A former politician who rode high during the years of the Pindling dictator-styled government said on Friday that the local press lacked real journalists and was replete with lazy reporters.
“It occurred to me that a lot of people who work for newspapers and radio and television are not journalists at all. They’re reporters, they’re reporting some news, but they’re not really journalists.” said former North Andros and Berry Island MP and Health, National Security and Immigration Minister in several Pindling Governments, A. Loftus Roker.
Speaking with the Nassau Guardian Editorial Board Friday Mr Roker said “a good secretary could be a good reporter: just report what is said.
“But I don’t think that is what is expected of a journalist,” he added. “I think journalists should go behind what [is said.]” Information in local newspapers is ‘shallow,'” Mr Roker said.
He praised Punch columnists Nikki Kelly as one of the few Bahamian journalists, who does proper research.
Criticising media practitioners for failing to add context to most reports and being frequently beguiled by politicians, he challenged journalists to blame themselves and not their subjects for the ineptitude. He gave the following scenario:
“A politician gets up in a meeting. He says ‘my government will build a wall around this school for you. We just want the opportunity, we want you to know that.’ The wall isn’t built. The next week the same politician comes back and says: ‘I’m going to build a dock for you,’ and [reporters practicing today] don’t stop to ask him, ‘but Mr John Doe, what about that wall you promised to build last week? When are we gonna get the wall … you’re telling us now about the dock?'”
Politically motivated from an early age, the barrister revealed that he wanted to be a journalist before switching to law to ensure a livelihood amid an atmosphere of political victimisation which was prevalent in the 1960s.
Some of Roker’s criticisms have become common for observers of the local media. However, with the criticism of news reporters for failing to properly perform their duties, he did not acknowledge a dynamic in determining the depth of a given story.
The pressure of media houses to file reports within press deadlines often plays an important part in the amount of research put into stories. Columnists maybe faced with producing two articles per week as opposed to staff reporters churning out that same number of copy in a day, have more time and resources to put into a given article.
Mr Roker’s point concerning the extent and depth of questioning may hold serious merit as many reporters are coming less prepared, and appear less willing to ask pertinent questions during media events.
By Raymond Kongwa, The Nassau Guardian
March 7, 2005
