Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Position Paper #1

Liberty Henderson

MM - 4123 International Mass Media

Position Paper 1

                                        News and Information in Bahamas

   Have you ever thought what life would be like without news? How our lives would exist without news. I think we couldn't even fathom the thought of not having news. News is important for a number of reasons within a society. Mainly to inform the public about events that are around them and may affect them. Often news is for entertainment purposes too; to provide a distraction of information about other places people are unable to get to or have little influence over. News can make people feel connected too.


   News is important as a social gathering space too, hence newspapers either online or physical place an emphasis on news. Where there are a lot of people gathered there is opportunity to advertise. This advertising sometimes can cause a conflict of interest in the way news is reported (http://clearlyexplained.com/news/importance-of-news.html).

   News helps us keep up with the world around us. It informs our view of the world and based on the information distributed to us, we take in account on what we are seeing or reading and make decisions on how we recognize the world to be. News is distributed just about everywhere. News can be found on television, movies, newspapers, magazines, radio, and books. All of these would be useless if we didn't have news. Whether you realize or not, news affects us in many ways. 
News affects what we wear such as wearing something warm or cold because of the weather forecast. On how we perform our work ethics or jobs like know about new job opportunities or if a job is at its end. News is vital to our lives. Freedom of speech and press also ties into news and information. Bahamas is a great example of a country that allows openly freedom of speech and press. With this country being a democracy, its civil liberties and political rights are actively free.

Bahamas' democracy holds no boundaries on any of their freedom of press. To look further on discussing news and information in the Bahamas, I will examine one of Bahamas' top newspapers. The newspaper I chose to analyze is The Freeport News. The Freeport News is the first Grand Bahamas newspaper. It is based in Freeport, Bahamas. It was first established in 1961. The Freeport News ranges anywhere from local news, local business, sports, personal opinion, health, crime, and religion. For the population to be over 400,000, they get as much  news coverage as they can. It is enough to absorb what it is going on in the Bahamas.

   The Freeport News publishes in a format where there are no restrictions on what they post. The Freeport News have total access to their stories. Their news is clearly expressed freely. With the Bahamas being so freely with their press, they have an influx of news articles to where so many news articles get pushed the bottom of the page. The Freeport News publishes headlines first and foremost at the top page. They get the most news coverage. Typically, the latest covers what is going in the country. As far as now, the latest was about East Grand Bahamas oil spill caused by the massive Hurricane Dorian. Also what the Bahamas community is doing to recover from it. It about the community working together to raise funding, and what protocols to take for natural disasters. Even though there is not endless counts of news stories they preferably range from 4-10, their news articles that start from the top are relatively short. As u scroll down to the final news stories, there are longer in comparison. Considerably one page to be exact. 

   The Freeport News breaks up local news, business, sports, health and religion into 6 different columns. As you click on each column, various stories arises. All columns feature something of a picture or image that develops within each news story. The stories on the Freeport News run for every 2 weeks or every week if a new story has developed. The business column showcases the local business thriving with their stellar projects or organization to help the community in some way. It really shows how the Bahamas' businesses work together as a whole to inspire, motivate, empower the community. It ranges from helping youth, setting seminars for women's empowerment, and cleaning up the earth. The opinion column is really based on public opinion. It focuses on the political side of the Bahamas.

   Whether it is the local governor doing a press conference about a board of directors having union issues or a prime minister talking about a building of a resort in the works. The health column is pretty self-explanatory. It is there to get the community to stay active and being healthy. The Freeport News doesn't largely express the sports section but still credits that market in some way on the website. The Freeport News last column that is published is religion.  Religion in Bahamas just as their freedom of the press is practiced freely. The Freeport News religion column offers gatherings, events, and festivals to celebrate their beliefs. As the Freeport News goes, they are next to none restrictions on their freedom of press. It is a small comparison next to the countries that do. It helps in a way on why people say the Bahamians are one of the most friendly and hospitable people.

   The Freeport News doesn't have any untold or undiscovered stories lurking outside their news websites. Since they are pretty much a free government, there is no need to hide stories from the immediate public. The Bahamas classified their news to anywhere and everywhere for everyone to share. Overall, news in Bahamas is freely to report, express, and analyze. They place no restrictions so their news can be widely expressed in a way to supply the media. Even though they are a relatively small country, their news still reaches across the globe and give enough coverage to understand what goes on in the Bahamas. 


                                      









                                                                    Works Cited

http://clearlyexplained.com/news/importance-of-news.html

http://thefreeportnews.com/