So if I have resisted jumping on the bandwagon of media shares and commendations, it is because I have been watching on in amused bemusement. Not for long, though, it soon turned into something else altogether. So her I am pushed directly on the path of the bolting bandwagon!
Indeed, the heated exchange between BBC HardTalk host Stephen Sackur and hardtalking Chairman of CARICOM President of Guyana Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali left me a lot amused. For the subsequent public response, I stand much like Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire Cat of Alice In Wonderland fame, more than a little bemused: ‘I am not crazy; my reality is just different from yours.’
Then comes celebrations of World Press Freedom Day, and I tumble even further down the rabbit hole, standing in my shoes in Keatsian wonder, left pondering if Guyana Greenheart wood is as wooden in England where it holds up palaces and the BBC headquarters as the Guyana President reminded the BBC host.
Psst purr purr, Demokrissy quotes Carroll and Keats only because she has been heartily fed on British Literature – not because there isn’t a vast unexplored panoramic LiTTscapes – Landscapes of Fiction from which to source novel insights into our world theatre of the absurd!)
So here’s another installment of With BBC Gone, Who Goin’ Tek over Town. See more related links below
Withering Press for Planet
It is more than a month since the interview between BBC’s Sackur and CARICOM Chair President of Guyana Dr Ali, part of a BBC billed On The Road To Guyana promo. (More on this later)
Since then, purring in butter-licking satisfaction, contentedly tow-towing such given agenda priorities that could make even Vargas Llosa’s fantasizing Don Rigoberto blush, we celebrated World Press Freedom Day on its proscribed theme, A Press for the Planet: Journalism in the Face of the Environmental Crisis.
Defined depleted dominant development dialogue
This defined path of journalistic investigation and reporting on ‘the Environmental Crisis’ is aligned to that development agenda, carefully cultivated over the last few decades, not unlike our colonial conditioning systematically orchestrated through education, deculturation and mass media systems over centuries. Through the celebrations, most seem content to lap-up the depleted dominant dialogue that define the global environmental crisis and our development agenda. Business as usual!
Admittedly, I stood, aghast! It’s only a few days from the effervescent celebratory post-colonial back-patting and chest thumping that accompanied Dr Ali’s hard-slapping attempt to change the narrative on energy, environment and the climate crisis before the self-acclaimed HardTalking host. Yet already the old normal had returned to assert itself.
Amidst the Press Day celebrations, it seems no one noticed the resettling into the old norm – this is, no one, but Demokrissy, amused, bemused, and now aghast and juggling a million new hard-hitting questions.
Among them:
Guyana’s hardwood might have stood-up to sustain colonial palaces and media presses over centuries, but can its hard stance against the entrenched developmental indoctrination hold?
The line of questioning and the defensive rebuttals of the interviewee might have exposed the cranium of the colonial mindset, but was it enough to inspire the brain-surgery needed to reset the planetary mindset?
Doesn’t a new narrative for a new development agenda require a new journalism as well?
And… With BBC Gone, Who Goin’ Tek Over Town?
With BBC Gone, Who Goin’ Tek Over Town?
These are among the 101 new questions for a new journalism Demokrissy has planted at the GloCaL Knowledge Pot Media Academy, seeded in a time capsule for the anticipated planetary awakening to a novel theme – Uprooting the Colonial Mindset Pressing for the Planet: A New Journalism for a New Development Agenda, in the Face of the Real Environmental Crises.
It’s about the ratings, stupid!
Counting the seconds, I held my hard-birthed breath as media with other sectors across the post-colonial globe, lit-up with the viral virility of the moment when a small-nation leader took a harder stance to the HardTalk host.
The peals of infectious viral laughter that spread from the Global South into its diasporas of the North, were perhaps not exactly the kind of viral ratings for which the BBC and its HardTalk host were aiming. After all, it peeled off the deceptive scalp to expose the hard, hardened and warped though still vibrant colonial cranium that characterises old-world medi .
I took that with more than a grain of salt. In the world of show biz, where mass media in the new media era is firmly embedded, the adage that is as old as the second oldest profession in the world, still has a stronghold.
