What the hell is ‘Objective Journalism’ Anyway?

[dropcap]I[/dropcap] smiled while reading in last Saturday’s Voice an item with the heading Hilaire Should Not Get Too Comfortable! that included the following: “Mr. Hilaire seems to have an inflated opinion of his skills in argument. He also seems to think he is the only one who has studied political science. He should know that he is seen by the public as being disrespectful, full of himself and a badly-spoken individual.”

As I continued reading, I wondered: What is it that compels some newspaper contributors to produce such self-revealing gibberish? Their morphology suggests a close natural connection with certain habitués of St. Louis and Coral streets in Castries, who imagine they hold the answer to every question, whether related to economics, the afterlife or physical cosmology. A first-time visitor from Pluto, unfamiliar with local kolcha, would likely deduce from the above-quoted lines that they were written in the aftermath of not only scientific analyses of Ernest Hilaire’s pysche but also of how he is perceived by a remarkably astute “public.”

For the benefit of those who continue to suspect I am myself a creature from another planet, I confess the contrary. It’s just that I have for a long time been studying local sardines that believe themselves to be whales; also cockroaches convinced they can devour hungry roosters if only they can muster up a large enough cockroach army. If I may be permitted a small arrogance, I dare to say there is little I don’t know about the idiosyncrasies of the more bizarre inhabitants of this rock of sages—Wonderland without Alice. While illiteracy abounds, so do literary critics: a piece of writing, however pretentious or juvenile, is here considered worthy of a Nobel or Pulitzer, depending on how flattering it is of a friend, favorite relative or politician.

Consider this, from the earlier cited Voice article: “I was hoping to see Ernest Hilaire cut down to size by Rick Wayne, but instead listeners saw a mutual adoration society at play. It was a terrible show.” Disjointed is the least of it! The disappointed (and obviously confused) Voice contributor was referring to Hilaire’s recent appearance on TALK. The truth is that although there was little we agreed on—certainly not on the messy topic of St. Jude Hospital—the opposition MP was on the remembered evening exactly as I’ve always known him dating back to the 1997 general elections: articulate, focused, stubborn, informed, cautious and so on. We laughed with and at each other, despite our many disagreements.

Just before the show ended I tossed him a spiked bone: “Why are you the only one from your party who has ever accepted my invitation to appear on TALK?” I may have actually taken him off guard. He paused, chuckled, fingered his shaved head. Finally, he said: “Maybe it’s because they think I’m the only one you don’t dislike!” True enough, a response open to several interpretations. But Hilaire knew that I knew precisely what he’d hinted at. Quite obviously, the Voice contributor did not get from us what he had hoped for. All he saw was a “mutual adoration society at play . . . A terrible show!”

The Voice review appeared at a time when some who describe themselves as “media workers” have promised themselves to “deal with Rick Wayne.” Why? I have no doubt they could offer countless reasons. From what has reached me, it would seem my expressed contrary opinion on matters close to their hearts has once again made me a target for intellectual Lilliputians on match-stick stilts. How dare I suggest it was no big deal that a woman at a party press conference had demanded a garrulous reporter “shut up!” I was nothing but “a sell-out . . . a dirty bastard” to be dealt with by one of the aforementioned Lilliputians on matchstick stilts.

Real journalists and reporters know they are involved in an exercise of democracy, not of etiquette. Reporting is often adversarial, sometimes involving loss of life—that of the journalist.
So what if a known supporter of a particular political party should behave in an ungentlemanly or unladylike fashion toward a reporter he or she believes to be less than fair and balanced? And what if I happen to think there are things to be written about more important than a media worker’s bruised ego? Does that amount to selling out ostensible fellow journalists with whom I’ve never had much in common?

I suppose it didn’t help that some months earlier I had underscored the fact that politicians, whether or not in office, are free to talk or not to talk to media workers bearing microphones and other recording devices. Especially when they are self-convinced such reporters exist only to guarantee them an unflattering public image. We need not automatically think of Trump  at this point, despite that  he has repeatedly declared unflattering American journalists “the enemy of the people” and their work “fake news.” Long before Trump, other U.S. presidents had declared war on uncooperative newsmen, from Jefferson (yes, yes, him!) to Richard Nixon. The last mentioned had his own rogues’ gallery of journalists, the most despised among them being Bob Woodward and Carl Berstein.

