Est.2007

Barbados Underground

Bringing News and Opinions to the People

BU Family Member Asked To Contribute To Call-in Show

← Back

Your message to the BLOGMASTER was sent

CONTACT THE BLOGMASTER ONLY

The following comment was posted by BU family member ROK. We invite the family to share feedback before and during the show if they can to represent the views of the BU family. Hopefully ROK will be given some latitude to represent the Bajan blogosphere. Here is the link to VOB to the 12PM EST show for those who are off-island.

@David

Sorry to be off topic here but I just got a call from VOB inviting me to be on the phone during their call-in program after the news (11:40 am) tomorrow morning. The discussion is on the media and this time includes the blog.

Apparently Denis Jones will be in the studio along with Julius Gittens and Amanda. If you are game, maybe we can set up a thread that will feedback as the program is in progress. Any BU Bloggers could make comments which I would refer to while on the phone. Not a problem with me.

Discover more from Barbados Underground

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

140 responses to “BU Family Member Asked To Contribute To Call-in Show”

  1. Georgie Porgie Avatar
    Georgie Porgie

    @ Dennis Jones

    Your observations are certainly most correct, but I can not furnish a suitable answer to your poignant question.

  2. Jack Bowman Avatar
    Jack Bowman

    The matter of how much notice is given before government press conferences is certainly pertinent (as D. Jones aka LIB) notes, but it’s an issue that should not be overstated. In a small sovereign state that has a vote at the United Nations, but one that is the size of a very small town in the US, the UK, Canada and so on, it really shouldn’t matter how much notice reporters are given before press conferences.

    In a small country whose economy and politics revolve around a vanishingly tiny number of issues, reporters should be fully conversant with every issue before any press conference has been called.

    What matters is what happens at the press conference. What matters is the questions the reporters ask at the press conference. What matters is the answers given to the reporters’ questions at the press conference. What matters is whether the reporters ask the questions and then report the answers.

    In a truly democratic society, a government press conference is a negotiating chamber in which the odds are heavily loaded against the government. In a democratic society, a press conference is a closed arena in which individuals with government titles and unfortunate suits are held accountable to the “demos” … to the people, the public. That is the entire point of journalists’ attending press conferences. If you’re a “reporter” at a government press conference and you don’t ask hard questions, then you are not a reporter. You are a typist and you might as well sit in the office, collect the salary, and reprint the relevant press release when it is issued by the government.

    Several people on the show yesterday kept talking about the “journalistic accuracy” of the traditional media sources as if it were some kind of sacrament, as if it somehow distinguished them from the blogs. In Barbados, that is an utterly disingenuous rhetorical tactic.

    Frankly, if your job as a “reporter” consists of writing mind-bendingly tedious stories about which school pupils won which scholarship, or what some unbearably dull cleric said in his sermon on Sunday, or what the owner of some pizza chain is going to do to make your nutritional experience more pleasant, then your job is already sad beyond belief. It really doesn’t matter how “accurate” your facts are on those issues, because your accuracy is heart-breakingly irrelevant.

    Where are the “factually accurate” stories about how many illegal immigrants there are in Barbados? Where is the analysis of that issue? Will the Bajan media forever be stuck in adolescence, unable to distinguish between opinion and analysis? Will the blogs forever be hormonal 14-year olds, unable to distinguish between analysis and brainless venting?

    Main point missing from the entire discussion on the programme yesterday … the utter atrociousness of the quality of the writing in much of the Bajan media. If you can’t write properly, you can’t think properly. If you can’t think properly, you shouldn’t be writing news—not even “news” about which guy sold the most Toyotas this year. That’s not news, at least not news in anything that could reasonably call itself a national newspaper. That’s an item in the newsletter of the local Toyota dealership. Why should I care who was employee of the year at the Hilton in 2009? Why should I care which department of the Crane (marketing? human resources? sales?) won a plaque this year?