“There is no such thing as bad publicity!”
As much of our media world well knows, selling headlines and soundbites define the agenda, content, intelligence, intent and anything in between cannot hold.
‘It’s about the ratings, stupid!’
X-raying of the cranium of the neo-/colonial mindset from where I sit, on this side of the Global South, meant wading through the deafening post-interview applause, the viral social media waves of infinite likes, shares and follow-me-where-I-go-whatever-I-do-or-say. It provided a moment of triumph, a new-new new media panacea for the old media wounds.
Back-Slapping Back Chat
In the colonial world of Dr Ali’s region, such back-chat in the days of yore meant risking not just a few hard-slaps but some sound whipping, weals and wounds as well. Then the responses would have been behind-the-scene spit-in-his-food mockery of the hard-hitting massa, instead of the data-rich statistical salvo unleashed by the CARICOM Chair.
In the ingestion-digestion cycle of a regurgitated diet of the colonizer and the once-colonised, oppressed, disempowered and immobilized, we get to laugh, not under our chins and behind our hands, but in full frontal glare of the world of new media. LOL! LOL! LOL!
SMH. Such frontal aggression is indeed a step-up from the massa days of passive aggression that still permeate our engagements with international entities. I have numerous case stories from experiences in the international development arena where rather than confront the lack and lag in the systems our representatives prefer to remain passive.
So the public exhilaration from Dr Ali’s responses is an exhalation as the indoctrinated oppressed get to emit mass-purrings of approval.
And with all the noise-making, his message for a new narrative for development gets drowned out.
So you may forgive my Cheshire amusement at the celebratory back-slapping and desk-thumping on one side of the global development divide that characterise our brand of borrowed democracy. Just visit any of our noisy Parliaments and the metaphors will make sense.
Or of course, if you are cricket fan, you well know what premature celebrations do to our team’s results.! But what do they know if ricket, who only cricket knows.
On the other side, the stony pursed-lips, waiting-for-it-to-blow-over-as-it-must, that greeted and has followed the interview between the Chair of CARICOM and the BBC has its own resonances.
View from the South
Then, beyond the message, there was this other thing. Admittedly, amidst my bemused amusement, my jaw dropped, when I saw the leader wagging his finger, shaking fist and all but collaring the media man.
From where I sit, if such a leader is shown thus wagging his figure, shouting down, admonishing, schooling and lecturing or even ‘looking in too hard a tone of a voice’ at journalist, any journalist, even those of a modicum of stature of the BBC media man, such a leader would be called to book, shown the noose, be tarred and feathered and dragged through the coals for abuse of the press.
He would be set on the public square of ridicule. All and sundry would be invited to hurl insults and whatever else they believe he deserves in unending salvos.
Indeed, if a politician, and leader of a regional body as CARICOM/President of Guyana had done a similar interview with a local or regional journalist or media entity from any part of the Global South, had giving the same or similar responses to similar questions, s/he would be severely chastised by local, regional and international media. After all we are vigilant about authority stepping on our sore toes!
Conversely, in these parts, the media host and agency would not have received the hail of insults as the hardtalker did, but be hailed for his hard-talking stance, however unprepared or in whatever tones of disrespect or condescension that may be.
The hard-talking interviewer would be crowned with commiseration for being so treated by the leader and subsequently awarded and rewarded by his peers and the public.
I’ll whistle if you can cite examples! And I’ll double whistle if your examples are the same as any in the repertoire of case stories in my journalism archives that trace media and journalism from old colonial world to new, as voluminous as Encyclopedia Britannica!
Dr Ali, who has had his own tussles with his local media and is often faced with this almost identical scenario at home, cannot be unaware of the incongruity and paradox in this variation in reception and is perhaps practicing his whistles, as his dance moves, even as I write!
Converse Practices
In my days in the newsroom, I was replete with complaints from reporters if an official, or policeman, so much as look at him/or her too hard. When considering the complaints, I have had to devote considerable time counseling to return the focus to reporting the matter they were sent to cover and not distract by turning the spotlight on their aggrieved self, unless warranted!