As I say, long before Donald Trump became “Liar in Chief” to millions worldwide, there was the equally onion-skinned Kenny Anthony. From the steps of the Castries market and before a huge crowd of overheated supporters, he had unforgettably referred to a particularly timid news presenter at the scene as “a media terrorist.” Kenny Anthony had also refused to accommodate questions from STAR reporters. But then talented and inventive journalists (“media workers” are free to speak for themselves) have always been able to work their way around such paper-thin walls.

At a press conference a day or two before Saint Lucia became an independent nation, the prime minister designate, determined to avoid my potentially embarrassing questions, declared through his press secretary that he would only entertain questions from the attendant foreign press. At the time I was home on vacation from my job as a magazine editor at Weider Publications, in Los Angeles. I assumed the obvious insult to home-based media personnel did not apply to me. When I raised my hand to signal I had a question, Compton who knew me only too well, demanded that I identify myself and my paper. Sadly, I had left my ID card at my mother’s residence in La Clery. But all was not lost. A member of the UK press contingent happily volunteered to be, in effect, my ventriloquist’s dummy.

On the recalled occasion Gregory Regis, a Saint Lucian then attached to a news organization in Toronto, Canada, caused something of an upheaval when he asked Compton what he planned to do about the brothels in some of the poorer areas of Castries. Compton’s response was a five-minute lecture on nationalism and love of country. But that’s for another show, and another time.   

Politicians are nearly always vulnerable. Which is why the best among them, the late Romanus Lansquot, for one, never permit too much bad blood between them and even the least experienced journalists. Claudius Francis can say a lot about Lansie’s sometimes hilarious ambivalent relationship with the press. In more recent times my contretemps have been not so much with politicians as with particular “media workers” whom I’ve been known to dismiss as talentless and unread 20 lines a week scribblers. Lately they’ve taken to echoing one another at my imagined expense, self-convinced as they say that Rick Wayne has “lost all objectivity.” It will probably come as a shock to them that for once they may have a point worthy of discussion. I have never been a fan of what they refer to as “objective” journalism.

The ordinary meaning of the term: “Not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased”—the best examples of which are served regularly by media workers at local TV and radio stations, not to mention the anonymous publications online. Oh, and by politicians stuck in campaign mode.

It might be worth citing the historian Gerald Baldasty who held that objectivity went “hand in hand with the need to make profits in the newspaper business by attracting advertisers.” In this economic analysis, noted another qualified observer, “publishers did not want to offend any potential advertising clients and therefore encouraged news editors and reporters to present all sides of an issue. Advertisers would remind the press that partisanship hurts circulation and, consequently, revenues. Thus objectivity was sought.”

On the other hand, “some scholars and journalists criticize the understanding of objectivity as neutrality or nonpartisanship, arguing that it does a disservice to the public because it fails to attempt to find truth. They also argue that such objectivity is nearly impossible to apply in practice. Newspapers inevitably take a point of view in deciding which stories to cover, which to feature on the front page, and what sources they quote.”

Newspaper critics such as Edward S. Herman and Noam Chompsky have described a propaganda model that they use to show how, in practice, such a notion of objectivity ends up “heavily favoring the viewpoint of government and powerful corporations, leading to an over-reliance on official sources.”   

I could not agree more. Although I seldom write hard news nowadays, leaning instead toward highly opinionated commentary and features, still what I do demands immediately verifiable facts. I cannot guarantee my interpretations of facts at my disposal will always be beyond dispute, but I stand ever ready to defend my positions—which, to borrow from John Maynard Keynes, can change when the facts change. Foolish consistencies were never my bag. I dare to say human beings as a species are naturally prejudiced to one extent or another. Our life experiences, our education, our religious beliefs, our sense of right and wrong, these things influence how we view the world. Nevertheless, a piece without feet will not for long stand!

The problem with our soi-disant media workers is that they almost never challenge what has been said or written. Their uncontrollable inclination is to launch pseudonymous sneak attacks on the reputations of those they dislike, exemplified by the recalled assault on Ernest Hilaire’s intellect and character at the start of this admittedly lengthy article. (Most media workers cannot stay focused long enough to read a full newspaper column—let alone a 50-page grammar book.)

The ostensible leaders of the pack can barely manage a hundred lines a week for their news bulletins, most of which comprise usually unchallenged statements by better informed politicians, without which the average local media worker would be lost. But then, they are nothing if not “objective media workers!”