    I want the Minister of Finance to answer hard questions about what exactly he plans to do to get us out of this hole. I want to see his answers on the front page of the newspapers. If he says “we have put the mechanisms in place to ensure the facilitation of an optimal outcome in partnership with relevant stakeholders”, I want someone to ask him what the f**k that means. And I want to see the answer to the latter question on the front page of my newspapers.

    And I want to know who exactly has been called to account for that utterly bizarre episode with the flight from Ghana and Nigeria almost a couple of years ago. And I want to know why the laughably supine Bajan press wasn’t asking any hard questions at the time.

  3. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    May I suggest to GP and others who are incline to speak out; do so with a foreign accent. However I warned against adopting a Jamaican one, as this may lead to heighten scrutiny from the Barbados police and more recently the Coast guard. lol!

  4. Christopher Halsall Avatar
    Christopher Halsall

    @Mr. Porgie: “I have personally suffered for speaking out and was not “allowed to continue producing, reproducing, and consuming….” I had to seek other places to engage i these pursuits.

    Did you have to? Or did you choose to, because it was easier?

    One of my fundamental positions is *if* this culture of reprisals actually exists, and *if* enough people stand up and say “no more”, then (and *only* then) might things change.

    This is one of the reasons I post using my real identity. I think (hope) that perhaps this why others do as well.

    And I haven’t been sued yet. And while ROK was defamed on another Blog, he turned that around quite skilfully and successfully.

    My personal opinion (as a Bajan Citizen although born and raised away) is Bajans are more fearful than they should be….

    (For context, if I may… My father and his twin brother (born in Barbados) ended up in Canada because they lied about their age in order to enter the RAF to be trained as fighter pilots; life expectancy something like 10 missions. My step father was on the ground during D-Day. To quote Spock: “The needs of the Many outweigh the needs of the Few; or the One.”)

  5. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    “If you can’t write properly, you can’t think properly. ”

    factual statement? or opinion? can the former be proven?

    Requirements for informal spoken English are much more relaxed than the rigid rules for “standard written English”. While Slang, colloquialism, and other informal expressions are acceptable and sometimes very appropriate in casual speech, they are inappropiate in academic and business writing.

    Two means by which to communicate your thoughts. Some are good at one and not the other. Some are not good at either.

    Yet, is it any truer to say “If you cannot communicate properly, you cannot think properly?????

  6. Jack Bowman Avatar
    Jack Bowman

    Quoting Mr. Hinds: “… is it any truer to say, “If you cannot communicate properly, you cannot think properly?”

    No. It is not truer to say that.

    If you can’t write the word “platitudinous” because you don’t know what it means, if you don’t know (without looking it up) what “platitude” means, then you will always have a highly attenuated appreciation of triteness—something that your response, with the greatest respect, demonstrates perfectly.

  7. Sargeant Avatar
    Sargeant

    @LIB

    Of course in a perfect world we would be able to speak freely without fear of recrimination but we live in the real world, and that world is inhabited by men with egos, fears and biases.

    The following is hypothetical: A UN agency is about to undertake an agricultural project in a foreign country and knows that an expert in that field is a Barbadian citizen who is approached and offered the position. The expert is eager to take the appointment but the Agency requires his Gov’t’s authorisation. The request goes to the minister for approval and the minister declines the request and tells the individual “you’ll go over my dead body”.

    The expert was known to be a supporter of the Opposition party and he knows that is the reason why the request was denied. This story is hypothetical because the field is not agriculture and some details about the approach may not be accurate but the gist of the story is true. No one fears for their lives but when people reach a certain comfort level they tend not to upset the apple cart.

  8. Dennis Johnson Avatar
    Dennis Johnson

    @ Jack Bowman:
    In total agreement with your sentiments. Sadly, however, many of those who attend press conferences are not journalists in the true sense of the word. They are sometimes not even reporters [in the true sense of that word too!]. They have no interest in public affairs; are not widely read; have no active interest in politics or political affairs; and cannot frame a follow-up question based on the answer given to the first question asked. So, you may ask, what are they doing in newsrooms across our nation? Earning a living; nothing more, nothing less. Can training help? To a point; but only if a passion exists for extracting truth and bringing it to the people [“demos” you say?]. How many passionate people have you seen or hear in the media recently?