Similar complaints from both sides of the media table – reporters and subjects of stories – came before the Media Complaints Council on which I sat as a founding member over a number of years and in roles as Vice President of the Commonwealth Journalists’ Association or prepping the Commonwealth civil society for the new media world.
Sacred Sanctified Sanctimonious Spectrum
The sanctified notion of press freedom and media rights, to be distinguished from the sanctimonious claims of untouchability, are as sacred as any consideration of rights and responsibilities of any of the pillars in a democracy.
But the frames have become weightier with the expanded spectrum of balance of estates – first (legislature), second (executive), third (judiciary), to now fourth (conventional media) and fifth (new media/civil society) estates, but this changing landscape is not an area any of our worthy institutions of higher, or lower, education, whether in formal or non formal learning, media or other sectors want to place focus, content with lapping up and mimic the feeds from elsewhere.
I can also pull quite a few examples from my broad repertoire of experiential case studies and stories of the same in our practice of journalism. My archives include many of these genuine and ingenuous media posturings among the plethora of freedom of and access to information and governance issues.
They also speak in fine measure to leaders’ intimidation and abuse of media that have informed various studies and presentations and initiatives to drive policy and behavioural change over the decades across the agenda-setting organs as the OAS, Commonwealth, ACP-EU, UN and other arenas for media, civil society, NGO, academia, private sector.
(Help, Support, Partner, Sponsor Digitisation and Multimedia recreations of case stories for CEIBA-EDUtainment. Make Contact.)
In full glare
So I noticed the incongruity – here, unfolding in full glare of the world and the media world, the praises are being poured of the leader strong-arming the media man and his agency who are facing jeers and sneers.
Are there different standards and assessments of the exercise of journalistic rights and responsibilities, for leadership and accountability, for the Global North versus the Global South?
Why are there different responses and what does it say about our state of development or our treatment of pertinent issues of the day, as we tag on to the newest opportunity for a grand furore before returning to reset mode?
I waited with Demokrissy after the interview to see if any of these harder questions would surface so we could improve the standards of our practice on the one hand. And whether the perspective on development presented by the CARICOM Chair which was so widely applauded would impact how we treat with the theme provided for World Press Freedom Day – A Press for the Planet: Journalism in the Face of the Environmental Crisis!
Celebrating the Return to Order – World Press Freedom Day
World Press Freedom Day arrived with its proscribed theme is A Press for the Planet: Journalism in the Face of the Environmental Crisis.
The focus on the ‘Environmental Crisis’ on the agenda carries an ironic echo of Dr Ali’s articulation of the realities from his end of the tropical rainforests, but no one seems to notice, except Demokrissy, that is.
Treatment of the theme in the international forums has no resonance of the hard statistics unleashed by CARICOM head.
The status quo resets itself.
Missing Viagra for Viral Virility
As the cricketing world well knows, our premature celebratory back-slapping and chest-thumping have often been what my journalism colleague in the cricket commentary world describes as grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory.
Inebriated with the hearty celebrations, as with the colonial pay-day rum-shop spree, Press Freedom Day celebrations contained none of the anticipated resonance of follow-up action that would repair the exposed the cranium of the colonial-aka-dominant development mindset – not from the media, nor from academia, nor from any of the other sectors touting a new development agenda.
The necessary viagra for the viral virility of any new narrative on development to stand-up against the entrenched dominant posturings is no where to be had.
Past the hand-before-mouth snickering, mass shares, likes and follows, where are the sustained strategy and actions and revised mechanisms for transformation that could respond to the deeply engrained and entrenched conditioning through colonial media, culture and education?
Where are the plans for the necessary facilities, infrastructure, entrepreneurship, investments, support for cultivation of new generation of empowered, aware, articulate media practitioners who can break the cycle of tow-towing to the neo-massas and craft effective future forward actions?
With BBC Gone, Who Goin Tek Over Town?
