TONIGHT, this newspaper, along with its competitive colleagues, will pause to recognise what the Press Association of Jamaica (PAJ) has deemed the best of the past year’s work in various forms of media.

We wish to congratulate in advance all those who we know are deserving of this annual recognition.

At the same time, we are minded to reiterate the warning that the Calvary Baptist Church’s Reverend Everton Jackson delivered at the beginning of the week, namely that now is not the time for political correctness, but for telling the truth.

And the truth, as we see it, is that while the Press has done a noteworthy job of watching over the public interest as defined by the country’s constitution, our corps are not without flaw and we still have a ways to go en route to achieving the democratic fruits of true freedom of expression.

For while most media houses can make mention of thorny issues and point to the various elephants in the room that are crapping on the rule of law, there is still much we don’t know about the State that governs us.

This ignorance — which is not being helped by laws like the Access to Information Act, which purports to promote transparency but really frustrates its stated objectives — prevents us from telling the public much of what it needs to know in order to make informed choices.

Coupled with the bugbear of limited resources, this ignorance makes for a formidable enemy of progress that must be watched, even as we rightly celebrate the privilege of having a free press here.

For if we are not careful, sooner or later we may have cause to look back on tonight’s celebration, not with the fond memories of which we know it should be worthy, but with regret that we took for granted and consequently let slip away, a great constitutional right that was being eroded by insidious forces masquerading as champions of democracy.

If we sound like the harbingers of gloom and doom it is not intentional, but it is inevitable within the context of the several desperate issues here that simply won’t go away, unless those in the position to do so do the right thing.

And no amount of dressing up or posturing can fix it, for one way or another, the truth will come out.

Those who have no moral business in the portals of power, who are clearly unworthy of the positions they hold, will, like so many others before them, be dethroned, defrocked, demoted.

The pity is that in too many instances, their victims would have expired in the interim.

A few weeks ago, this space lamented the plight of the many teenaged girls in the inner cities of this country, who according to the research of Ms Betty Ann Blaine, convener of the Hear the Children’s Cry advocacy group, are being held as sex slaves by the various dons who are literally in charge of sections of the country.

Given the stated inability of our police force to do anything about this untenable state of affairs, who will free them?

It is imperative that we hold the State accountable to answer this and other like questions.

Otherwise we make a mockery of ourselves and the principles which we purport to uphold.

This will only redound to the greater tragedy of all of us in the long run.

Tonight’s awards ceremony will constitute a vital opportunity for those who have been given the task to articulate, to be heard. We pray they make the very best use of it.