    Dennis Johnson

  9. Christopher Halsall Avatar
    Christopher Halsall

    @Sargeant… Not speaking for LIB (as I would never presume to do)…

    But is this “hypothetical” situation not more along the lines of “the names and situations have been changed to protect the innocent”?

    And, if I may… Three points:

    1. In the “Developed World” all it would take in a situation like this is for a few calls to have been made to the Forth Estate to have such a situation being investigated *deeply* by *many* parties.

    2. Is this not exactly the kind of situation that we (little) Bajans would like to see changed?

    3. Why, exactly, is this being brought forward on an anonymous Blog, rather than in the traditional (Barbados) Forth Estate?

    Lastly, two observations:

    1. Does Barbados not aspire to (and claim to be close to) Developed Status?

    2. Please note that it was only because of *investigative* journalism by the UK.Forth Estate that the current MP expense scandal is known and currently being debated.

    So, from all of the above… I must ask…

    What, exactly, is missing?

  10. Dennis Johnson Avatar
    Dennis Johnson

    hear, should be heard.
    DJ

  11. Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados) Avatar
    Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados)

    @Sargeant, as I’ve said before, the type of instances are not unknown. Some would say that in a place like Barbados, the scope for such ‘denial’ is limited.

    What is of interest and hard for me to understand is the ‘national’ reaction, which seems to be (near total) resignation, and the apparent national acceptance. What is also hard to understand is how people continue to describe the place where this exists as a thriving democracy. Where such things exist, such countries are normally described otherwise.

  12. Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados) Avatar
    Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados)

    @Sargeant, I should have prefaced my comment by saying that the world does not need to be perfect for the freedom of speech we are discussing to occur.

  13. Christopher Halsall Avatar
    Christopher Halsall

    @Jack Bowman… I respectfully disagree with your immediate above…

    If I may please share what a very insightful friend enlightened me with…

    She said: “Be responsible for the listening into which you are speaking.

  14. mash up & buy back Avatar
    mash up & buy back

    Ha,ha,ha.

    I thought Jack bowman was not going to ‘out’ himself ,however knowing how much he loves drawing attention to himself I knew that he could not continue for too long posting as anony.

    Mr bourne yuh too sad though.

    Ha,ha,ha.Utterly hilarious,Bu draws them like a moth to a flame.Lol.

    These people who curse this site and can’t keep away can’t know what ‘doing the principled thing means.’

    Surely not.wuhloss,wuhloss.

  15. mash up & buy back Avatar
    mash up & buy back

    A perfect example of a media employee and not a news journalist covering hard news: see Ricky jordan etertainment journalist from the Nation being part of the press conference interviewing owen arthur 2 weeks ago.

    Cockroach ain’t got no right in fowl business.

    David ellis was the only one who sounded like a journalist.

  16. mash up & buy back Avatar
    mash up & buy back

    david

    A post before the last one is missing.

  17. Sargeant Avatar
    Sargeant

    • @CH What, exactly, is missing?

    *************************************
    It is not my story… just happened to be in a location where the individual was relating the account. He dealt with it as he saw fit.

    As to the role of the Fourth Estate in reporting on such occurrences isn’t that part of the reason for this thread?

    Of course I should not have said “hypothetical” but “names and situations….”etc.

  18. Christopher Halsall Avatar
    Christopher Halsall

    @Sargeant: “As to the role of the Fourth Estate in reporting on such occurrences isn’t that part of the reason for this thread?

    I agree: this is *exactly* the reason for this thread.

    So, I ask:

    Was this situation brought to the attention of the BB.Forth Estate?

    If so, what were the results?

    If not, why not?

    Please advise.

  19. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    Chris H, what is your disagreement with Jack Bowman?

