Opposition Leader Bruce Golding has renewed his call for a review of the 19th century libel and defamation laws to allow the media more freedom to report on public officials.

These persons, Mr. Golding argues, are to be held to a higher standard than the average citizen and should, therefore, not be subject to the same protection under law.

"Some of the protection that public officials like myself can now claim under the Libel and Slander Act, I don't think we should be entitled to that," he told journalists attending a Press Association of Jamaica (PAJ) forum in Kingston yesterday.

Describing the current statutes as restrictive and outdated, Mr. Golding said: "I believe that when you hold public trust, you put yourself in a glass bowl and you must be prepared for the public to scrutinise you in everything that you do."

Self-censorship

Mr. Golding argued that the restrictive libel laws were often used to frighten journalists into self-censorship.

The Opposition Leader first tabled a resolution for a review of the libel laws in the legislature in May last year. The PAJ had earlier called for a repeal of the libel laws, which were last reviewed in 1973. Addressing a Carter Center forum last year, PAJ President Desmond Richards described the current laws as oppressive, a view he restated during the National Journalism Awards held last December.

During the PAJ's Editors' Roundtable yesterday, the Opposition Leader also suggested that media houses should publicly declare their position on certain issues including political parties. He further claimed that while some media houses are prepared to have some issues reflected in news reports, their position on the same issues are not clearly stated.

"If (for example) the publishers of a paper or the managers of a radio station support state ownership of critical assets as an economic and political philosophy, say so," Mr. Golding reasoned. "What I think is not a tenable situation is when (a media house) has a view it is not prepared to declare, but uses every opportunity to promote that position in terms of the management of its news."

Citing the role of the media in influencing values, Mr. Golding noted: "The media is so powerful that it cannot separate itself from its responsibility of helping to shape the value systems of the country and of the people, in helping to set standards to define with some greater clarity what is right and what is wrong."