By IPS Correspondents
ST.JOHN'S, Jan 30 2002 (IPS)

Regional information ministers have agreed a financial package to revive the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC), which operated two indigenous news organisations until it was forced to close pending restructuring earlier this month.

Ministers, who met here Monday, would not say how much money would be involved but Antigua-based Observer Radio reported the bailout could amount to 1.5 million dollars. CMC reportedly had sought two million dollars. Details are to be finalised and the deal approved and unveiled at next month’s Caribbean leaders’ summit in Belize.

Officials told IPS the amount to be contributed by each government would be determined on the basis of their share of contributions to the budget of the Guyana-based Caribbean Community (CARICOM) secretariat.

However, St. Lucia would not be chipping in, Prime Minister Kenny Anthony, on a visit to Britain, told the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

“Political involvement in any future media house should be avoided at all costs,” Kenny said.

CMC, established 17 months ago to take over the operations and functions of the Caribbean News Agency (CANA) and the Caribbean Broadcasting Union (CBU), was forced to close Jan. 4 under the weight of more than one million dollars in debt.

Prior to the start of the meeting here, the newly formed Trinidad and Tobago-based Association of Caribbean Media Workers (ACM) said in a statement, “Any restructuring of CMC should ensure that media workers in its employ have a greater say in its broader business and administrative activities.”

“The decision to temporarily close CMC obviously omitted to take into account the interests of the journalists and other media workers employed in the system. The ACM wants a clear statement on the position of correspondents, in-house journalists and other staff with regard to terminal benefits and outstanding remuneration,” it added.

A business plan submitted to the meeting for consideration by CMC said that the current not-for-profit model “does not address the responsibility for providing capital investments by its owners since there is no provision for a return on these investments.”

The not-for-profit model allowed for 18 state-owned and private radio, television, and newspaper organisations in the region to subscribe to the services of the two CMC units and exercise some measure of collective decision making.

In its business plan, CMC said it was seeking two million dollars in grants, loans and guarantees from regional leaders.

CMC said that at the time of its “temporary closure” it gave the undertaking that it would “attempt to fulfil its contracted obligations for all profitable projects.”

It said it now holds “signed agreements most of which are for the first half of 2002 to the value of 2.5 million dollars.”

Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Lester Bird lamented CMC’s collapse, particularly as the region moves toward establishing a common market.

“Without a free flow of information that is objectively and fairly gathered and widely distributed, both the integration project upon which we have been embarked in the region since 1968 and the single market and economy that we are now trying to bring to fruition, would flounder,” Bird said.

He added that regional governments were not seeking to take control of the indigenous news organisations, even though they had been approached to help ensure CMC’s future viability.

“At the very least expect that those corporate vehicles are professionally run in a manner that does not serve the interests of its shareholders alone, but also tends to the needs of the Caribbean people for objective information gathered without bias.”

But he said while he did not want to see “either governments or the private sector who are not media houses” owning and operating the regional media organisations, he was of the view that two mechanisms would have to be established to justify “the provisions of financial resources by the governments and the rest of the private sector.”

Bird urged the establishment of an oversight committee “which would oversee the financial operations and management structure of the regional entity, while the other mechanism would be concerned with journalistic standards and quality.”

However, Bird’s proposal was shot down by Jamaica and Barbados, the latter that has already re-committed itself to providing a three million accommodation to house the restructured CMC.

The CMC business plan said the corporation had received “many gracious offers of support” from regional governments and institutions including the Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB).

“It is absolutely clear to the CMC board that the importance of the organisation is greater today than it has been over the past 30 years. Undoubtedly, permanent closure would be a grave blow to the region and a development that would require establishment of a similar institution with all the attendant difficulties that will flow from the loss of knowledge and experience accumulated over three decades,” CMC added.

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