Hypocrisy and Press Freedom

by John Maxwell

Journalists in the western world tend to have less Freedom of Expression than
most of their fellow citizens. In Jamaica, the freedom of journalists is
further circumscribed by the presence in newspapers of people masquerading as
journalists whose main qualification appears to be an unfortunate inability to
keep their mouths shut especially when the subject is as exotic and arcane as
politics and the environment.

Most of them do not understand the first thing about human rights in general and
freedom of the press in particular. Even some real journalists appear not to
have informed themselves on the subject as completely as they ought, despite
decades of journalistic experience.

And relative newcomers such as the cartoonist Las May really owe it to
themselves to find out what it really means, his pitiful cartoons on the subject
notwithstanding. His most egregious: picturing himself as an icon for Freedom of
the Press, having been stabbed in the back by Desmond Richards, president of the
Press Association. If he regards that as a stab in the back, this column to
him must count as the attempted assassination of press freedom.

Freedom of the Press does not belong to the Press, as many imagine. Freedom of
the Press is a human right derived from the Freedom of Expression guaranteed
supposedly in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and documents
such as the Jamaican and Trinidad Constitution. Freedom of the Press, being a
human right, cannot belong to corporations.

As I said in my fourth column for this newspaper, in April 1996: “Of all the
people in the English speaking world, Editors have the least real freedom, the
most restricted human rights. In France, and many European countries, editors
and editorial boards really do run their papers, and the proprietors behave as
they do in any other business, leaving the management to the managers. Their
relations are governed by ‘statutes’ which define policy and mark out territory
for both sides.�

Those remarks were provoked by a controversy in Trinidad, where Freedom of the
Press is supposedly guaranteed in the constitution. That did not prevent Mr
Anthony Sagba, the head honcho of McAl Alston, the Trinidad Guardian’s parent
company, telling his editorial employees some years ago to shut up and mind
their business. Mr Sagba refused to allow his journalists to question the
behaviour of the conglomerate which owned the paper and its dealings with the
government. In graphic language, Mr Sagba was reported to have said that in
addition to employing journalists he sold things like razor blades in his
supermarkets and he wasn't about to let his journalists damage him any more
than he would allow his throat be cut by one of his razor blades. To him, the
newspaper was simply another commodity.

Simmer Down

I said then “ Truth itself, is now for sale.� I remarked that if Mr Sagba
believed that supermarkets and newspapers were equivalent, he should walk into
one of his supermarkets and walk out with a ham, bypassing the cashier
(editor).

The Jamaica Gleaner, in its comment on the matter, was upset that nearly a dozen
journalists had resigned because of the dispute. Journalists, it said “should
not concern themselves with management decisions which were outside of their
competence. They should settle down and go back to their jobs.�

At that, I quoted A.J. Liebling who had sarcastically said “ Freedom of the
Press belongs to those who own one�

As I tell my students in my Journalistic Ethics class, my rights end where yours
begin. If we all enjoy equal rights, nobody can claim a right that supersedes
anyone else’s.

Yet, that is precisely the argument put forward by my old colleagues Ken Chaplin
and Ken Jones. In defending the scurrilous cartoon authored by Las May and
published by the Gleaner, Ken Jones is puzzled by the righteous anger provoked
by the cartoon. Referring to Desmond Richards, Jones says that the President of
the Press Association “does not take the broader view that female politicians
claiming [sic] equal rights must be prepared to accept equal treatment in the
rough and tumble of the political arena. As one defender of press freedom has
said ‘if the political kings have bled for years at the cartoonists’ hands why
should the emergent queens be granted special immunity.�

In the first place, I challenge Jones and anyone else to show me a cartoon as
viciously offensive directed at any other politician in our history.

Las Mays cartoon is right out of the gutter. The Prime Minister is depicted as a
common street ‘gal’, exposing her behind, shoeless – and with a nose ring the
purpose of which is obscure but obviously pejorative.

Mr Jones is being disingenuous.

Mr Chaplin, from a lofty, apparently aristocratic perch declares that “whether
in the role of Prime Minister or as ordinary citizen, she is expected to act
with dignity and decorum at all times’ and opines that the Prime Minister “has
tried hard to do this and succeeds at times.�

She tries hard and succeeds at times, does she? How NICE of Mr Chaplin to
notice!!!

Las May is therefore obviously justified in ‘satirising’ Mrs Simpson Miller “as
a donette in an innercity community.�

Mr Chaplin may have more experience of ‘donettes’ than I, but what I saw in the
cartoon was a spiteful attempt not just to take the PM down a few pegs, but to
portray her as a morally deficient and violent ‘sketel’ from whom any sensible
person would be advised to keep her/his distance.

‘Editorial rape’

Fortunately for the rest of us there are others with, shall we say, a more
balanced viewpoint. Mrs Doreen Frankson, president of the JMA (but making the
point that she was speaking for herself and not for the Jamaica Manufacturers
Association of which she is president), declared the cartoon equivalent to
‘editorial rape’ Mrs Frankson said the cartoon demeaned all women, not simply
the Prime Minister, an opinion with which I agree.

Mrs Frankson says the cartoon “assumes categorically that women will resort to
debased behaviour to deal with issues … in the public forum�

‘How can any editor support this?’ Mrs Frankson asks

It is a question that I myself ask; especially since Mrs Frankson’s letter was
published in the Gleaner omitting the remarks noted in this column. Perhaps she
wrote different letters to each newspaper?

And one wonders what the other members of the JMA think, since Mrs Frankson was
obviously out there on her own.

