers feel this way is their right, which should be cherished and protected. For important reasons.

First, the press is not and does not feel itself to be immune from criticism. For the free press in a democratic society assumes no right greater than the rights of the citizenry which it serves: the right to free speech and to hold and exchange ideas, which are critical foundations of democracy. It is on these rights that the press trades, as part of the compact with the society it serves; it offers itself as watchdog of good governance and protector of democratic freedoms.

It is by superimposing technology of amplification and reach on the individual's right to free speech that the free press fulfils its role of watchdog; shouting far and loud when these rights and freedoms fall under threat.

Prime Minister Simpson Miller, for all her current peeve, would, we believe, have it no other way. Indeed, it is significant that it was a function of the Press Association of Jamaica, the journalists' organisation, that the PM used as a launch pad for her grab for the leadership of her party and current job. The central theme of her address that night was transparency in government and governance.

The Prime Minister pledged then, and subsequently repeated the promise, to run an open government and to be a bulwark against incompetence and corruption. But as Mrs Simpson Miller would be aware, good governance is not a passive process, subject to the beneficence of a benevolent leader. More important is to have in place the processes and systems by which the citizenry, or its proxy, the free press, can scrutinise actions of their government, which was a substantial part of the point made last week by Dr. David McBean, the president of the Media Association of Jamaica.

Dr. McBean, as we have done, called for an overhaul of Jamaica's defamation laws to further enhance the press' capacity to deliver information and the quality of human rights enjoyed by Jamaicans. This includes the wire service defence in defamation actions, providing protection for Jamaican media that in good faith reproduce information from services to which they subscribe.

Another important evolution of the defamation laws must be to afford qualified privilege to the press if it reports, without malice, information about public officials that may, in the end, be deemed to be defamatory. After all, public officials, especially those who seek elected public office, wield tremendous authority over people's lives, for which there must be a trade-off other than their promise to do good.

We support the principle that when a politician throws his/her hat in the ring, there is an implied acceptance of a diminution of personal privacy and a willingness to open oneself to rigorous scrutiny. On taking office that promise becomes explicit.

Prime Minister Simpson Miller understands this. It is now a matter of whether she has the courage to move from understanding to implementation.