It will be no hard candy Christmas this year for the delightful winners of the Wesley Hall Junior School (WHJS) PTA Annual Christmas Raffle.

Rather, it will be all nice and dandy for first prize winner, Ebony Dorant who was beaming with smiles having won a 40” Toshiba LCD Television.

Dorant, who was jumping up and down with glee, after receiving the news, said she would be looking her favorite shows of Gossip Girls and The Vampire Diaries on big screen for the Holidays.

Meanwhile, a delightful Mark Layne would not have to dig deep in his pocket to buy groceries for the Holidays. He copped the second prize of one fully packed barrel of groceries and toiletries, compliments DMI Shipping and Gunter Shipping.

Other prize winners were: Elita St. Hill of Howell’s Cross Road, St. Michael; Ann Eastmond of Wilkinson Road, St. Michael and Sharon Boyce of Horse Hill St. Joseph. They won the $250 shopping voucher, Broad Street Men; a small appliance bundle compliments Dacosta Manning and $200 shopping voucher compliments Becool Beauty Supplies respectively.

President of the WJHS’ PTA, Shone Gibbs said the proceeds from this year’s raffle would go towards purchasing the school’s Pan Band.

Gibbs noted, “We are committed to investing in the musical aspect of the school which has a very rich legacy by launching a Pan Band. We have already sourced and identified the equipment which would cost us in excess of $15 000.”

While the PTA has a vision of seeing the school represented in NIFCA 2011 with the Pan Band, the president said due to the current economic meltdown, funds from the raffle fell short by some $5 000, as the target was $15 000. Gibbs is however thankful to the public and sponsors for their continuous support over the three years.

He added, “We want to thank the public that continue to support the raffle in these tuff times.  We had some privileged sponsors over the years, Becool Beauty supplies, Broad Street Men, ShopSmart, DaCosta Manning, Gunter Shipping and SBI Distribution.  We look forward to working with them next year as we are committed to making the raffle bigger and better.”

Ticket numbers drawn were: 01014; 09504; 02728; 13687; and 05892 respectively.

Ebony Dorant is beaming with smiles as she received the first prize of a 40” Toshiba LCD Television won from the Wesley Hall Junior School PTA Annual Christmas Raffle. She is congratulated by president of the school’s PTA Shone Gibbs.

As people find new ways to access news in a post-print world, so the demands on those that deliver it is changing, says Andrew Marr, and this new media age could bring with it a better, more rigorous kind of journalism.

The winds of media revolution are gusting fiercely.

In the past few days we have the Guardian’s estimate of a near 90% drop in the online readership of its rival, the Times, since the pay wall went up; and Amazon’s announcement that sales of digital books for its e-reader Kindle are outstripping hardback books in the US, at the rate of 143 e-books for every 100 hardbacks over the past three months.

I just wanted to follow up my earlier “conversion confession” on this site.

These two whirling straws were given perfect context at a seminar on Tuesday by John Warnock, co-founder of Adobe and a fabled figure in the Silicon Valley story. Speaking at Nottingham University’s computer science school, he predicted a cascade of new iPad-like tablets in many sizes arriving by the end of this year, producing turmoil for cinemas (which will mostly go), bookshops (ditto), and broadcasters.

Great minds

Continue reading the main story

• A series of articles for the Magazine on innovation

• End of the news romantics, by Andrew Marr
• Changing the world, by Stephen Sackur
• Change America believes in, by Justin Webb

Hollywood now gets just 15% of its revenue from cinema releases, while newspaper publishers find their traditional strengths – expensive printing plants and sophisticated distribution chains – have become merely costs.

Book publishers ask what they bring to the new party. A public has emerged which doesn’t watch traditional sequential television, or even understands the notion of “channels”.

I’ve just come back from Washington where I was doing interviews with grandee journalists and historians in the wood-panelled magnificence of the city’s National Press Club.

But downstairs, in the coffee bar, everyone seemed to reading on iPads and phones. Getting into the lift and returning to street level felt like time-travelling, from the Age of the Press, to tablet-world.

But getting back to the big question, which is the future for journalism, two things struck me. The first is that I’ve started to spend quite a lot on buying online reading material, from books and magazines to news material; and that the quality’s pin-sharp, easy on the eye and addictive.

This leads me to think that perhaps Rupert Murdoch’s pay wall gamble is a better bet than the Guardian figures currently suggest; but that the proposition will need to be redefined.

People pay for magazines, television channels, DVDs and endless apps. The notion that they shouldn’t ever pay for news is actually quite bizarre and a historic anomaly.

