The younger generation never experienced, and older people tend to forget, how very limited and how very stifled the media was in the last period of President Burnham’s rule. On his accession to power President Hoyte gradually brought about dramatic change and succeeding Governments have consolidated and extended freedom and variety of expression. Deficiencies remain but we have come a long way. Still, vigilance never can be relaxed to ensure that this precious right is preserved and protected. That is why even a minor lapse like the recent nonsense of banning/prohibiting calypsos at NCN should never have happened and should have been corrected at once. And that is why an unbalanced share-out of access to radio and television broadcasting rights threatens a step backward.
We are richer by far in having a more open, better and more varied media as part of the life of the community. Sometimes, I suppose, those in authority must doubt this. Beset by huge problems and by the daily anxieties of state, they must often look upon a more vigorous and searching media as a vexation they could well do without. But should such a thought ever