    His typical Fallacies are ad hominem, ad populum, and oversimplification. Ergo “if you can’t write, you can’t think. lol!

    His original article would lose points for lack of conciseness. Spent to much time presenting an insignificant statement as if it were original or important. ha ha ha ha lol!

  20. Jack Bowman Avatar
    Jack Bowman

    Quoting Mr Halsall: “She said: “Be responsible for the listening into which you are speaking.”

    That makes no sense at all. Zero. Absolutely no sense.

    With gifts in prose clarity like that, Mr. Halsall, I wish you all the best in anything you try to do, notwithstanding the limitations you have made public.

    All best wishes to you, Mr. Halsall

  21. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    The statement makes sense. A good English writing text book would admonish you to “know your audience and define your purpose”. You wrote your response properly; were you thinking properly?

  22. Christopher Halsall Avatar
    Christopher Halsall

    @Jack Bowman: “That makes no sense at all. Zero. Absolutely no sense.

    With all due respect…

    The statement makes absolute sense… To those who can actually read and understand. Although it is, admittedly, *intentionally* difficult to parse.

    That’s *part* of the message….

  23. David Avatar
    David

    Repeatedly on that program we heard the the representatives of traditional media stating the need to check and recheck fact before publish. This they cited was the difference between traditional media and blogs. The more we think about it there is some confusion by them between what blog owners write and what commenters post.

  24. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    David David, why are being so defensive?

    Keep in mind that a “statement of fact” must be proved or provable by objective means. If a statement cannot be verified or disproved by “looking it up,” then it must be a statement of opinion.

    You may be correct in what was the intent of the statement, but what it implied is that the traditional media does not err in it’s presentation of “the facts” or very rarely does. This is a logical inference, but is it factual? can it be looked up? Yes it can be looked up however it is likely to be disproved.

    http://www.nytimes.com/ref/pageoneplus/corrections.html

  25. BAFBFP Avatar
    BAFBFP

    The program was shit. The comments on this blog ain gun mek nah difference to nottin’ nider. The onliest question that I would like answered is “Where the f#ck was Stetson Babble (Ellis being on leave) or some otha representative from Starcom.. (other than the idiot producer)?

  26. Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados) Avatar
    Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados)

    @David: “Repeatedly on that program we heard the the representatives of traditional media stating the need to check and recheck fact before publish. This they cited was the difference between traditional media and blogs. The more we think about it there is some confusion by them between what blog owners write and what commenters post.” [I do not think there is confusion; I think they look at the whole package of contents, and the overall balance that exists. A newspaper editor is as responsible for the content created by (supposedly thorough) in-house staff as he/she is for letters and columns/article provided by outside writers. If the editoral policy is weak/careless that reflects on the overall quality of the publication. One usually sees a high degree of care over letters published and columns written in those papers held up as having best practices.

    Likewise, editing or moderating a blog needs to have some standards if one is to have claims about its quality being high/good. That works against instant publication but is a safety valve. Of course, a single blog moderator may have a very hard time to do such checking and relies on contributors to help with substantiation of facts or ensure that expressions of opinion fall within some stated norms.

    That said, I would argue that the main Bajan papers do not exercise a good and consistent editorial policy and one can see letters or columns from outside writers that contain more than a few incorrect statements which should not be given credence by being published. We, the readers/citizens, then have to try to play our role and get the papers straightened out by providing corrections or flagging errors. While we cannot force public acceptance of those corrections blogs/online publications have freedom to expose those errors. I have exposed errors/mistatements by writing to the press and they have published my letters, but I have also used my own blog to try to correct what had been published, advising the press of my intention. I’m not sure if they feel pressured by the stated professional need to be correct or the concern for embarrassment.]

  27. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    Everyday there are corrections to something publish the previous day. So much for the empty statement of checking and rechecking the facts.

    http://www.nytimes.com/ref/pageoneplus/corrections.html

  28. Sapidillo Avatar
    Sapidillo

    I am somewhat disappointed that Ian Bourne (Bajan Reporter) was not part of the radio discussion on this media topic.

