The Bruce Golding-led administration is standing firm behind a recent decision to radically change how it disseminates government information in commercial media.

Information Minister, Daryl Vaz made it clear Thursday that while the government is willing to accommodate discussions with local media owners, the administration has no plans to reverse its decision to repackage its messages.

The administration seems unmoved by a scorching campaign mounted by the Media Association of Jamaica (MAJ) against its revamped radio and television messages.

Under the law, free-to-air radio and television stations are mandated to allot 30 and 45 minutes respectively, per day, to government programmes produced by the Jamaica Information Service.

Instead of utilising the time en-block, as was the norm, the administration has decided to fragment the times into five-minute programmes which are aired with high frequency.

This has infuriated media owners who complain that the radical change has disrupted regular commercial programming.

Thursday the Information Minister told reporters that the administration is being proactive in how it communicates government programmes.

He asserted that decision will stand in spite of talks now underway with media owners.

"There is nothing that we are doing that is outside the law, we have already gotten our legal advice and the fact is that the 30 minutes and 45 minutes is no longer to be used en-block and that is a straight strategy of the government to make sure that we are able to communicate more often to the people of Jamaica," Mr. Vaz said.

Mr. Vaz states that the government's position has been validated by the Attorney General's Department as well as the Broadcasting Commission leaving what he calls limited scope for the administration's position to change anytime soon.

"I have received some correspondence to which we have to respond to again just to say that the discussions both formally and informally are reaching to the point where there is not going to be much more scope, there is not much more to discuss or negotiate,"

"There are two positions on the table, one is that the government is prepared to implement the changes but it is never the best option to get into back and forth," he said.


He says he does not consider it unfair for the government to make the changes despite the existence of the Public Broadcasting Corporation of Jamaica (PBCJ).

Media managers have suggested that the PBCJ would be a better vehicle for these frequent government messages as it broadcasts 24-hours daily on cable.