A Society Which Hates Its Defenders Must Be Prepared To Deal With The Consequences Coming From Its Offenders

Not much has changed in Jamaican Media from what exist­ed two or three decades ago except that we have more enti­ties than the pre­vi­ous RJR and JBC radio and JBC Television which signed off at mid­night, after which there were only crickets.
Sure, Radio and Television have got­ten expo­nen­tial­ly more vul­gar and as a con­se­quence, the soci­ety has den­i­grat­ed much fur­ther than in many oth­er nations.
The results of this are borne out in the vio­lence and homi­cide sta­tis­tics which are chok­ing the lifeblood out of the tiny Island we once thought of as paradise.

In the time since then, we have had tens of thou­sands of mur­dered Jamaicans, Vybz Kartel lec­tured at the (Intellectual ghet­to (UWI) and Ninjaman gave a pep talk to law enforce­ment officers.
The irony in all this is that both are now con­vict­ed murderers!
From the lofty out of touch Editorial offices at that behe­moth on North Street to the cushy lit­tle stu­dios of both radio and tele­vi­sion the inces­sant dai­ly bar­rage of anti-police invec­tives was bound to have neg­a­tive con­se­quences for our country.

You see, the perch­es haven’t changed, nei­ther have the influ­ences which come from the media hous­es changed.
What has changed are the ways the rest of the world views the issues of today and how to deal with those issues and no one both­ered to inform the Editorial boards of the Gleaner, Observer or the self-appoint­ed mouth­pieces of the Jamaican peo­ple in the tra­di­tion­al mediums.
The prob­lems with their views are that they are large­ly shaped from parochial per­spec­tives, devoid of exposure.

So they still write their Editorial pieces from those lofty perch­es and the vil­lage lawyers debate them on talk radio and tele­vi­sion. The back­ward­ness of those edi­to­ri­als final­ly seep down into the body politic, and to the man on the streets where it becomes gospel.
The prob­lem with all this is that the ini­tial per­spec­tive was not based on crit­i­cal think­ing or deep intro­spec­tion or even data-driven.
They are old tired posi­tions of pun­dits and prog­nos­ti­ca­tors steeped in old prej­u­dices and per­cep­tions which have no rel­e­vance to today’s society.

So sure, the edi­to­r­i­al board of the Gleaner would be offend­ed by the idea that their baby INDECOM is prob­lem­at­ic, they do not care about the mas­sive loss of life occur­ring in the coun­try, why would they, it makes for sen­sa­tion­al headlines?
They do not care about the men and women who brave the bul­lets when they sleep either, berat­ing them sells news­pa­pers too.

At the very best, the bright­est of them can­not extrap­o­late from the data the neg­a­tive impact this law is hav­ing on the lives of ordi­nary Jamaicans.
They are hell-bent on their focus, which is to demo­nize the police. Any emerg­ing data which con­flicts with the rot­ten fish they are sell­ing is swift­ly dis­card­ed in a con­vo­lut­ed word sal­ad of hyperbole.

A soci­ety which hates its defend­ers must be pre­pared to deal with the con­se­quences com­ing from its offenders.The media has a respon­si­bil­i­ty, to be hon­est with its assess­ment of top­i­cal issues. It must endeav­or to ensure that it does due dili­gence even in the opin­ions it prof­fers, they too matter.

Eventually, the stench of the rot ris­es up to the high­est tur­ret of your tow­ers and no one is immune from the fallout.
Be care­ful with your stewardship.