I’M HUMAN TOO. I’ve got challenges like everyone else – but there are some things I just will not do.
Just like you, I experience some months when I have to postpone the payment of some bills – but there are some things I just will not do.
I work hard and I work long, and just like you, I don’t believe my employer pays me nearly as much as I deserve – but there are some things I just will not do.
Just like you, I have days when I wake up and the thought of another 12-hour workday makes getting out of bed one hell of a task – but there are some things I just will not do.
What I do is persevere in the face of challenges and pretty soon I shake off the blues and a slow, hard start turns into a rewarding day.
Satisfaction
Administrative duties can often be the spoiler, but when it comes to practising journalism, I seldom have a bad moment. I love journalism, especially when it provides me with an opportunity to help someone else.
That’s why I have learnt to dismiss people who spend each morning looking through the paper solely for things to criticise. While they look for faults, I take comfort in the satisfaction that I was able to touch a life positively.
So hear this: I will never sacrifice that personal satisfaction for money. No offer of cash or kind will get me to ignore the tenets of my profession.
I was absolutely flabbergasted last weekend when I got a call in the afternoon from a non-journalist member of staff telling me someone he knew wanted to know if he could contact me in relation to a story on which we were working. I told him give me the number and I would contact the person. I did within two minutes and the first question asked was if we could discard the story.
That question did not offend me because it is one that is asked almost every day by one person or another. I said no, and he switched gears. The question then became: What would it take to make the story go away?
To deflect, I suggested instead that a more prudent course of action would be to supply the details on his side so we could have a balanced and fair story.
Again the question came back on how he could make it worth my while to drop the story and once again, I made it clear he was asking me to cross ethical lines and I was not prepared to do that.
I insisted that it would be to his company’s benefit to give its side since they were being accused of breaches of the law in an issue that involved customs, agriculture and public health and lots of stories were circulating. The truth is, we were still in the early stages of collecting details and if he had opened up, life would have been made significantly easier for us.
He terminated the call to consult others and then came back a few minutes later. This time he was willing to quietly commit to spending $20 000 in advertising in one month with the NATION if we let the story disappear. It was at this point I was satisfied I was not dealing with a desperate individual fearful of losing business, but someone, or an entity, that was in the habit of either bribing or offering bribes.
He did not know me, he had never spoken to me, he did not know who else was listening to the conversation or whether I was recording it, but within seconds of initiating a discussion, he was offering to make it worth my while with sums that started at $20 000.
Corruption
It was not the first time someone had offered me money to write a story or to make one disappear, but never had I been approached with such apparent ease. But I have learnt enough since then to understand why it was so easy for this entity over the weekend to approach me.
Corruption is endemic in this country and there is not a fellow alive around here who can convince me otherwise – not given the identities of those others outside this business who were involved in trying to bury the story or trying to find out exactly what we knew about the issue.
A final word: Don’t make me any offers if you are not prepared to have them published!
. . . And not one word from a single state agency
HERE’S SOMETHING ELSE that ticked me off last week. People are always accusing the local media of never engaging in investigative journalism, but they really don’t want investigative journalists – they want sacrificial lambs.
Too many Bajans want reporters to stick their noses into places where they have little to no legal protection and the person(al???) and profession(al???) suffer the backlash so they can declare: “That’s what journalists do!”
If you want real investigative journalism, tell the leadership of the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) and the Democratic Labour Party you will not support them in any future election if they don’t pledge to enact a modern Defamation Act and Freedom of Information Act, and have them passed before the next election, or in the case of the BLP, have a fully complete and published draft of each as an addendum to its manifesto.
Then tell the state agencies, especially those responsible for regulation and protection, to do their jobs when things are brought to their attention, even if details are missing, The least they can do is investigate.
Last weekend we published a number of stories, as well as video, showing workers of a local food distribution company using surgical alcohol to remove expired dates before affixing new labels. Even though the story did not name them or any of the retailers, or restaurant and hotel operators that received these products, there was enough in the story screaming that we knew who they were.
Today, three working days later, except for an official at ShopSmart Inc., not one entity has called to ask who is the distributor of if their establishment was identified as “unknowingly” receiving expired foods. (For the record, ShopSmart was not implicated in any way.)
Are they not curious? Do they not care? Are they not bothered that for the sake of profits, others are using them in a way that could put the health of their innocent shoppers at risk?
And what about the state agencies? Are there issues of standards to be enforced?
Are there agencies in the Ministry of Health that should be knocking on our doors when we make such information public?
Are there consumer protection personnel in the Ministry of Trade who should be asking to speak to young reporter Lean Tasher about her investigations?
Don’t they want to know the name of our whistle blower, or whether he has consented to us disclosing his name and contact information to investigators?
Not a word. I suspect what they want, like some readers so often, is for us to publish the name, then get involved in a costly 20-year defamation battle in the law courts so they can say we did an investigation.
Something is seriously wrong with our country and when we are done with all the pomp and pageantry of celebrating 50 years of Independence, we still have to deal with the dishonesty and corruption that surrounds us.
PS: When you go to the supermarket this week, check carefully to see if there is any evidence that the label or expiry date might not be original. Unfortunately, I can’t help you if you dine at some fine restaurant on meals cooked with old meat and expired oil.
But maybe the public servants who are paid to act will do so before you suffer food poisoning.
