By Anselma Aimable
Caribbean Net News St Lucia Correspondent
Email: anselma@caribbeanetnews.com
CASTRIES, St Lucia: In addressing the participants at the opening of the World Press Freedom Day workshop in St Lucia, President of the Association of Caribbean Media Workers, Dale Enoch, called for strong media associations across the region.
With the regional Association now in its sixth year, the President called on media workers to use the occasion as an annual basis to review the path they have traveled as a professional organisation concerned with free press for free societies.
During his address, Enoch said that media workers must set an agenda for change in Caribbean media and must focus on professional development, finding common region-wide professional ground and ensuring that they operate in an environment of freedom and progress.
He also said they are in need of a home and resources to match the growing demands being made on them to operate as a truly representative organisation on behalf on Caribbean media workers.
Media workers need to develop mechanisms to monitor and respond to breaches of free speech and free press provisions in their respective jurisdiction; they need to develop a capacity to research and report on the development of the industry and there is also need to monitor and respond in a timely manner to the failure of some governments not to totally honor the free movement provisions of the CSME.
Most importantly media workers need to apply more rigorously the demands of code of professional conduct.
Enoch believes the functions of the Association of Caribbean Media Workers (ACM) will constitute the legacy of their work for years and years ahead.
The ACM now includes journalists from the Dutch-, French- and Spanish-speaking Caribbean and has earned the hemispheric and international recognition as the sole representative for Caribbean journalists and their record on the protection of freedom of the press is a badge of honour they wear with pride. | 