Old order returns to the colonially-proscribed agenda. Business as usual. After all, anyone who sits in one of our colonial Parliaments knows they must only wait long enough for the furore and fist-shaking outside the Parliament to subside, then the old norm settles over threats of a new normal in cat-purring self-satisfaction. The status quo is secured.
So many questions popped into my GloCal Knowledge Pot question box it begins to overflow, to define a New Journalism 101.
More Questions for A New Journalism 101
What happened on the Road to Guyana as BBC dubbed Sackur’s entry into the blinding glow of the small nation that till now has been visibly invisible to the global media?
Is there a different set of rules and different standards of practice for journalism of the Global North to Global South?
Are such different standards of assessment acceptable?
Do we need different standards of journalism practicing when interviewing leaders of the Global South to those of the North?
Why weren’t these questions in focus as we celebrated World Press Freedom Day?
Shouldn’t exposure of the need for a more relevant development agenda that the interview provided align to a new development narrative not demand A New Journalism, as well?
Here are even more questions on the New Journalism 101 from the GloCaL Knowledge Pot Media Academy from our pre-school for policy-making new and old media fraternities, educators and development advocates.
On the 2024 theme:
Do we all share a common view of what constitutes the Environmental Crisis?
For the Environment Lobby
Is the common future in sustainable development envisaged at the pivotal point of the drive for sustainable development as captured in the Bruntland report of the first World Environment Summit in Rio the same today as it was then?
Whose standards and benchmarks of development do we apply when we speak of Environment and Climate Change?
Educating the Educators From PreSchool to Policy Making
Old World versus New Age Media
Is new media, which potentially gives everyone a ‘voice’ and publishing medium altering the character of journalism that is making the profession in its conventional sense, obsolete, too!
Should journalists head to makeover salons as they try to swim with new mutated hi-tech species of Sharks, social media influencers, who look nothing like the conventional image of media?
Does the quest for ratings to be seen/heard by old world/conventional media justify its relaxation of expected journalistic rigour?
Is it acceptable to have different benchmarks of assessing journalistic performance and political performance based on audience location and dynamics?
What does this interview reveal about the interviewer, his agency?
What does the interview present about the interviewee?
Beyond what the recipients are saying about the interviewer and the interviewee, what do their responses and reactions say about the audience?
Does the old world/conventional media fully appreciate how the new media landscape is altering journalism practice?
Should we still be applying and be expected to apply conventional foundational principles to conventional media in the new media environment?
Should we expect new media to adhere to principles to conventional media?
Do we need to change our expectations of anchors and media hosts to cater to the new media environment of hype, viral reachings and ratings?
Perhaps Sackur had forgotten, but like any competent journalist, I know that you do not ask questions, for which you do not have answers.
For the answers, you would have to enroll, request, support, sponsor, partner with the GloCaL Knowledge Pot, where a world of new knowledge awaits!
About Dr Kris Rampersad
Dr Kris Rampersad is an independent global thought leader, multimedia content innovator, journalist, educator and cultural heritage specialist.
She was a founding member of the Media Complaint’s Committee defining standards for media practice; a former International NGO Outreach and Advocacy Director of the UN Women’s Media Monitor Watch. She has contributed to development of global instruments protection of journalists and media and ICT policy, programmes and actions through various global to local groups including as Vice President of the UNESCO Programme and External Relations Commission, UNESCO InterGovernmental Committee for Intangible Cultural Heritage, Chair of the UNESCO Education Commission, former Vice President of the Commonwealth Journalists’ Association, with compounded roles in the ICT sphere as Woman Techmakers’ Ambassador, Digital Skills Ambassador, Worldpulse Digital Ambassador.
Those experiences inform her integrated approach to media culture education and entertainment through CEIBA-EDUtainment, one of the initiatives of this developing portal, GloCal Knowledge Pot, as a knowledge repository of the often invisible knowledge holders and thought-leaders of the Global South. CEIBA-EDUtainment as a model of engagement to restore balance in the roles of education and entertainment and Demokrissy to keep vigilance on trends in governance, including internet and media governance
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