Agostinho Pinnock in a letter to the Editor of the Gleaner, suggested that the
‘levels of disrespect and contempt displayed by this cartoon are worrying signs
as they clearly communicate that criticising the press is not a well-supported
goal in this two-way press freedom relationship.�

Mr Sameer Younis makes the excellent point that fair comment should be based on
facts and that the cartoon failed this test. Of course it does and the law on
defamation makes this very point. Ken Jones, in justifying this outrageous
assault, which even he calls “ merciless� argues that the Prime Minister brought
it upon herself by giving a flippant and facetious reply to serious questions
about her use of public funds.

Wow!

And the problem with rape, no doubt, is that many women bring it upon themselves
by facetious behaviours that provoke the rapist.

Special Licence

What is even more bizarre about this journalistic disaster is that both Ken
Jones and Ken Chaplin contend that cartoonists have special licence, not granted
to other journalists. Mr Jones calls it’ lampooners’s licence and says, in an
aside, that “persons outside the profession may be excused for describing Mr
May’s work as vulgar.�

The law, I am afraid, is not on the side of ‘special licence’ and I believe most
people in or out of journalism regard the cartoon as vulgar in the extreme,
vicious and in the worst possible taste.

One problem that all May’s supporters ignore is the implicit reference in the
cartoon to the Prime Minister's working class antecedents, and though they
themselves may not endorse the belief, there are many men and women in Jamaica
who feel the proper place for a poor black girl is a job as a domestic helper.
If Mr May's antecedents were similarly explored, his defenders might not feel
as comfortable in backing him against the PM.

There are people who take a very strong line on freedom of the press when the
threat is perceived to come from the left. When Michael Manley led a march to
the Gleaner in the seventies and intoned “Next time, Next Time� some people
interpreted it as a veiled attack on Freedom of the Press. Their memories are
too short.

A few weeks before Independence in 1962 the Prime Minister, Sir Alexander
Bustamante accompanied by the Minister of Development, one Edward Seaga, went to
the offices of the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation to demand that a
commentator, one John Maxwell, be fired because he had said words amounting to
the following:

“After 300 years of exploiting Jamaica the British have presented us with a less
than munificent going away present. They have given us enough money to pay the
civil service for eleven days and have generously presented us with Up Park Camp
– which they can’t take back to Britain.�

On Bustamante’s and Seaga’s instructions I was fired by the Chairman of the JBC.
I was reinstated by the rest of the Board, which was in turn fired by Mr Seaga
after which I was again sent packing by the new Board. Two years after
Independence the government attempted to edit the JBC News, and fired George
Lee, now Mayor of Portmore and Adrian Rodway, both news editors of the JBC,
because they didn’t agree.

That led to a strike which led eventually to the total destruction of the JBC’s
reputation and eventually, of the JBC itself.




‘Rude and Indecent!’

In 1964 when I had been editor of Public Opinion for two years, government
ministers increased the ferocity of their public threats about what they were
going to do to me and to one of my contributors, Bill Carr, an English lecturer
at the University. The Work Permit law was introduced hopefully to deal with
such as Bill Carr but failed, because of the objections of our partners in the
UWI. There was even a debate about Public Opinion in Parliament, where I
presented a special difficulty to the government, because though they could
deport Carr other ways had to be found to shut me up.

What was my offence? Saying that Bustamante, as everybody knew, was too old for
the job and should resign and allow Donald Sangster to be Prime Minister in name
as well as in fact. My criticisms of the PM were denounced with fanciful
epithets such as ‘rude and indecent�. Then came the bombshell. The government
decided that civil servants would be fired if found with a copy of Public
Opinion and in a circular issued by the Financial Secretary, G Arthur Brown,
decreed that the paper should get no advertising from the government, while
entities in receipt of any public funds were forbidden to enter into any
contract with the City Printery which owned Public Opinion. Since we had just
bought a press to fulfil a long-term printing contract with the UWI, that was
tantamount to cutting our throats.

The Editor of the Gleaner and the President of the Jamaica Press Association –
Theodore Sealy in each case – agreed that the government had the right to decide
how it spent its funds. There was no reason to intervene, and anyway It was “All
So Complex� according to an editorial in the Gleaner. The Inter American Press
Association,te celebrated IAPA, then meeting in Montego Bay, declined to
intervene because they could see NO THREAT to press freedom. The Jamaica Press
Association immediately drew up a code of conduct to deal with people like
Maxwell. The code of conduct is one of the most unusual journalists’ codes in
the world; its main emphasis is on protecting public figures from the assaults
of journalists

Ken Chaplin was secretary of the Press Association then, and on December 5,
2003, he published in his Observer column reminiscences of the PAJ.

“Unfortunately, the code of ethics is not widely adhered to and very few
journalists especially the younger ones, are aware of the provisions�. And he
warned the PAJ to try and correct this because “today’s journalists are more
aggressive than those in the distant past.�

Apparently not more aggressive than John Maxwell, whose behaviour provoked,
among other strictures in the code prohibitions against –

“Writing or publishing vulgarity aimed at individuals, institutions or groups as
well as unwarranted attacks on their dignity, honour and prestige.�

“ …Writing or publishing matter which may be subversive or harmful to the unity
of the people or likely to lead to violence or to a breach of the peace�

(Bustmante himself had publicly threatened to have me shot – but “only in the
leg, because you have a pretty wife!�)

My attacks on the Prime Minister i.e my references to his age and competence,
fell foul of these rules.

Mr Las May’s vulgar abuse of the Prime Minister apparently does not.

One wonders what Messrs Chaplin and Jones said at that time. Unfortunately, we
don’t have to wonder what they say now.

Copyright©2007 John Maxwell
jankunnu@gmail.com

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