I’m interested in politics, social policy, business, technology and the arts. I am not interested in sport, fashion, property, crime stories or celebrity.

In this new world, where I’m being sold new propositions, I no longer see why I should buy material I’m not interested in, just because it’s been bundled up by one publisher rather than another. Am I alone? I’ll pay. I’ll buy. But I want to be more discriminating.

Fast food, fast news

The second thought is that journalism may be on the edge of a great new age. How good have we been, honestly, at telling the truth to the powerful? When a crisis blows up, or a problem of deep complexity has to be confronted, few reporters have the specialist knowledge or time to really confront government, or a company.

Further, the daily competition for newness – always on to the next story, the next headline – means the media’s attention span has been limited. Too rarely do we return to stories that have “faded away” and ask, what happened next?

Andrew Marr

Continue reading the main story

Hear more from the BBC presenter on The Andrew Marr Show on Sundays on BBC1 at 0900 BST

• The Andrew Marr Show

Our appetite for long-term campaigning and focus fritters away. Fast news has had the same effect on our minds as fast food has had on our physiques.

The next media age may be differently configured. We may have a group of very large “aggregators” bringing busy people the most important new news of the day, rather as now, but there will be fewer of them.

But underneath that, we will have large numbers of specialist news sites – for specific companies or sectors, for different environmental issues, for overseas crises – which bring together journalists, academics, specialists, campaigners, professionals, lobbyists and so on. These will be where the expertise and longer-term attention span will be found.

They will pile the pressure onto the powerful, and keep asking the questions. And from time to time their work will break upwards, to the aggregators (we need a better word) and the global headlines.

Or so I hope. There’s the real chance of a better kind of journalism in all this; something to comfort ourselves with as we pad to the bookshop, or head for the cinema while it’s still there.

Business Communications RO

Yvonne Grinam-Nicholson

“People don’t leave bad companies, they leave bad managers.”

How do you feel about your manager’s communication skills? Are the members of your team always (and I mean, always) the last one to know what is happening in the company? Is he hard to talk to, so much so, that you have resorted to daily dosage of ‘strong back’ whenever you have to speak with him? Is he just plain rude to everyone and on top of that considers himself God 2.0? Sorry to disappoint you but if your immediate boss displays any one of the aforementioned features you are not alone – and neither is he.

The nature of the beast of business is that more often than not some employees are promoted on the basis of excellence in their technical area of competence and it is usually largely on this basis that they become our bosses. The effectiveness of their communication skills is not usually considered in the mix as it is not a priority as long as they can get the job done — by fair means or foul.

Of course this makes the rest of us lead very miserable lives at the place where we ‘live’ for at least forty-hours each week. There are some who have crafted methods of escape from managers who would not know the meaning of effective communication if it slapped them across the face as some of us wish we could do to them. I have colleagues who have chosen unemployment or demotion rather than work with managers who they consider to be pigs.

The truth is that without effective communication there can be little or no performance management, innovation or effective customer service management. But the unfortunate situation is that the manager with poor communication skills will perhaps never know the truth as quickly as they ought to because, well for one thing, they are poor listeners. If your boss displays one or more of these characteristics she may be in dire need of some type of communication training. You can help of course by cutting out this article and mysteriously leaving it on the desk of the miscreant. If fingers are pointed at you, feel free to plead ‘The Shaggy’ i.e. ‘It wasn’t me’. You have my permission however to tell them that it was me.

The remote control manager: Is your manager one of those persons who refuses to meet collaboratively with the staff to share ideas and get feedback? In fact when was the last time you had a departmental meeting where you could be properly briefed on new company procedures? The manager who shuns face-to-face communication usually pushes out instructions via e-mail or uses a hateful minion to announce and implement some ridiculous ‘new company policy’. The garden variety of this type of manager is the one who will meet with employees but only if there is good news to be told. Count him out when there are benefit cuts, staff reduction or any such bad news to be shared. He only wants to be there for the good times. Send him for some training.

Out of control manager: Like a spoilt child, this manager believes that the promotion gave him power over all he surveyed. It also meant that he did not have to follow the rules of polite society, which includes uttering ever again the words, ‘good morning’, ‘good evening’ while hurrying in on his way in or out of office. This person has not learned how to ask you to put in unpaid overtime work without making it sound like an order. In fact given the choice he would rather not speak with any member of his staff now that he has climbed way pass their station. Alas, he has to and so he is very resentful of this situation. This is one manager who will need an intense session. Quickly.

