00:00:14.440 - 00:00:27.120

Newspaper publishing in the Caribbean mirrored what was happening, to some extent, on the global scale with newspaper publishing. But newspaper publishing began globally

00:00:27.120 - 00:00:45.720

before it entered in the Caribbean. Talking about newspaper publishing in the 16th and 17th centuries in France and Germany, also coming into the United Kingdom, we had newspapers that were being read and utilised.

00:00:45.720 - 00:01:00.860

By the time we got to about 1830, we saw newspapers coming over to the United States. And those newspapers began to spread very widely, especially in cities, in the context of the growth of the industrial context

00:01:00.860 - 00:01:13.460

and the struggles that people were facing. Those newspapers in the United States began to be sold so cheaply, that it was easy for a large number of people to acquire a newspaper.

00:01:13.460 - 00:01:25.740

That was known as the growth and establishment of the penny press. At the same time, newspapers were emerging in the Caribbean. We saw newspapers emerging in the various language

00:01:25.740 - 00:01:37.980

groups within the Caribbean-- the English-speaking Caribbean, the French-speaking Caribbean, the Dutch-speaking Caribbean, the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. And it is in those differentiated Caribbean

00:01:37.980 - 00:01:54.580

societies that different kinds and forms of newspapers emerged. Those newspapers varied according to what was happening. But by and large, they were owned by the oligarchy, meaning those people who were planter

00:01:54.580 - 00:02:10.000

class or their descendants. Those were the people who controlled the newspapers because the great majority of, let's say, citizens, who were either ex-slaves or slaves,

00:02:10.000 - 00:02:27.580

were not yet given the benefit of English literature, literacy. And therefore, they were not a big part of the newspaper industry as they emerged in that time. So it was being produced by members of the oligarchy

00:02:27.580 - 00:02:47.440

for members of the oligarchy, treated as a newspaper, as a publication of record, but also pushing and encouraging the dominance of that class on the lower classes in society. So there were always issues with newspapers being class-based.

00:02:47.440 - 00:02:59.440

And as a result of that, some counter newspapers began to emerge, those that were pro-emancipation, those that were pro-worker. And so right across the Caribbean

00:02:59.440 - 00:03:16.110

you saw different forms of newspaper emerging. In Cuba, after the Cuban Revolution, we saw the growth and emergence of the Granma newspaper, which was and is the voice of the Communist Party of Cuba,

00:03:16.110 - 00:03:29.270

having taken over from the Batista era when they had El Diario as their newspaper. By the time the revolution got going, we saw the emergence of Juventud Rebelde, which

00:03:29.270 - 00:03:40.890

is the youth newspaper in Cuba. We saw the development of the newspaper called Trabajadores, the workers' newspaper. So it varied across the Caribbean,

00:03:40.890 - 00:03:55.270

but it emerged as it served different social classes, different interests. But it provided information, which was the common element. People were using newspapers to get information about what

00:03:55.270 - 00:04:10.530

was happening in their society. During the periods of the maturing of democracy in Europe and in the United States, newspapers were there to play a very important role.

00:04:10.530 - 00:04:31.250

They were aggressive defenders, sometimes of the workers, sometimes of the rights of people. And the newspapers developed a certain aggressive representation to the point that they

00:04:31.250 - 00:04:44.970

began to be considered as the fourth estate of power in society. In what we call the global periphery, in the colonial societies, newspaper publication

00:04:44.970 - 00:05:00.670

attempted to mirror some of these attributes and attitudes. But there were many constraints that made it a little more challenging. One of the big constraints was the matter of access.

00:05:00.670 - 00:05:16.270

Literacy was a major constraint on people's ability to gain knowledge from newspapers. So in many parts of poor rural Caribbean communities, the one or two people who were literate

00:05:16.270 - 00:05:24.990

would read the newspapers to the wider gathering in order to give them some insight as to what was happening. It wasn't a one to one relationship

00:05:24.990 - 00:05:40.830

with the product because of the question of literacy. But as we emerge and as the emerging technologies develop, the matter of access has been addressed in some ways because the newspaper is becoming digitised.

