[dropcap]T[/dropcap]here are several shades of meaning to the word wrong, from “an injurious, unfair or unjust act: action or conduct inflicting harm without due provocation or just cause; a violation or invasion of the legal rights of another”—according to Merriam-Webster. The Oxford dictionaries, my own preference, define wrong as “not correct or true, incorrect, unjust, dishonest or immoral.” As for right: “Behavior that is morally good or correct” (Merriam-Webster). “Conforming with, or conformable to, justice, law or morality” (Oxford).
Now consider the most recent feast for Facebook piranhas, courtesy the normally irreticent president of the increasingly obscure media association: “I note the ad nauseum demands to [sic] journalists . . . by the Richard Fredericks, Christopher Huntes, Rick Waynes, Andre Pauls, Yardies, et cetera [sic] to do their ‘research,’ and in light of an exchange between the the [sic] Prime Minister and a colleague this past week, it would be remiss of me to not come to his defense [surely he meant to write not to come]. First off, there’s no two ways about it: The Prime Minister was WRONG to say that he will not entertain questions ‘regurgitated from the opposition.’ ”
Before getting down to the meat of the matter, for obvious reason I dare to ask: Wouldn’t the media association president and journalist have better written “there are no two ways about it?” And anyway, what exactly was wrong, or WRONG, for that matter, about the prime minister’s reaction to a reporter a fortnight after he had answered a particular question from a member of the House opposition? The original version as put by the MP for Castries South at the most recent House session was not so much a regular question seeking a response as a one that sought to make a point rather than elicit an answer.
Certainly the opposition MP could not reasonably have expected the prime minister to reveal at the recalled televised House meeting how he came by information that among desperate Venezuelans fleeing their country were some with possible links to arms and drug trafficking. Details about such matters of national security are not normally requested, let alone flung around the House—notwithstanding that unforgettable regrettable business with the Mace back in 1982, and other more recent debacles nearly as egregious.
Some government-related issues simply are not for public consumption. Remember when a sitting minister was subjected to wall-to-wall embarrassment after his U.S. visa was pulled, for reasons that remain classified more than eight years later? Remember the related political football match the matter generated at the time of the 2011 elections?
But back to the reporter who sought from the prime minister more information than had been given the House about the government’s new visa policy in relation to Venezuelans. The media association’s president, doubtless for the further edification of his Facebook following, insisted the prime minister’s reaction to the reporter was wrong—meaning immoral, unjust, and the rest of it. By reliable account the reporter had actually prefaced his query with a reference that amounted to a red flag waved in the face of a bull: “The opposition wants to know . . .” or something to that effect.
Obviously not amused by the prime minister’s reaction, the association president shrieked: “Any question emanating from the opposition side, however silly it may appear [sic], should be treated as a question from the people, whom both of you represent in the House, and not that [sic] from a political party. To say that you are not going to entertain questions from the opposition is, to my mind, an indirect scoff at the people of Saint Lucia.”
On the other hand, just because a notion sounds Solomonic in certain ears does not necessarily mean it makes sense to reasonable minds. As for suggesting opposition questions, “however silly,” are deserving of answers, well, the prime minister holds a contrary opinion. For all I know, he may have good reason to believe “silly” questions from any source are not reflective of the Saint Lucian intellect, therefore undeserving of time that might be better spent pursuing national goals.
I’ve said it countless times: journalists who rely solely on what falls out of the mouths of politicians do an injustice to their profession and to those who depend on them for validated truth and informed analyses. The evidence plainly suggests most of our reporters are lazy. Many are too hungry for scoops that in reality are rumors, rum-shop persiflage and plain idle gossip. I arrived from California to work in the local media in 1987. Of course, I’d had some experience of life on this rock of sages during an earlier stint at the Voice. Press conferences were at the time unheard of. Existing media received weekly government five-line communiqués from the government’s press relations officer, a gentleman called Willie James, especially famous for his “this is St. Lucia, where we are happy” wake-up call to fans (party hacks?) of his government-sponsored radio programs. Few reporters had the gonads to call a minister of government with a question. On the rare occasions when Willie convened a meeting with a visiting dignitary accompanied by an over-protective local MP, attendant reporters depended on the bravest among them to speak for the collective. More often than not the MP answered even the most innocuous press queries with just two dismissive words: “No comment!”
