It is time the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation draws the line regarding the dress code of its female’s news presenters. It is neither pleasing to the eyes or for the image of CBC. A single night does not go by without receiving a call regarding some of the outlandish attire that is worn by some of the female news presenters for my opinion or comment. I must be honest with you and let you know that when certain presenters are on, that I would always turn my television set off because of their attire. I have been meaning for quite some time to comment on the matter, although a few weeks ago I was prompted to write a short article after realizing that my entire television screen was being consumed by one of its main presenters and the gaudy African garment that she was wearing then and which is always the case in terms of her wardrobe which appears to be only African garments.
Recently, I received a call asking if I was watching the news and what are my thoughts of the presenter’s apparel, before I could state my opinion, the person proceeded to tell me that the presenter look like an over loaded Christmas tree and it was not pleasing to the eyes. Well, I certainly had to agree with the caller, because the bright pink and black trimmed outfit plus the necklace did not do the presenter any justice. Two nights later the same person called me back regarding the dress that the female weather presenter was wearing, to tell you the truth; it was very difficult to discern the dress from the clouds and the currents and which is the norm for this particular presenter in terms of her choice of outfits because of her body structure.
When one looks at the International news, both the female and male news presenters compliment each other in their attire; but that is not the case at the CBC TV8. It is very pleasing to see that all the male presenters at CBC are always nattily attired while the females with the exception for one or two are poorly dressed, which does not compliment the men’s attire. There are guidelines for how one should dress when they are on camera, why are these guidelines not been adhered to? Who is responsible to enforce and see that these guidelines are carried out? One would notice that the International female news presenters always wear a solid colour dress or a suit while the males always wear a suit. It would be in the best interest for CBC to address this matter regarding the female dress code, since CBC news is beamed all over the world and being viewed by millions of viewers and that the image being presented should be one that promotes Barbados in a positive light.
Barbados is currently rated very high in the world in terms of obesity and anyone seeing the majority of our female presenters would be inclined not to come to Barbados as a destination where fitness and health lifestyles are paramount. One can say that the male news presenters at CBC understand the importance of image or that they follow very closely the international trends of dressing as a news presenter. I guess one has to lay the blame squarely at the feet of management for this lack of professionalism among the female news presenters in terms of how they dress. It is evident that some of these ladies do not understand the Do’s and Don’ts of fashion or how to dress for the occasion, presenters attire should be more business like and not as if they are dressing for a party or a lime; which is the case for most of the ladies at CBC.
The Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation is a government entity and is the eyes and mouth of the government run by a board which mandates the policies of the corporation. Although the government service does not dictate that any of its departments wear a uniform; like some private companies who make it mandatory that their employees wear a uniform, which serves to identify the company from other businesses. When one wears a uniform, it shows a sense of pride, commitment, part of and belonging to an organization. It is time that the government of Barbados implements some form of dress code for its white collar departments and not only for the blue collar worker. Barbadians are a follow pattern society which seems to pick up all the negatives and not the positives from the so called outside world. There are a lot of positive ideas out there in the world that we as Barbadians can adopt in order to be a front runner with the rest of the world. If we are going to continue to push tourism as the driving engine to promote our beautiful paradise, let us start with the image of the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation which promotes this island to millions of viewers worldwide daily.
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