16014: Nekita comments

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

Intellectual community and the Haitian media

This idea is not mine. I have been talking with several people who share
these concerns.  Yesterday, I met a radio announcer who said bluntly how
can he speak with other radio hosts who don’t even read the Boston Globe
or read anything at all. “You send them an announcement. They don’t read
it . They either don’t  announce at  all or if they do, the info is
innacurate.”

In another conversation, a radio announcer who got fed up with his
colleagues left the radio and was talking with me about having an
informative radio program. For instance, in Boston there are three
programs that are run free of charge in 3 separate university radios, with
a focus on Haiti. These programs are ran by the same people, same group of
friends since their existence in the last 15 to 25 years. The person’s
idea was to find an university radio where  a learner, a reader could be
the main host, the coordinator, but a group of creative people who want to
focus on adapting , integrating and learning about the culture and life in
North America could be a consulting team. Members of this team could
intervene once a while, but not fully in charge.  I said I’ll bring this
idea to Corbett’s line for discussion.

In the diaspora, we are seeing a group of uninformed, untrained radio and
TV amateurs who are informing a large majority of the Haitian population.
The information is focused primarely on the political news of Haiti, not
on its culture.  A few programs are culturally and educationally directed.
I have heard something like Radio lekol  in Miami. There are a few in
Boston also, however, the entire focus of the Haitian media in the
diaspora is on Haiti, not informing three generations of Haitians on the
daily social, political, and cultural life of the United States. As a
result, one observes, a permanent stage of “ transnationalism”. Haitians
are not fully integrated in the life of the country they are living in.
The second generation or those who grew up in the United States or Canada
are trying to , but don’t have the full support of the first generation
whom after several decades their minds are still in Haiti.

What do Corbetteers think of an idea to have the intellectual community
and visionaries play a consultant role in the Haitian media since we can
not and don’t have the time to be directly involved?
Nekita