A junior government minister is pointing an accusing finger at the media in Barbados noting that its coverage of the crime situation in the country is giving a false impression.
“We have a relatively safe place but the conundrum is this, there is a massive disconnect between crime in Barbados and the perception of crime in Barbados. And you know what dictates our perception? What pushes us to have a perception that crime in Barbados is a lot? The media,” said the minister of state in the Office of the Attorney General with responsibility for Crime Prevention, Corey Lane.
Lane said, “crime has been relatively stable over the years” and the perception crime is high is largely due to media reports, even as he acknowledged he was not asking the media to “hide anything.”
“Crime against tourists down 142 percent,” he said, telling the audience at a joint meeting of the St. James branches of the ruling Barbados Labour Party (BLP) that at least one radio station will “come and tell you two tourists get shoot today, tomorrow and the next day and you would swear that crime is the biggest thing against tourists”.
Lane, who compared the island ‘s crime statistics to those in neighboring islands, said Barbados was among the safest but suggested that media reports had inflated the issue, citing reports of violent incidents involving students.
“Things does happen in schools all the time, if you report incidents back-to-back your perception is that the schools in chaos but things happen at schools all the time, it’s just how and when and how regularly them report it.”
Last Friday, two 15-year-old secondary school students were involved in an altercation, resulting in one of them nursing multiple stab wounds.
Lane, who is also the chairman of the National Crime Prevention Plan maintained that he was not prompting journalists to “hide anything” on behalf of his party or the country but urged them to be responsible in their reporting.
He pointed to another island, with a lower population that recorded a higher murder rate than Barbados in 2022 and suggested that the media there were more responsible in its reporting.
“Their media down there tend to understand tourism is important so they got lead stories like ‘Big regatta next week’ in the front of them thing [news]. In Barbados when they reporting ‘Two dead last night’.”
Lane voiced concern about the potential implication that the publishing of such news stories can have on tourists looking for respite from the cold.
Last year, Barbados recorded more than 40 murders surpassing the 32 recorded the previous year.
CMC/