    I think that he may have been able to contribute invaluable input — from his experience in the media, although there is some difference between print and tv media, and being a blog owner.

    I wonder how much thought the producer at the station put into getting the discussion together in terms of selecting participants and setting an agenda.

  29. Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados) Avatar
    Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados)

    @Sapidillo, why not do a bit of investigation and check with Messrs. Bourne and Browne? It may be a good story.

  30. Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados) Avatar
    Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados)

    As people discuss ‘filling a void’ does anyone have experience with Blogtalkradio (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogtalkradio)?

  31. Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados) Avatar
    Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados)

    Example broadcast of blogtalkradio, Dale Pilgrim – Wade show by Jamaican Diaspora on #BlogTalkRadio – http://tobtr.com/s/774495

  32. David Avatar
    David

    The Bajan Blogosphere is always branded as too negative by traditional media and bloggers co-opted by traditional media. Wonder if the caller on the VOB program who stated a few minutes ago that she was a young person teaching at UWI Cave Hill and students could be seen daily smoking (legal and illegal) and gambling all day. She confirmed that the practice is known to the authorities. There, it was stated on traditional media so it is believable.

  33. Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados) Avatar
    Dennis Jones (aka Living in Barbados)

    @David, being “branded as too negative” is not a crime. If you aim to fill a void, then that may be the space to fill.

    With due respect for accuracy, “She confirmed that the practice is known to the authorities.” means that she offered evidence to that effect or merely stated it to be the case?

  34. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    What is the thesis of this young lady’s commemts? Is she stating a personal objection to smoking? What if the subject of the activity/practice were older, accomplish, in an office and smoking (legal and illegal)? Would she still raise it?

    Where I the moderator I would have ask for her views on any politician who smokes.

    David you seem overly concern with the views of few employees in the mainstream media.

  35. David Avatar
    David

    @Adrian H

    The call referred to was made today by a female who claimed to be a lecturer at Cave Hill. Not to be confused with the discussion on Sunday. Sorry for any confusion in the earlier comment.

    Regarding BU’s preoccupation with some media workers and by extension the Fourth Estate, as you know the BU family comment on every thing, including an unprofessional, ineffective and inefficient media.

  36. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    Fully aware it was a current (today) call. My comments still stand. I am curious and would have been willing to test this caller’s sincerity or reveal her hypocrisy.

  37. David Avatar
    David

    The station did ask the caller to give some details to the producer offline, unfortunately we can only guess…

  38. Adrian Hinds Avatar
    Adrian Hinds

    Two accepted scientific polls with results unfavourable to Mia Mottley, followed by two questionable polls that are favourable to her. The latter enabled by the Nation newspaper; coincident, or a deliberate attempt to create news rather than report it?

    We should remember the 2007-8 Cadres poll that suggested 20-10 victory for the DLP in the 2008 Jan 15 national election. We should remember the counter poll by Boxill that sought to counter Cadres projections and results.

    Another Cadres poll with statistics that Mia Mottley does not like so the Nationnews decided to counter or is it contained the results of that poll with a text message unscientific poll and has sought to highlight and publicize the results as if they were or could ever be provable “statements of Facts”.

    During all of this traditional media employees are reminding us that they check and recheck facts.

  39. Sargeant Avatar
    Sargeant

    AH

    They may check and recheck facts but they publish selectively. Didn’t they choose not to publish the relationship between Liz and the contractor that the Gov’t is trying to recover money from? Perhaps Hartley was right about the bias from the newspaper. Do you think that if the BLP won an election and Mia became PM that you would see an article by Albert Brandford with the following “portray a smugness that reflects her inbred sense of entitlement”

  40. David Avatar
    David

    @Sargeant

    A blog has been started on this subject, if you don’t mind you could add your comment above to it.

The blogmaster invites you to join the discussion.

Trending

Discover more from Barbados Underground

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading