Ethical choices remains the most important skill of a journalist.

Senior Program Director of Special Projects at the International Centre for Journalists (ICFJ), Luis Botello, impressed this with a cadre of key Barbadian bloggers, as well as TV, Radio, print media practitioners during a one-day seminar hosted by the Bridgetown US Embassy at the Courtyard Marriott, in Hastings.

He pointed out that even in free societies, journalism that is done ‘very well‘ is always going to have issues.

Looking at the core principles of journalism, Botello firstly stressed that a journalist’s first obligation is to the truth.

“Sometimes you can’t have everything; one reason being sometimes you don’t have access to information. Also events change; today this is what we know, tomorrow something else came up. You’ve got to seek that truth as far as you can,” he insisted.

“Stories you know are going to have a strong reaction, you have to be ahead of the reaction, and explain that before the reaction. It shows that you were sensitive and you knew that there was going to be a problem. But if you don’t care, and then the next day everyone is criticising you and you then want to explain why you wrote it; it’s too late – the damage has been done,” he stated.

Botello, who is also a professor of Journalism at American University, conducts a variety of training programmes and conferences on digital media, mobile technology, ethics, press freedom and media development worldwide.

During his visit to Barbados, he also did work with the students enrolled in the Mass Communications Associate Program at the Barbados Community College (BCC). {DATA COURTESY: B’DOS ADVOCATE, Ed. by BajanReporter.com}