At a recent two- day workshop for journalists, veteran journalist Julian Rogers, who now runs the company Media Rogers AG Inc, called on the regions telecommunications companies to help Caribbean people see what is happening around each other in real time. Rogers was a presenter at the workshop organized by the Canadian funded Improved Access to Justice in the Caribbean – Impact Justice.
According to Rogers, Caribbean people have more knowledge of what is happening outside of the region as opposed to what is happening to their next-door neighbours in Caribbean territories. Pointing to Trinidad he said that with at least fifteen radio stations and a plethora of TV stations enter Digicel owners of Sports Max and now Flow with their own sports channel.
“Many decades ago I made an appeal to Cable & Wireless as they were known as then, that they should find it in their hearts to work with Caribbean media to create a platform that would allow us to see ourselves in real time. I know that CMC has tried, failed, tried, failed etc. because it’s an economic situation,” Rogers stated. “Unfortunately,” he says “many of the subscribers are not prepared to pay for the product that they produce and there is the question of the advertisers not willing to pay for the product they produce either.
According to Rogers, “a company as well endowed as C&W is or as well as Digicel, because they are the only people making money these days, they are the only ones getting top ups, I think it is time they topped up the Caribbean media.” He went on to state that now is the time for those companies to come to the table and work with us collectively to create a network that allows us to see ourselves in real time.
“Because if they can do it for sports they can do it for any other thing that we should have and I feel very strongly about that and I hope somewhere along the way it happens in my life time,” Rogers ended by saying.