00:05:40.830 - 00:05:55.350

And the digital product, it's the availability on the phone of every citizen who wants it. And in that way, people can gain access to a version of the newspaper that is more digital

00:05:55.350 - 00:06:20.170

and that is more concurrent, and that is more consistent with the era of the social media. Studying newspapers provides us with insights into what was happening at the time it was happening,

00:06:20.170 - 00:06:39.170

and by those whose professional duty it was to document what was happening. It's important to see society in its diversity through its cultural, political, and social aspects.

00:06:39.170 - 00:06:57.410

It is said that newspapers provide us with a first draft of history and, therefore, gives us a first hand knowledge of things as they unfolded. We have to study our societies and to study

00:06:57.410 - 00:07:11.070

how people reacted to certain events in the context of their own day to day life. For example, in the middle of the 20th century, when we had the Great Depression,

00:07:11.070 - 00:07:27.290

and we also had upheavals in the Caribbean in respect of poverty and a demand for power and a demand for the end of colonial control, it's important to understand through the newspapers how these demands were articulated,

00:07:27.290 - 00:07:43.930

who were articulating these demands, who were opposing them, and what were the current debates at the time. Scholars need to be able to get into that level of detail in order to understand exactly what was happening.

00:07:53.870 - 00:08:09.780

So newspapers started in the 20th century in a robust way. They were all over the region. And they were, as I have indicated, dominated in their ownership by the oligarchy

00:08:09.780 - 00:08:24.980

but were still publications of record in many of these societies. But they still faced challenges. They faced challenges of the very literacy that the mass

00:08:24.980 - 00:08:42.300

of the population did not have in many of the societies, even into the 20th century. They also faced issues of technology and quality. Sometimes, the presses were outdated.

00:08:42.300 - 00:08:53.260

Sometimes, they were issues to do with the availability of newsprint. And of course, they also faced challenges of political pressure, whether it

00:08:53.260 - 00:09:07.640

is political pressure from those who were in government or pressure in relation to alternative viewpoints and perspectives emerging in society that the newspapers had to contend with.

00:09:07.640 - 00:09:38.480

So newspapers managed to mostly overcome those challenges, but they ran into substantially more debilitating challenges as we enter the 21st century. Newspapers provide for a commonality of information

00:09:38.480 - 00:09:54.000

in a timely manner in society. Also, newspapers provide for a documentation and archiving a recording of what was happening in the society at the time.

00:09:54.000 - 00:10:13.020

Newspapers in many parts of the region also represented an opportunity for both the government and the private sector to put their views forward and to share that view right across the population.

00:10:13.020 - 00:10:23.740

If we take, for example, The Gleaner newspaper. The Gleaner newspaper was established as a commercial sheet for business people. And it continued to publish until it

00:10:23.740 - 00:10:35.900

became more broadly based. But it's something that played a role in commercial terms initially and then servicing abroad, our population as time emerged.

00:10:35.900 - 00:11:00.360

So newspapers are very important, socially and politically, in the context of our Caribbean countries. Newspaper publishing differed from place to place is within the Caribbean based on what

00:11:00.360 - 00:11:12.520

were the political structures that were in place in each country, and also what were the social structures at play. If we take, for example, in Barbados.

00:11:12.520 - 00:11:30.480

Barbados, one of the colonial British societies at the time, did have newspapers that reflected the views of the establishment in those societies. So let me talk about the role that newspapers play

00:11:30.480 - 00:11:43.440

and how they differ across the Caribbean region. It depended on the social and political structures that were in place in the respective countries. In Jamaica, for example, you had The Gleaner.

00:11:43.440 - 00:11:54.480

In Trinidad, you had the Trinidad Express and The Guardian. In Barbados, you had The Nation and many others. In Bahamas, you had the Argus and initially, The Guardian

00:11:54.480 - 00:12:03.830

as well. Each one of those would be reflecting on what was happening in the particular politics of the country.

00:12:03.830 - 00:12:18.750

And many of those were English-speaking countries and, therefore, had anti-colonial pressures that they had to be contending with, even if they were owned by the oligarchy.

00:12:18.750 - 00:12:35.750

By the time we get to Cuba and the 1950s and early '60s, we saw a transition from Batista, a right wing dictatorship, into the revolution that was led by Fidel Castro. So we saw the end of some of the newspapers of that old era

00:12:35.750 - 00:12:46.230

and the emergence of many newspapers supporting the revolution. First and foremost, the newspaper called the Granma, voice of the Communist Party of Cuba.

