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Integrity and media bias
published: Sunday | October 29, 2006 <DIV class=KonaBody>
Ian Boyne
Is the Press being too hard on Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller? Is she overreacting to the media pressure? Does the Observer have an agenda against the Prime Minister? Have the media already drawn the battle lines in the undeclared electoral contest between the two main political parties?
These are some of the questions which some people are posing and they provide an excellent opportunity for me to share some thoughts on media bias and the whole issue of moral and intellectual integrity. It is an issue I feel deeply about.
There is one aspect of Jamaican life which I absolutely abhor and am repulsed by and that is our intense partisanship and blind group loyalty.
Everyone Displays Bias
Yes, all peoples display some levels of partisanship and everyone has biases, coloured perspectives and even prejudices. It's a human, not particularly Jamaican, phenomenon. But, culturally, Jamaicans seem to be more intensely partisan and tribalistic than many others. We are individualistic in terms of economic behaviour, personal ambition, taste, etc.,
but when it comes to political views, we find it difficult to think outside of some narrow confines. We tend to argue from a predominantly visceral and glandular point of view rather than from a cold, rational view. This makes it hard for others to do serious intellectual work in such an environment.
This partisan, tribalistic culture requires courage and integrity on the part of the intellectual. It requires the courage to be misunderstood, maligned and mistreated. But, it is a courage which must be demonstrated if one is to display integrity. The pressure to conform, to toe a particular group or party line is overwhelming, but it must be resisted by the intellectual who is serious about his commitment to truth.
Writing a column is sometimes frustrating in the Jamaican environment where many people have an aversion to rational thinking and scorn the discipline of logical processes. It is much easier to sprout the propaganda line, to carry the perty flag, to engage in polemics and histrionics. The standards are not particularly high in such an environment, for here one can easily get away with carrying a particular party line, engaging in embellishment, pandering to the lowest common denominator and spewing out unsubstantiated and undocumented ideas.
It is risky to engage in independent commentary in Jamaica for one can be thrown to the lions on either side. The commentators of the People's National Party (PNP) have the governing party to protect them and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) commentators have that party to make a lot of noise in their defence and to look after them when they come to power. (Besides, there are powerful JLP people in business who can look after their own, even without their party's having political power.) Taking an independent position plays daredevil risks with being abandoned by both sides.
The independent thinker cannot win in this society, for even his independence is scorned and scoffed at by the partisans who make a vice out of what the independent intellectual considers a virtue: What the independent thinker is doing is merely 'playing bothey' - displaying cowardice by 'sucking up' to both sides so as to hedge one's bet! It's no position of integrity, they would say, this 'so-called independent position', for what it does is to feign staying on the fence when what is being done is really prostitution to various sides. (Rather than being committed to one 'partner', as it were, and making that known openly, one flaunts independence so as to get various suito
published: Sunday | October 29, 2006 <DIV class=KonaBody>
Ian Boyne
Is the Press being too hard on Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller? Is she overreacting to the media pressure? Does the Observer have an agenda against the Prime Minister? Have the media already drawn the battle lines in the undeclared electoral contest between the two main political parties?
These are some of the questions which some people are posing and they provide an excellent opportunity for me to share some thoughts on media bias and the whole issue of moral and intellectual integrity. It is an issue I feel deeply about.
There is one aspect of Jamaican life which I absolutely abhor and am repulsed by and that is our intense partisanship and blind group loyalty.
Everyone Displays Bias
Yes, all peoples display some levels of partisanship and everyone has biases, coloured perspectives and even prejudices. It's a human, not particularly Jamaican, phenomenon. But, culturally, Jamaicans seem to be more intensely partisan and tribalistic than many others. We are individualistic in terms of economic behaviour, personal ambition, taste, etc.,
but when it comes to political views, we find it difficult to think outside of some narrow confines. We tend to argue from a predominantly visceral and glandular point of view rather than from a cold, rational view. This makes it hard for others to do serious intellectual work in such an environment.
This partisan, tribalistic culture requires courage and integrity on the part of the intellectual. It requires the courage to be misunderstood, maligned and mistreated. But, it is a courage which must be demonstrated if one is to display integrity. The pressure to conform, to toe a particular group or party line is overwhelming, but it must be resisted by the intellectual who is serious about his commitment to truth.
Writing a column is sometimes frustrating in the Jamaican environment where many people have an aversion to rational thinking and scorn the discipline of logical processes. It is much easier to sprout the propaganda line, to carry the perty flag, to engage in polemics and histrionics. The standards are not particularly high in such an environment, for here one can easily get away with carrying a particular party line, engaging in embellishment, pandering to the lowest common denominator and spewing out unsubstantiated and undocumented ideas.
It is risky to engage in independent commentary in Jamaica for one can be thrown to the lions on either side. The commentators of the People's National Party (PNP) have the governing party to protect them and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) commentators have that party to make a lot of noise in their defence and to look after them when they come to power. (Besides, there are powerful JLP people in business who can look after their own, even without their party's having political power.) Taking an independent position plays daredevil risks with being abandoned by both sides.
The independent thinker cannot win in this society, for even his independence is scorned and scoffed at by the partisans who make a vice out of what the independent intellectual considers a virtue: What the independent thinker is doing is merely 'playing bothey' - displaying cowardice by 'sucking up' to both sides so as to hedge one's bet! It's no position of integrity, they would say, this 'so-called independent position', for what it does is to feign staying on the fence when what is being done is really prostitution to various sides. (Rather than being committed to one 'partner', as it were, and making that known openly, one flaunts independence so as to get various suito