Social Impact with Emma » Venezuela : A Jamaica Gleaner Blog

The Netizens of Global Voices Celebrate Fifteen Years of Activism

December 12th, 2019

Happy birthday, Global Voices! I am proud to be a contributor to Global Voices and a member of the “GV Family,” which is now celebrating its fifteenth year. What voices, and where, you might ask? Well, GV is an amazingly diverse network, a digital community populated by people you could sit down for hours and […]

Communicating the Weather and Climate Change: How Can We Bridge the Gap?

August 31st, 2018

It’s not easy, we know. Getting the word out, keeping the public informed about the latest developments in weather is a challenge, to say the least. Therefore, it was good to see the Meteorological Service of Jamaica make the effort to invite Jamaican journalists to a 2018 Weather and Climate Media Workshop recently. The turnout […]

The Oil of Corruption

June 30th, 2018

Oil is nasty stuff. Not coconut oil or olive oil, of course. I am talking about petroleum – crude oil, light sweet oil (sounds tasty, but not), Brent crude, and so on. I just read on a travel page that guests at an Azerbaijani hotel bathe in the stuff, believing it to have therapeutic qualities. […]

Our Media Is Happily Free – Let’s Not Take It For Granted

May 4th, 2016

World Press Freedom Day (May 3) came and went with barely a ripple in Jamaica. The Press Association of Jamaica (PAJ) issued a statement, which addressed a current shopping list of concerns among local media practitioners. These concerns are by no means slight – an inadequate Access to Information, and the anachronistic Official Secrets Act, […]

A Time for Heroics

October 21st, 2014

“Any nation that does not honor its heroes will not long endure” is an oft-quoted remark attributed to Abraham Lincoln (although these may not have been his exact words). Nevertheless, Jamaicans take the spirit of these words to heart, as do other countries in the hemisphere and around the world. This week is National Heroes Week in […]