Press freedom for what?

Ian Boyne

The controversy over the Energy World International saga and Phillip Paulwell's role in it highlight the importance of a free, robust and vigilant press. Dudus' fate might have been quite different had it not been for the press, especially this newspaper.

That revered role of muckraking, speaking truth to power and holding politicians' feet to the fire, is integral to the press' role and is at the heart of why we need a free press. A free press is, indeed, the oxygen of democracy. It is appropriate to reflect on the role of the press a week after World Press Freedom Day and as The Gleaner begins celebrating its 180th anniversary.

The Gleaner itself demonstrates the kind of balance the press must have. It has as columnists the hard-hitting, irreverent, incendiary, feisty, cantankerous, iconoclastic, sacred-cow-slaying, as well as the cerebral, research-based, mild-mannered and intellectually focused ones. We should not have to choose. Both have their place. There is a time and place for everything. My problem is with those who believe that only one type should have a place in a newspaper.

There is a place for the columnist who echoes the sentiments of the people and who embodies their rage. It would have been a pity if The Gleaner had no one who could represent the fiery anger and revolt of the people on that bank withdrawal tax recently. A newspaper cannot be elitist. The 'mad, cross and angry' type of commentary sells. The press is a business, its noble ideal of 'protecting the people's interest' notwithstanding.

But media have to be more than just an echo of the people. Media must provide leadership, too. And media have to do more than just uncover corruption, expose rotten politicians, and attack, attack, attack. There is need for that brand of journalism. Nothing I will say from here should cancel what has already been acknowledged. We need those who will shame corrupt politicians, make life hard for them, and scandalise public officials who are scamming the people. We can't just intellectualise while politicians are robbing us blind, looking after their friends and making a royal mess of everything. We need journalists and columnists with guts and courage to stand up to politicians, perhaps even to trace them.

knowledge-basedjournalism

But I submit that the press would not have completed its mission by simply doing that. There is need, I humbly suggest, for a knowledge-based, intellectually rigorous journalism that is not defined in terms of just confronting and contesting what is wrong. We need a journalism that is development-oriented also; a journalism that seeks to build a certain type of society and to inculcate a passion for learning and for ideas. Some are not willing for the two types of journalism - what I see as two sides of one coin - to coexist. There is an arrogance and a hubris that suggest that only the polemical brand of journalism is worth anything.

I suggest to The Gleaner as it celebrates 180 years that it take stock of the sea change that has taken place in newspaper journalism over its existence. The management and editors could start by reading Professor George Brock's book, Out of Print: Newspapers, Journalism and the Business of News in the Digital Age (2013). I suggest that in this age of social media, nanoseconds communication, newspapers, literally defined, have been come an anachronism. People no longer get their news from newspapers. And they don't come to newspapers primarily for news.

They come to go beyond to news, to make sense of the news. To get informed commentary and features. For people are blogging, tweeting, facebooking, etc. Increasingly, people will be looking to newspapers for what is behind what they already know; for someone to put this information overload in some meaningful context.

The theme of World Press Freedom Day this year was 'Reaching New Goals: Media Fortifies the Post-2015 Development Agenda'. There was a two-day seminar at the Knutsford Court to discuss the issue, attracting media practitioners from the Caribbean. I am sure some of them were hearing about the post-2015 agenda for the first time! It's not sexy or sensational. It requires some - God forbid! - reading.

UNESCO is insisting that journalists debate these issues even while they put the spotlight on corruption, good governance and the malfeasance of politicians. People need to understand the economic options they face. They need to understand the role of the International Monetary Fund. They need to understand the workings of the international economic system. They need to understand international relations and foreign-policy issues, and how those issues affect development in Jamaica. They need to understand the Doha Development Round and how its stalling affects our developments prospects.

The people will react angrily and viscerally to a number of public policy issues and it is the role of the media to calmly and rationally discuss and assess these issues; not feed into their frenzy and hysteria. Journalists and columnists - at least some - need to be calm and cool their heads while everybody else is losing his. The press' job is not to simply go with the mob. The voice of the people is not always the voice of God. Sometimes people reflect received prejudices and dogmas. Media can't be an echo chamber.

Issues like climate change, general environmental degradation, and the international financial architecture are not sexy so they don't get the kind of attention they deserve. There is a movement now in American journalism to promote what is called knowledge-based journalism. America has been the leader in sensational journalism. Some respectable and important voices are pushing to transform American journalism education from mere skills-based to knowledge-based, and to build more intellectually oriented journalists.

The Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education is one of those ambitious programmes. When he announced the initiative in 2005, Carnegie Corporation President Vartan Gregorian said democracy requires "journalists who are superbly trained, intellectually rigorous, steeped in knowledge about the subjects they report on ... ." The Knight Foundation said at the time: "In today's changing world of news consumption, journalism schools should be exploring the intellectual, artistic and literary possibilities of journalism to the fullest extent and should ... inform the public as fully, deeply and interestingly as it can about matters of the highest importance and complexity."

We should not shy away from complex issues. Media should not leave to outside specialists in economics, political science, international relations, science and sociology to explain complex issues to the people. We must produce our own cadre of intellectually sophisticated, scholarly practitioners. We must promote a more knowledge-based journalism, one that is more intellectually rigorous.

When the famed Joseph Pulitzer (after whom the prize is named) gave Columbia University the money to start perhaps America's finest journalism school, he said he wished to "begin a movement that will raise journalism to the rank of a learned profession ... . My idea is to recognise that journalism is, or ought to be, one of the great intellectual professions, growing in the respect of the community as other professions ... ."

An excellent book that makes a strong case for knowledge-based journalism is Professor Thomas Patterson's Informing the News: The Need for Knowledge-based Journalism (2013). What is this vaunted press freedom for? To expose corrupt, thieving politicians, sure, and to uncover scandals among public officials, certainly. But it should also be providing the people with the best information being produced in the world so people, including policymakers, can make informed decisions. Media should help people make sense of the bewildering information they are confronted with all around.

Salutations to The Gleaner on its 180th!

Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and ianboyne1@yahoo.com.