Silent Sam: Silence is not always golden and there are times when these managers have to speak to, and on behalf of their staff. Silent Sam is the kind of manager who hears no evil, speaks no evil and sees no evil – yet by this behaviour can be evil incarnate. He is the boss who ‘neva know nutten yet’ but is very capable of covering his rear very adequately yet leaving the ample behinds of you and your co-workers way out in the cold, exposed to the elements, especially fire. He will have information that might help the team along but refuse to share it or will do so only in drips and drabs because he has not quite wrapped his head around the idea of leadership and collective responsibility. or, to be fair to him he just knows how to take care of himself alone. A crash course might rescue him.

We all know that it is hard out there. It is challenging and the quality of employees that you are given to work with is certainly no walk in the park as some of them do try your soul to its absolute limits. However, when all is said and done, you have to work with the staff you have inherited or selected. The best way to ease the burden and to make it less painful for both manager and employee is to equip them with the necessary skills to make the 40-hours goby quickly. (Jamaica Observer)

Yvonne Grinam-Nicholson, (MBA, ABC) is a Business Communications Consultant with ROCommunications Jamaica, specialising in business communications and financial publications. She can be contacted at: yvonne@rocommunications.com. Visit her website at www.rocommunications.com and post your comments.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An online newspaper, also known as a web newspaper, is a newspaper that exists on the World Wide Web or Internet, either separately or as an online version of a printed periodical.

Going online created more opportunities for newspapers, such as competing with broadcast journalism in presenting breaking news in a more timely manner. The credibility and strong brand recognition of well-established newspapers, and the close relationships they have with advertisers, are also seen by many in the newspaper industry as strengthening their chances of survival.^[1] The movement away from the printing process can also help decrease costs.

Professional journalists have some advantages over blogs, as editors are normally aware of the potential for legal problems.^[2]

Online newspapers are much like hard-copy newspapers and have the same legal boundaries, such as laws regarding libel, privacy and copyright,^[3] also apply to online publications in most countries, like in the UK. Also in the UK the Data Protection Act applies to online newspapers and news pages.^[4] As well as the PCC rules in the UK. But the distinction was not very clear to the public in the UK as to what was a blog or forum site and what was an online newspaper. In 2007, a ruling was passed to formally regulate UK based online newspapers, news audio, and news video websites covering the responsibilities expected of them and to clear up what is, and what isn’t, an online publication. ^[5]

News reporters are being taught to shoot video^[6] and to write in the succinct manner necessary for the Internet news pages. Many are learning how to implement blogs and the ruling by the UK’s PCC should help this development of the internet.

Journalism students in schools around the world are being taught about the “convergence” of all media and the need to have knowledge and skills involving print, broadcast and web.^[7]

Some newspapers have attempted to integrate the internet into every aspect of their operations, i.e., reporters writing stories for both print and online, and classified advertisements appearing in both media; others operate websites that are more distinct from the printed newspaper. The Newspaper National Network LP is an online advertising sales partnership of the Newspaper Association of America and 25 major newspaper companies.

I had tuned in to one of the local talk shows in The Bahamas, and the host was on about the economic crisis and why hadn’t anyone seen it coming — particularly the economists and business persons. It wasn’t the main focus of the show that day — from what I heard — but it was a side remark to the main point of why persons can still start up their businesses, even in these challenging times.

Educated at the Bahamas Baptist Community College; St Thomas University and The London School of Economics and Political Science, Youri Kemp is a Management and Development Consultant

I would like to work with the first assertion and state that, yes, people did see the crisis coming. The question to be asked, rather than why didn’t anyone see it coming, is why did folks not listen to the people who had something to say on the matter?

I can remember about four years back, sitting in a discussion seminar with my very distinguished professor at the time, Dr Jonathan Hopkin. We were discussing the global economy and how he was in the process of selling his house, after we had reviewed literature two days in advance on economic and welfare regulation. During that same period, I was reviewing Central Bank policy in conjunction with financial deregulation — in particular regard to US Federal Reserve rate policy and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s financial deregulation policies in the mid 1990s — for another distinguished professor of mine, Dr David Woodruff, and then it all clicked!

The global economy was out of whack and in disarray. I knew then that the financial services sector was way more advanced and out of control than anyone without the training had anticipated. It was that awesome. While creating money out of thin air was bad enough, abusing the money multiplier theory by loose lending policies with adjustable rates (e.g. housing market adjustable rates) and the expansion of sophisticated financial products that weren’t ever attached to the products or services that financial peddlers promoted them as. In addition to the loss of structural employment, due to advanced technologies making the worker obsolete and a shift in production to Asia and to some extent Latin America, all of this signified that North American and Western European economies were on non-productive, welfare spend to consumption foundations that were bound to collapse.

