The Politics: Jamaica

Just a little outline of the government to further understand the politics of Jamaica:
Jamaica, a partially independent nation since 1962, has two main political parties; the People's National Party (PNP) and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).  The country modeled its government after the UK; it had a parliament system, which includes a prime minister, or representative to Queen Elizabeth, Jamaica's Chief of State.

The PNP was founded in the late 1930s and is a democratic, liberal party, and the JLP is a conservative, right-winged party that was founded in the Early 1940s.  Currently, the JLP is in power and has been since they won elections in 2007 with its leader, Bruce Golding.

So, as we can see, the Jamaican government is formed much like the UK and even the US government, especially because of the presence of only two, non-religiously- affiliated government parties.  One, like the US is conservative, and the other is liberal and the balance of powers happens within both the Executive and Legislative Branches.  Unlike the US, Jamaica's Judiciary system is unrelated.

Jamaica News: First Week of May 2011

This week's headlines in Jamaica are about 90% unrelated in all three media sources I have been following; The Gleaner, The Observer and RJR News.  Most stories are about local issues, including some feature stories.  There was some reporting about shifts in government and political activity, but many stories covered, especially in the Observer are human interest stories. 

The featured story for today in The Observer's "News" section was "Ex-gangster has a peace vision for Jamaica".  It's about Courtney Morris' journey from being an ex-gangster who finally turned his life around after the death of a friend and nearly losing his mother.  Nowadays, he is campaigning to fight gang violence and activity in his small town of Jarret Lane. Click here to view full story.

In The Jamaica Gleaner, the Ministry is beginning to regulate pharmacies because of suspected use of methamphetamine.  It is suggested that people are purchasing drugs from pharmacies to extract pseudoephedrine, an ingredient used in the creation of meth. See more on Ministry regulating drug use.

Regionally, the sources discuss Trinidad's new sex offender registry, Haiti's cholera spread to Asia, and what I found most interesting, is the new effort toward free press in the Caribbean, as reported in RJR News.  Apparently, this past Tuesday was "World Press Freedom Day", so the Association of Caribbean Media Workers (ACM) took this day as an opportunity to change libel laws.  They also mentioned that most Caribbean countries still do not have access to all information.  Read the full story here. 

Although it's a short story, it describes the universal nature of press laws and politicians, which is an issue even the US continues to battle with.

Who Else is Covering Jamaica's Breaking News?

For this entry, I wanted to research the United States' coverage on Jamaica, so why not use one of our countries' most well-respected source of news? The New York Times has a section of "Breaking World News: Jamaica", which contains archived articles about the on-goings of the said nation, dating back as far as the 1980s.  Unfortunately, however, the latest posting on this database, (which is supposed to be breaking news), discusses food, "oxtail soup", to be specific.  Although it is a well-written article, one would expect something different from a section titled, "Breaking News".

The next article, organized chronologically from latest to oldest, was written in August of last year.  This article was of more serious matters; gang-related killings.
Is this to say that Jamaica has not had any breaking news? I think not.

This is an image from a reggae music special aired by BBC.

What is most likely the issue surrounding the lack of coverage of Jamaica is simply that Jamaica is not within our jurisdiction.

The BBC, however, has a "country profile" for Jamaica, obviously because of the UK's colonization of the island.  The profile includes culture, media, prominent figures and demographic data, but as far as breaking news goes, still no sign.

It's CARNIVAL!

Both The Jamaica Gleaner and the Jamaica Observer covered the annual event in Trinidad, one of Jamaica's neighbor Caribbean islands.  It is a festival of colorful costumes, culture, music, art and food.  

The Jamaica Observer covered the event, which was held in early March of this year.  The article discusses the globalization of "Carnival", as well as the opinions of people who support and oppose the now international event. 

The article, first appearing in "Black Voices", coins the term "commercialized" when discussing globalization.  The article poses the questions of whether the growth and expansion (essentially the globalization) of Carnival is diluting the countries' tradition and culture that is the basis for the event.

The pros and cons are clearly stated in the article, including that "commercialization" is good for the economy, but that it is losing its original cultural value.

This argument aligns with the frequent discussions of benefits and hindrances globalization has on every nation, especially developing nations, and ironically, arguments for either side are universal in content around the world.