Whatever happened to the "Accredited Media"?

Below are two videos from the  TV archive.

The first is about 4 minutes long and was broadcast by Channel TV around 1993.
It was probably the last project undertaken by Guernsey resident journalist Sarah Montague before she moved on to the UK where she became an established presenter of "Newsnight" alongside Paxo on BBC 2  TV and "Today" for BBC Radio 4.
The subject is the lack of Human Rights' safeguards in the Channel Islands.

The second is about 27 minutes of serious documentary broadcasting from BBC South West with journalist Sally Mountjoy. She makes a determined attempt to expose the disregard for "Womens' Rights" in the Channel Islands in 1991.

Most extraordinary of course is that nothing has really changed so far as "rights" are concerned in the Islands. Both of these items are still valid and could be broadcast today. Human Rights are still ignored across the Channel Islands. Treaties remain unsigned and specific groups such as "women" (half the population) are discriminated against on a daily and institutional basis...

But, just what have over 100 elected States Members been doing in these Islands since these documentaries were broadcast twenty years ago? Where are the reforms that should have been achieved?
What too has happened to the media over these two decades because neither the BBC in Jersey, Guernsey or the South West nor CTV would undertake such investigative journalism today.
No time or resources are available now but even more worrying is that there is no obvious enthusiasm among local journalists to undertake such challenging tasks.
Why should this be?

Channel TV Special Report about 1993 (above). This was broadcast originally at 6.00pm as part of the news at that time when CTY regularly researched serious social issues and promoted discussions. What has happened to the archive of such material held by CTV and is there the technical capacity to store it safely and access it now and in the future...?

The BBC South West documantary (above) is about 27 minutes long and was originally broadcast in 1991.
When has BBC Jersey or Guernsey attempted anything similar in recent years?
We acknowledge with thanks the efforts of those who produced such programmes in the past and that we are enabled to post them here today.

Miriam a UK Journalist in Jersey on Press Standards etc



It is always refresehing to meet a journalist - Miriam from the UK above -  prepared to be interviewed, especially when the subject is journalism itself.

Other professionals  such as lawyers and doctors in Jersey are still extraordinarily reluctant to appear before this lens although many mouth empty words about the need to communicate and to engage with the public. Our politicians more hopefully are slowly beginning to realise that "citizens' media" might not be such a bad thing after all...

Nevertheless, prejudices prevail but this journalist was prepared to be critical as well as flattering about her journalistic colleagues in the UK and their recent standards of conduct.

With regulation of the Media now imminent in the UK following so many scandals and the closing of the News of the World etc we - in Jersey - wait to see what might happen here.

Shall our Jersey government follow blindly whatever happens in the UK and accept the new regulatory regime ...and what about Bloggers....?

And how does this visitor view the local Jersey Media - what has she discovered about "free speech" and "investigatory journalism" during her brief visit....?

As always, this blog is open to anybody who wants to comment or record an interview.

Perhaps a locally based journalist would like to reply to this posting.....