So, I roamed the country where I encountered the good the bad and the ugly. I wrote about the abject poverty that seemed to have no impact on those not victimized by it, the politicians especially—who were responsible for it. I wrote about multi-purpose dying rivers that served as laundry, drinking fountain and public toilet. I wrote with photographed evidence about the desecrated and abused environment. Yes, way back in the 80s we had been raping helpless and unprotected Helen. I covered the courts, where those with seeing eyes were afforded a close-up of the dehumanizing effects of state-sponsored deprivation. I wrote detailed accounts of horrific rapes, barbaric murders that resulted from drunken arguments between the equally poor and ignorant, child abuse and batterers. Also about hero-worshipped murderous crooked cops!
Typically, the politicians retaliated. There was hardly a public rally that did not devote hours to painting a certain reporter yellow or red. My fellow journalists—I hesitate to call them colleagues or friends, for that would be fake news—were too blind to see what was being done to me could, and would in due course be done to them. Unwittingly, perhaps, they turned the attacks on my journalism into headlines. I was called a sensationalist, Julian Hunte’s personal propaganda machine, “the scourge of John Compton.” Attempts were made to frame me as a pornographer connected to rings all over the world.
When I tried to rescue a 17-year-old from a life of crime by employing him at the STAR (he had turned state’s witness in a notorious murder trial and afterward released) one newspaper editor wrote that I had remade the ostensibly evil young man into a hero, to be emulated by others his age. And then there were the so-called “bombshells” involving the country’s most powerful, including a church leader who, confronted by evidence of the shocking behind the scenes proclivities of one prime minister, was reluctant to comment for publication, on the basis that “if John the Baptist had been more careful he might’ve saved his head.”
Such stories were always dangerous, particularly so at a time when magistrates and judges were falling over themselves to cosy up to incumbent politicians. Oh, I also wrote about fornicating priests demonstrably at odds with their celibacy vows; pedophiles and holy Fathers that hid under their snow-white cassocks were secret fathers. I wrote indisputably about Saint Lucian life—without having to attend a single press conference.
Then arrived the great white hope of recent politics, soon to become my special target. He started out well enough, with two, sometimes three, press meetings weekly. But before long he decided it would be in his own best interests to govern in the dark, with disastrous consequences. Our earlier friendly relationship inevitably soured . . . The rest is recent history, familiar to most Saint Lucians.
To return to my point that serious and committed reporters need not rely on droppings from the mouths of politicians. There is no law that forces politicians to acknowledge the existence of newsmen. Compton was never a lover of the press. Neither Allen Louisy. Kenny Anthony loved only reporters that imagined him infallible.
For his own convenience Donald Trump is desperately seeking to make the American press “the enemy of the people.” Has that prevented America’s mainstream press from covering his activities, public and not so public? The world knows the answer!
Of course, we’ve also had front-line politicians who could not resist talking to the media. The late George Odlum was one. Today, we have the sitting prime minister and his health minister, ever forthcoming. If only they would learn to answer with caution the laced questions (some might consider them silly opposition queries!) put to them by uncreative scoop-chasing reporters. As for my fellow scribes, if only they would quit griping and write . . . effectively!
Journalism is tough work demanding of a tough hide. It’s not for crybaby namby-pambies. One more thing, Mr. Media Association President: Contrary to your Facebook assertion, there are no “Rick Waynes.” There is just one Rick Wayne—and I have no doubt more than one politician daily thanks the Almighty for that!