My eyes were opened, so to speak. I never saw the economy or the world the same way I had before that epiphany, ever again. I went on every rooftop, to every kitten and Rastafarian and every website that dared to broach the topic about the state of the economy, proclaiming, “Repent, for the end is near!”

So too were other, more notable and respected voices asking for structural economic reform in the domestic and global economy, for example, Nobel Laureates Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz, as well as Dr Nouriel Roubini, aka “Dr. Doom”, for his incessant ranting on the collapse that nobody saw coming.

Nobody listened. Nobody wanted to listen. Persons were labelled as out of the loop, troublemakers and/or smart lipped naysayers that always fussed a lot about nothing. It was all bad news, you see.

In addition, the money created during the boom was lucrative — even after the crisis, to hear of investment bank CEO’s spending $15,000 on a wall sconce and $10,000 on wastepaper baskets, apiece, to adorn their multi-million dollar offices, is enough to make you think of the type of money that bought influence and the thinking behind the people who were spending that money.

I admit one thing: I didn’t see the crisis’s contagion being so severe. The subsequent ripple effect around the globe in non-financial services sectors, yes. But, the ironic circumstance was having the leader of free-market capitalism, the United States of America, having its credit markets frozen due to the fear of risk of exposure to complex financial products, is something no one could have predicted — who would have thought it could happen?

Another thing was that not only were investment banks in North America and Europe using the same financial products, but they were also globalising them — e.g. the sale and re-sale of credit default swaps and derivatives from North America to Russia, from Russia to Spain, etc.

More importantly, as the crisis got bigger, credit dried up because no one — post Lehman Brothers’ collapse — was willing to risk exposure to people and institutions that were involved in risky trading. Then the market went into a panic — exacerbated by the US political cycle — and wealthy consumers in North America and Western Europe, started spending less because they held back consumption and the home equity market began to collapse (good move, Dr Hopkin), coupled with larger losses in employment, which caused manufacturing in Asia and Latin America to decline, causing more job losses in the other respective regions.

In light of all of this, the good news is that this certainly is a time for planning and for innovative, strategic thinking for new and existing businesses as the rebound happens. The morning after is always the best and brightest time for a fresh, new start. Busts are followed by booms, spurred by innovation, imagination and creativity. While money is still hard to come by, thinking about what you can do when things get better, isn’t.

However, while some would sell you a pipe dream on the idea that a recession does not have to mean a recession for you, reality states that the odds that the recession would not be for you are very slim.

Moving forward, after we have made note that some aren’t prepared to listen to people who have a penchant for being right too soon, I still would encourage them to consider all factors on the table, because lives are depending on it. Lives have been lost already, and in my humble submission, lost unnecessarily and neglectfully so.

When we speak in terms of the Caribbean, with lobbying for a risk sharing mechanism for foreign reserves in order to smooth government revenue in the event a crisis happens again, it’s serious. When we speak of a plan to contain and fight inflation, based on US dollar interest rate movements and the impact it has on oil and other minerals, it’s serious. When we speak of flexible, coordinated and responsive Central Bank policy throughout the region, it’s serious.

In terms of The Bahamas, when we speak of tax reform as a way to create sustainable, supplemental industries that would make The Bahamas less dependent on American consumers that are themselves dependent on a falsely inflated economy, in addition to tax and other reforms that fortifies the middle class, gives support to small and medium sized businesses while strengthening employment, it’s serious.

So, here we have it again, people — of even a small voice like this humble author — are speaking for identifying reform and change. Will the people who have the power to do something act in a meaningful way?

I pray to God that they consider even the most marginal scenarios and set personalities aside, for the common good. (Caribnet)
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KINGSTON, Jamaica (JIS) — Minister with responsibility for Information, Daryl Vaz, has reiterated the Jamaican government’s commitment to press freedom.

Vaz said that the government would not do anything to threaten the tradition that the country has enjoyed for many decades, of having a free press.

Minister with responsibility for Information, Daryl Vaz. JIS Photo

The Minister, who was addressing the Post Cabinet press conference last Thursday, insisted that the Jamaican press was “indeed, one of the freest in the hemisphere.”

He said that the government will be pursuing amicable discussions with media owners, to gain compliance with its request that they air shorter government programmes.

“I look forward to continued discussions with the Media Association of Jamaica. That is something that we are totally within our right to do. We are utilizing it in the way that we deem best to carry government communication to the people,” he said.

