Barbados Blogs Make a Huge Step

There is a huge shift underway in Barbados -- two of the most outspoken blogs are being printed and distributed on paper.

In my travels across the region I hav found the Barbados newspapers to be the absolute worst -- insipid, uninspiring and devoid of any of the passion that one normally associates with journalism.  Reading them brings on feelings of suffocation, suppression and suspicion.

I remember when a Bajan sitting next to me on the plane to Bridgetown was arrested and hauled off by Jamaican police.  He was in the news the next couple of days in Jamaica, as he was arrested and later convicted of trying to export ganja.

There was no mention of the incident in the Bajan press.

Frankly, they are just not worth reading.

However, as bad as they are, they have spawned what might be the hardest-hitting journalists in the region in the form of Barbados Free Press and Barbados Underground.  They are anonymous, and ever since they decided to distribute a print version they have been under attack.

While there are no comparable blogs in Jamaica or Trinidad, the newspapers in both countries are much more truthful, even if they lack in high quality, investigative reporting.  There is more of a feeling in both places that the papers are not trying to present a nice picture to either tourists or the government

Amazingly, neither of the two major Bajan newspapers has ever acknowledged the existence of either blog, in spite of the fact that they sometimes take their lead and follow their stories.  If they aren't careful, they might find themselves obsolete before very long, bearing in mind that over 60%of Bajan households have access to the internet, and that the numbers are only climbing.