Editorial | Oliver Clarke – towering man, little noise

In death, even mediocre men are often hailed as heroes with sharp intellect and great achievements who made a difference to their communities and to the world.

Oliver Clarke, the former chairman of the RJRGLEANER Group, who died yesterday, age 75, wouldn’t hanker for any of those characterisations. He probably wouldn’t care if there was an obituary about him and wouldn’t have intervened to influence one. He eschewed interviews. Even towards the end of life, of which he was not in doubt, he continued to contribute in a raft of spheres, but he politely rejected the idea of writing a memoir, or contributing to anything akin thereto.

Yet, for generations to come, Oliver Clarke’s achievements, and influence, even if undeclared, will be evident in Jamaica and across the Caribbean in a wide range of endeavours, including media, especially at this newspaper, where he was a pivotal figure for more than four decades. Indeed, his financial acumen – and the actions he took not long after joining The Gleaner Company in 1976 as its managing director – are credited for saving the paper and establishing it as a bulwark for press freedom in Jamaica and the Americas.

The caricatured portrayal of the Oliver Clarke of those days of ideological chasm in Jamaica, was of a right-wing ideologue, in league with like-minded groups ranged against the progressive forces of the Left. Like most seemingly either-or stories, the reality is far more complex and nuanced.

Having returned from studying and working in England to play a critical role in a series of mergers between the Westmoreland Building Society, founded by his grandfather, and a number of similar institutions, laying the foundation for today’s Jamaica National Group, Mr Clarke came to The Gleaner with the company in serious financial trouble. At the same time, the People’s National Party (PNP), led by Michael Manley, was espousing the ideology of democratic socialism, a leftward posture harshly criticised by The Gleaner’s columnists. They feared that Jamaica was heading for Marxism.

Mr Clarke, by the middle of 1978, had launched a J$4 million debenture, which, at the time was a lot of money for a newspaper. It was heavily oversubscribed, which was seen as vote of confidence in The Gleaner and Oliver Clarke’s leadership. The newspaper’s finances were stabilised.

DIDN’T HOLD GRUDGES

Meanwhile, he gave no quarter to those who accused the paper of attempting to undermine social reforms by the Manley government. The 1979 image of Prime Minister Manley, standing in the back of a truck warning, “Next time! ... Next time!” was, for The Gleaner’s supporters, a metaphor for the dangers to press freedom.

Oliver Clarke, however, wasn’t a man who held grudges. He reconciled with Mr Manley, even in the aftermath of libel suits. He readily agreed to assignments from PNP and Jamaica Labour Party administrations, including membership of boards or conducting studies, once these benefited Jamaica. Indeed, he embraced, without the ideological overburden, some of Mr Manley’s concepts of social equity as he retreated from his scepticism of the Caribbean Community as a formal instrument of regional cooperation. He actively supported the Caribbean Court of Justice. Oliver Clarke was always open to new ideas and initiatives to advance Jamaica’s interests. Among the most fervent of his campaigns, up to the time of his death, was against corruption.

One arena in which Mr Clarke remained constant is the promotion of press freedom. The Gleaner’s prestige, as among the oldest newspapers in the hemisphere, with the largest circulation in the English-speaking Caribbean allowed him a platform from which to make common cause with others in the region to push back anywhere that freedom was threatened. It is this passion, pursued without bombast and in uncomplicated fashion, that propelled Mr Clarke to leadership roles in many organisations, including the presidency of the Commonwealth Press Union and the Inter-American Press Association and won him several international awards.

He was keenly aware, too, that while the press’ role as a watchdog of democracy remained undiminished, changing technologies and weakened finances threatened the existence of traditional media. It was this appreciation that the caused him and the RJR Communications Group’s J. Lester Spaulding, to, four years ago, spearhead the merger of their two organisations.

It is surprising that while pursuing his media interests Mr Clarke had the inclination and energy to focus on several other activities, including, as chairman, overseeing the transformation of the Jamaica National Building Society into a major financial services conglomerate. While doing these things, he, over many years, quietly mentored scores of high school and university students, while at his meetings he often displayed a dry, iconoclastic, sometimes biting, but never bad-humoured wit and always an impatience to get to the core of issues. And there, too, for the intimates, was the fishing in the drawer and the tossing of packs of Ovaltine biscuits across the desk. Or maybe a display of the latest gadget – “Alexa, play Frank Sinatra.”

Oliver Clarke played a blinder, or whatever is the equivalent in tennis.