Free, fair and balanced news coming out of media houses is a vital component of the architecture of democratic societies.
In recent times, the print and electronic media locally and internationally have sunk to new levels of depravity and incompetence, propelling them to new levels of disrepute and, in one case, scrutiny by parliament and the police.
Problems inhere in both sins of commission and omission. Last year the disgusting depths to which the London-based News Of The World went to get stories for its long-standing, salacious rag shocked the world, leaving global media mogul Rupert Murdoch with egg all over his face and no choice but closing it.
In hearings before a parliamentary committee, he and his son, chief executive officer of News International, were relentlessly grilled and humbled. Last week the son, like many former colleagues, stepped down. Some staff were jailed.
Revelations of shameless shenanigans, unhealthy relationships for monetary gain between police officers and reporters buying information to enhance stories, and rampant phone-tapping, including the family of a dead teenager, outraged the country and Press in general, revered as the Fourth Estate.
Getting the news was paramount – the more saucy the better, in their perverse world view. How many feelings were hurt, how many reputations sullied or destroyed, inconsequential.
In Barbados, elements of both the print and electronic media have taken journalism to new levels of incompetence, absconding from their responsibility to print all the news that’s fit to print. Fair and balanced journalism has been wilfully jettisoned, the particular situation exacerbated by the imperative need for up to date information.
The findings of the forensic audit into the CLICO debacle were covered extensively in the SUNDAY SUN and THE?NATION. But The Advocate, masquerading under its ancient mantra “for the cause that lacks assistance, ’gainst the wrongs that need resistance, for the future in the distance, and the good that I can do”, never published a single word.
Here was a story relating to large sums of money entrusted to a company by thousands of Barbadians, many senior citizens investing their savings and gratuities, deeply concerned about the fate of their funds. The Advocate resiled from the good that it could do by not updating readers on the forensic auditor’s findings. Nary a word, zilch, nada!
Riding side-saddle with the old lady from Fontabelle was the heavily state-funded Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) Radio and TV. How could a broadcasting house, which regales viewers nightly with the allegation that it is committed and balanced, wantonly ignore the major story dominating private sector media and conversations across the country?
The basic business of The Advocate and CBC is news – nothing more, nothing less. And it beggars belief that self-respecting journalists would deliberately ignore a major story of widespread public interest impacting thousands of depressed Barbadians, some eyeballing enforced poverty and hunger.
Readers will join me in pulling their hair out over the architects and raison d’etre of this conspiracy of silence. Who considered the findings of the forensic audit so inconvenient they had to be suppressed?
Does that support the claim of free, fair, balanced journalism in Barbados, a robust democracy?
In the United States, the last fortnight has seen the most outlandish abuse of the airwaves and nasty personal attack on a young university student by ultra right-wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh that I can remember. In a country where freedom of speech is constitutionally enshrined, this dinosauric ratbag labelled her a “slut” and “prostitute” who “wants to be paid to have sex”.
Why go into the sewer to traffic this putrid effluent? The forthright lady had simply told a congressional committee she supported the policy that would compel her college to include contraception coverage in students’ health programmes.
Instead of congratulating her on having the courage to share her strongly held convictions with the law-making Congress, he held her up to cheap, vulgar public abuse.
Public reaction was swift and condemnatory.
Rather than being contrite and apologetic, the next day he enhanced his reputation for outrageous nastiness by saying if she wanted payments for contraceptives, in return “she should post online videos of all this sex so that we can see what we are getting for our money”.
Where is the man’s basic decency in this crass plea for voyeurism? President Barack Obama congratulated her for courage and dignity which saw her maintain her silence when, under a massive withdrawal of sponsorship and advertising, Limbaugh issued a tepid apology.
Almost as shocking as this Republican mouthpiece’s happy sewer journey was the failure of the four candidates seeking the presidential candidature to repudiate unequivocally his crude, repugnant rant.
Over 50 per cent of America’s electorate is women. Come polling day they are unlikely to forget this degrading, misogynistic travesty. Limbaugh has dug the Republican hole deeper.
