VERY LITTLE, IT SEEMS, happens in Barbados – that is, if coverage of “hard” news is anything to go by.
A person, usually some high-status individual, is at an event, which may itself be a newsworthy thing – and instead of an exposition of critical aspects of the newsworthy thing, the media’s focus is often put on the individual’s statements.
If they were giving vital information about the event, okay. If their statements were particularly consequential – say, of a raise in taxes, an announcement of a dismissal of a minister (of either kind) – or revealing of something you really needed to know, the focus would be appropriate too. If the content was arrestingly insightful you might not mind either.
But the comments are usually of the ordinary, anybody-coulda-think-that variety.
Yet the talk becomes the significant thing.
I often use this as an example of our debilitating tendency: In 2004, teacher Winston Cumberbatch won the National Innovation Competition. When CBCTV8 reported on the presentation, there was no focus on Cumberbatch’s creation, but rather on the Prime Minister’s talk.
So when you came away from the news report, you knew more about what the Prime Minister said (which was not a description of the thing produced) than about what Cumberbatch did.
The talk’s the thing
Imagine ABC or one of those American channels reporting on some groundbreaking film winning the Oscar for Best Picture and when the report is finished you know more about some abstraction that was introduced in a speech than about significant aspects of the film and its creation. That’s how we are. We don’t go for the thing but for the talk.
Whatever not-the-focus, thousand-times-said-before, non-thought-provoking, non-game-changing utterings come from some “statused” person.
Take education – a lot of reports of talk: plans for this, plans for that. But no news stories of product in relation to those plans.
And here I have to give a gentle reminder to Sir Hilary Beckles not to depend on obeah. Earlier this year he was paraphrased in the paper (THE NATION, Thursday, April 3 – page 12) as saying that the University of the West Indies at Cave Hill was “concerned with producing citizens who were respectful, tolerant, elegant and keen on values such as gratitude”.
The talk was reported. I did not see any follow-up stories on the product, while fellow Barbadians, who do not live in bubbles, are still looking around for these people.
Is like we know we want apples. So we talk, especially a minister at ground-breaking, about giving people land and training and so on. Speech duly reported.
No follow-up reportage, though, as some people gone and produce marijuana. Well, in due course they got high yields and – after legalisation – we did all right. But we wanted apples, dammit!
With fuzzy means and intent, we talk about things and then we hope, it seems. Where are the ongoing, tailored engagements and the fulfilments themselves? In many cases it seems like the talk is the thing for us, is sufficient for us. And the media will make do with woolly comment from a supposed newsmaker.
Just like have-gun will not always travel (but will often shoot people wrongfully), talking about this or that aspect of education (or whatever) and having it reported will not produce what you want just so – you got to inspire it, you got to motivate it, you got to empower it, you got to do it.
And, crucially, the media got to report on what is actually happening, not so much on the talk about the idea of it.
Everywhere you turn in Barbados, somebody (especially some well placed soul) is called on to pave others’ way with mere talk.
Children at the Stadium ready to run, jump and throw and spectators eager to almost fasten their souls to the clash of sold-out sinews and spirits and wills – gih them a speech. The media will surely cover it.
Speech-making
Worshippers come to praise their God, either by routine or rousing earnestness – gih them an additional speech – by a minister of no cloth.
The media . . .
And is like we creating occasions for speech-making (or to be on TV and in the newspaper?). Recently, it seems that all the primary schools have taken to having all their Class 4 students “graduating”. Even nurseries, I hear (what do you have to do to graduate from these? Sleep less than others?)
Of course, on these occasions, somebody got to gih them a speech. By the time the children get to university, they have already worn the gowns and caps a number of times. And heard a few graduation speeches (or parts of them on television and radio or read excerpts in the newspaper just in case they fell asleep during the real thing). But we don’t often get to know the real story of our education system.
Still, you know what? Despite the seemingly obligatory bow to them in the media – even to the most pedestrian, hackneyed, bereft of new thought and low on engaging expression – we all just leave it there. No follow-up. These puffs or gusts of verbal breath will get the job done, it seems we think.
We are being trained in confusing talk with accomplishment.
And a lot of the talk isn’t making any difference to people these days – much of it can’t and shouldn’t.
Listening to songs – which we do a lot of – is one thing. Listening to talk thrown at us is another thing. The appetite and the acculturation of another age have all but vanished. In times gone by, at any rate, spoken words seem to have been more carefully crafted and more discerningly dispensed. And taken on and in.
Different story these days.
This bears putting in our pipes and smoking: a survey of churchgoers (does it matter if it was in Barbados? Globally we are becoming very similar in so many respects) revealed that by Tuesday 86 per cent of those present do not know what was preached about on the preceding Sunday. And that is in a situation where you would reasonably believe that they have a special commitment.
My God (a very appropriate expression in the circumstances)! So, if we are not careful, our love affair with “speechifying” may well now be a love affair with ourselves. We must get real.
The media too!
• Sherwyn Walters is a writer who became a teacher, a song analyst, a broadcaster and an editor. Email [email protected].