Vaz noted that there were checks in the system, to ensure that government does not abuse the time it is allowed for daily broadcasts.

“The regulators will be very attentive to this, and I know that the media association and the press association will be the watchdogs to highlight any area that they think that is crossing the line from Government message to political propaganda,” he stated.

Vaz emphasized that the government was also committed to keeping the populace informed, using modern formats.

“Not because it has been used in one way for so long a time (means) that is the only way that it can be used. Some of this information is critical, that will explain a lot to the people as to why they are being affected in their various communities, whether it be bauxite, whether it is sugar, and we have a responsibility, and we make no apologies for that,” the Minister stated. (Caribnet)
]]> http://pbspublicrelations.wordpress.com/2010/05/10/jamaican-government-committed-to-press-freedom-says-minister/feed/ 0 pbspublicrelations http://pbspublicrelations.wordpress.com/2010/05/05/commentary-world-press-freedom-day/ http://pbspublicrelations.wordpress.com/2010/05/05/commentary-world-press-freedom-day/#comments Wed, 05 May 2010 13:44:50 +0000 pbspublicrelations http://pbspublicrelations.wordpress.com/?p=233 ]]>
by Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State

The United States joins the international community in celebrating World Press Freedom Day. A free press is essential to an empowered citizenry, government accountability and responsible economic development. Wherever independent media are under threat, accountable governance and human freedom are undermined.

US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. AFP PHOTO

Courageous journalists across the globe risk their freedom and their lives to provide independent information on government actions and their consequences; report the news from conflict zones; expose crime, corruption and wrongdoing; and reveal human rights violations – all despite efforts, in some cases, by governments and others, to control what people read, hear and think.

For exercising the right to free expression, journalists and bloggers are too often targeted for harassment, intimidation, arrest, physical attack and even murder, often at the hands of unknown assailants who act with impunity. In November 2009, President Obama applauded the efforts of Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez to “empower fellow Cubans to express themselves through the use of technology” and said that her blog “provides the world a unique window into the realities of daily life in Cuba.” That same month she and two fellow bloggers were forcibly detained by plain clothes security personnel while en route to a peaceful demonstration, and she and one of her companions were beaten. Also in 2009, Burmese freelance journalist Hla Hla Win was sentenced to 27 years in prison on trumped-up charges based on nothing more than interviewing monks in commemoration of the Saffron Revolution. And Natalya Estemirova, an independent journalist from Russia who was known for her fearless reporting on human rights violations in Chechnya was kidnapped and murdered. In total, 71 journalists were killed last year, many murdered with impunity.

Governments in every region of the world apply restrictive laws and regulations and other controls on media freedom. These restrictions often extend beyond traditional print and broadcast media to new forms of electronic communications through the Internet and other new technologies. The State Department’s human rights report detailed our concerns about these practices.

Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights is as relevant in our globalized Information Age as it was when it was adopted over six decades ago: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” The United States is committed to working in partnership with members of the media, the private sector, non-governmental organizations and other concerned governments to defend freedom of expression and the brave journalists who are persecuted for exercising it on the challenging new terrain of the 21st century.
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Winners will be honoured at a ceremony in New York in JuneThe BBC News website has won two People’s Voice gongs for its news website and mobile site in the ever-popular Webby Awards, designed to reward excellence on the net.

It is the sixth year running that the BBC has won the People’s award for its news site, which is awarded by web users around the world.

It lost out to the New York Times in the official award for best news site.

The BBC said it was “delighted” to receive the accolades.

Steve Hermann, editor of the BBC News website, said the win was “a great achievement”.

“It is an endorsement from our audience of what we do, and something for everyone working on the site to be proud of,” he said.

Prize contrastsOther winners included Twitter for best practices, Mashable for the best business blog, and Truthdig for the best political blog.

Old favourites Flickr and The Onion scooped the community and humour awards respectively.

Vint Cerf, the man credited with much of the underlying architecture of the internet, was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement award.

“It’s exciting to honour breakouts alongside the man who helped invent the internet,” said David-Michel Davies, executive director of the The Webby Awards.

“That’s what makes the Webby Awards and the internet so special.”

Another BBC website, BBC Blast, which is aimed at developing young people’s creativity, won the People’s Voice award for net art.

The Webbys were set up in 1996 and are predominantly voted on by a 750-member body of web experts.

The 14th Webby Awards received nearly 10,000 entries from over 60 countries.

Winners will accept their awards with five-word speeches at a ceremony in New York in June.