Dear Editor,

I read with much consternation your March 2, 2012 article, "Local press 'dissed'".

I am fully aware Jamaica is not a First-World country and that we cannot always expect our government to be able to afford certain luxuries which are available to our more developed counterparts. However, the response of the PR manager from the Office of the Prime Minister Gwyneth Davidson wreaks of the contempt in which our government, and to a greater extent, many civil servants, hold the people of Jamaica. It is also indicative of a lack of regard for the Jamaican media.

It has become so commonplace for us to put foreigners before our own people that even the Office of the Prime Minister could be comfortable making this announcement. If a Jamaican cannot benefit from preferential treatment in his own country, where on earth will he receive it?

While I do agree that a warm Jamaican hospitality should be extended to our guests, the government should have ensured, first and foremost, that provisions were made for at least two Jamaican journalists, and media houses invited to provide the vests for any additional journalists, they wished to have attend, provided that foreign media houses are being limited in the same way.

It's time for us as a nation to start having regard for our own.

Nya Wright

Kingston 6