00:12:46.230 - 00:12:57.010

We had the Juventud Rebelde, the youth paper. We had the Trabajadores, the newspaper of the workers of Cuba. And so you can see that, depending

00:12:57.010 - 00:13:12.410

on what the politics was and what was going on, you had newspapers serving different political purposes. In a lot of the Caribbean, English-speaking Caribbean, we consider newspapers as having been documents of record.

00:13:12.410 - 00:13:26.970

But we have to qualify that because it was a document of record in the service of the oligarchy. It wasn't the story of the people of the region. But you had a number of newspapers serving

00:13:26.970 - 00:13:38.770

a kind of opposite purpose-- newspapers, for example, that were part of the political struggle against colonialism, the political struggle against the dominant ruling

00:13:38.770 - 00:13:52.510

classes in these countries. We had, for example, in the case of the whole Caribbean, the newspaper called The Negro World. That newspaper was owned and operated by the UNIA,

00:13:52.510 - 00:14:08.710

Marcus Garvey's organisation, that was all about struggling against British colonialism and against the pressures that people were facing. We also had Public Opinion newspaper

00:14:08.710 - 00:14:22.030

in Jamaica, which was closely associated with the People's National Party that was then leading the national anti-colonial movement. We had many other smaller newspapers

00:14:22.030 - 00:14:42.630

that served local, city, or small group political purposes. For example, we had newspapers like The Workers' Time. We had newspapers Struggle Newspaper, all of which performed roles in relation to their constituencies

00:14:42.630 - 00:15:07.130

and in relation to what was happening politically in the country. So we are entering the 21st century in this conversation in relation to how newspapers emerged into this new century.

00:15:07.130 - 00:15:22.010

And one of the most dominant trends that we can see is that the newspaper industry begins to struggle because its audience is now divided up and splintered into television and radio.

00:15:22.010 - 00:15:36.490

And as we come closer to the current era through social media, the internet, and so on. So newspapers have been struggling, for example, and not been able to maintain and sustain

00:15:36.490 - 00:15:50.730

the level of viability that they enjoyed in the previous century. The big, dominant Gleaner newspaper, for example, that was and still is the leading newspaper historically in the Caribbean,

00:15:50.730 - 00:16:07.830

is a relative shadow of itself in terms of national influence, having been, let's say, merged or taken over by radio and television group in the Caribbean, in Jamaica. So newspapers in the 21st century are having to adapt both

00:16:07.830 - 00:16:23.350

to economic conditions. They have to adapt to new technologies. They also have to adapt to the market, where a young, emerging populist may not want to read to the extent

00:16:23.350 - 00:16:39.470

that the previous generation would like to read. So we are seeing a 21st century newspaper industry that is struggling, but that is trying to adapt. Some people are having dual publications, an online version

00:16:39.470 - 00:16:50.750

and the printed version. Some people are resorting to a more tabloid rather than a broadsheet. Some are going to weekly rather than daily.

00:16:50.750 - 00:17:04.640

And many are also trying to find alternative revenue sources to assist them along. So that is the scenario in which we find 21st century newspapers in the Caribbean.

00:17:14.860 - 00:17:32.020

Well, let us bear in mind that newspapers have weathered the emergence of many different forms of technology over time. They preceded the rise of radio. They preceded the emergence of television.

00:17:32.020 - 00:17:43.740

And newspapers still survived in the context of this particular present era. But the technologies that we are going through now, with the internet and so on,

00:17:43.740 - 00:17:57.080

provides the greatest challenge to newspapers, to the extent that newspapers have to go deeper in adapting to what is going on in society. Basically, the newspaper is no longer

00:17:57.080 - 00:18:11.080

to be defined as the printed hard copy edition. That's just the kind of byproduct. The newspaper that is emerging in the 21st century is the digital edition of the newspaper that can be easily

00:18:11.080 - 00:18:27.080

distributed, that can be more effectively utilised in education and other purposes. And so the newspaper still provides information, still protects freedoms, still campaigns

00:18:27.080 - 00:18:42.260

for rights of people in society. It's just that it is using new and different technologies in the pursuit of those same goals and objectives. We still need newspapers in the 21st century,

00:18:42.260 - 00:18:50.570

although the form of the newspaper will change significantly as it has done over centuries.