Editorial
The Dissemination of Informationto the Public
One of the difficulties any entity, in particulara Government Administration faces when it is determined to changethe way previous administrations have conducted the people's business,is the ability to disseminate frequent and timely communicationsto an inquiring public who have the right to know.
It is therefore not unusual that the presentGovernment, working within the framework of the present archaicsystem of our current civil service administration and constitution,is experiencing at times some difficulty in getting the machineryavailable to them to keep up with the pace of the race to getthe Cayman Islands back on track as one of the world's five topfinancial centers.
Nevertheless, questions have been raised,from within and outside of the Civil Service, as to whether ornot those who make the day to day policies in government, specificallythe Elected Members of the Executive Council, should be discussingwith the media the decisions agreed upon before such news is distributedby a bureaucracy within the Government system.
Invariably the news is positive rather thannegative and in so many cases it is released by the bureaucratsfar too late; after the good deed is done.
These days news of Government and privatesector decisions that affect a nation and its people's lives aredelivered in "real time". It is incumbent for a moderncountry like the Cayman Islands to get on board, given the seamlessborders which characterize how information is distributed throughprint, electronic and nowadays, the internet media.
During the heightened concerns surroundingthe path of Hurricane Isidore last week, Cayman Net Newswas the main source for getting news of our country to the world,thanks to our website caymannetnews.com. Two of the major televisionnetworks in the United States (ABC and FOX) were monitoring ourwebsite for updates, with ABC broadcasting a live report fromour staff.
We provided information, not only to thesepowerful overseas media, but also to a significant amount of interestedparties.
These range from visitors planning theirannual vacation to our Islands to one of the big five accountingfirms wanting to know the status of the upcoming meeting of theOECD which the Cayman Islands is hosting.
Cayman Net News,with the cooperation and assistance of the Government's InformationService and the Public Relations arm of the Department of Tourismhas been able to keep the world and countless readers at home,abreast of events and developing news because of our commitmentto provide the news "as, and when, it happens."
Therefore, capitalizing on the advantageof the on-line news service of Cayman Net News, shouldbe the goal of everyone, in and outside of Government.
In this light, we welcome the opportunitiesopen to us because of our cutting-edge approach of presentingthe news.
Perhaps, it is also fitting at this timeto acknowledge the accolade paid to Cayman Net News recentlywhen the comment was made that the Cayman Islands "has finallybecome a full-fledged country, now that it has two daily newspapers."
To this end, we recognise the awesome responsibilitythat has been placed on our shoulders to inform the public andto take the Cayman Islands to the world. We will not resile fromit.
Indeed, we subscribe to the concept of opengovernment and we assert that freedom of information is a lynchpinof such a system.
Against that background, neither the Government,private sector or those who have to disseminate vitally importantinformation, can afford to pander to those in the vocal minoritywho want the message but would like to shoot the messenger.