The Tribune

CRITICISM of Carifta 2013 in the international press continued with a letter to the editor printed in Jamaica’s Daily Gleaner last week.

The letter, signed “Romaro Scott”, claimed the event made it clear that Jamaica is not only on top of the region in terms of track and field, but also media coverage.

“For one thing, it was apparent that the main commentators for the games were proletarians in the field of media and communication,” it said. “They oftentimes mispronounced names, had dead air while the coverage was live, had limited knowledge of the events and techniques, and most disturbing of all, they had poor commentating techniques.

“To compound this, the only time one could get a feeling of adrenaline rush from their voices is when a Bahamas athlete is winning or has won the race. This clearly showed that they were doing commentary in their capacity as Bahamas commentators rather than regional commentators.”

The writer said such “poor journalism” should have been a concern to the organisers of Carifta.

“Regional events should, by no means, be subjected to this sort of embarrassment,” the letter said.

The writer added: “The camera shots from the event brought back memories of watching a home-made video. The angles were untimely and lacked transition in smoothness, contributing to a poor delivery of the races.

“The Jamaican audience, in particular, must have been annoyed because they are used to a much better quality of broadcast from their local media houses.

“That aside, social media were appropriately used by The Gleaner and Jamaican’s Carifta team sponsor LIME Jamaica, giving its followers timely updates throughout the meet. They catered for those persons who weren’t before television monitors, and this is commendable.

“At the next meet in Martinique, hopefully amateur media controls won’t be as prevalent and punctuated as they were in the Bahamas 2013.”