Daily Gleaner’s Manipulation Of The Public.

Readers of Jamaica’s Daily Gleaner the mouth­piece for the People’s National Party, and JFLAG the homo­sex­u­al lob­by group in that coun­try woke up to this sub­tle manip­u­la­tion in that once pres­ti­gious medi­um, under the title.

PNP COMEBACK

The art of sub­tle manip­u­la­tion, but manip­u­la­tion nonethe­less, por­traits of Simpson Miller and Andrew Holness not after an election,but before the elec­tion. Yet this medi­um claim to be fair.

Take a look at the por­trait of Holness, con­tem­pla­tive , sad, deject­ed, con­fused, tired,bewildered, any of the afore­men­tioned adjec­tives would have been appro­pri­ate in describ­ing this pro­file. Conversely look at Miller, hap­py, con­fi­dent, vibrant, com­posed, all of the lat­ter adjec­tives would also be appro­pri­ate in describ­ing her. This medi­um takes you all for fools, they believ­ing you are inca­pable of under­stand­ing the sub­tle art of visu­al manip­u­la­tion, or the impact a pic­ture has on the brain which is wired to rec­og­nize these vari­ables and store them. An unde­cid­ed vot­er going into the vot­ing booth will remem­ber both por­traits and make their deci­sion on which per­son they feel will win based on their demeanor. This is the kind of dis­dain that the élite has for ordi­nary Jamaicans, one nev­er knows when this lev­el of dis­re­spect will ever stop.

As a boy grow­ing up in Jamaica I could­n’t wait to get my hands on the Gleaner, this was the only news­pa­per in Jamaica at the time of course, there was the evening tabloid, the Star. The paper was brought into my District by the Postman, who either rode a bicy­cle or walked, with a sack of mail which he deliv­ered to our Postal Agency , “Posie” as we lov­ing­ly called him, deliv­ered the Gleaner to one of our com­mu­ni­ty’s most respect­ed elders who oper­at­ed a shop close to the Postal Agency. Mister Small would read the paper from cov­er to cov­er, allow his cus­tomers to also read it, but he would take great care to save the paper for me so that on my way home from Primary school I could read it. He under­stood how much I loved to read, he also under­stood my keen inter­est in pol­i­tics and every­thing current .

RIP Mister Small !

Under the lead­er­ship of Oliver Clarke the Gleaner weath­ered many storms and endured, to be revered as the pre emi­nent news-paper not just in Jamaica but in the entire Caribbean. One thing the Editorial Board rec­og­nized from ear­ly , was that the path­way to a bet­ter Jamaica was not through pan­der­ing to the base desires of the moment , but was hinged on lay­ing the foun­da­tion for edu­ca­tion and strong nation build­ing, the frame-work for a bet­ter future. As a result the Gleaner was crit­i­cized for its con­ser­v­a­tive posi­tion. As such for years many accused it of being sup­port­ive of the Jamaica Labor Party, the truth is, what the Gleaner sup­port­ed was a sus­tain­able path to nation build­ing, not a path of depen­den­cy . This how­ev­er did not deter Michael Manley from lead­ing a rabid mob of his sup­port­ers in the 70’s to the Gleaner’s offices on North Street threat­en­ing with clenched fists “next time, next time” No oth­er Political leader has ever been so brazen as to overt­ly threat­en the press and the func­tion it has in pro­tect­ing our free­doms, and ensur­ing our democ­ra­cy is pro­tect­ed from tyrants.

Those who choose a path of revi­sion­ist his­to­ry has skill­ful­ly omit­ted to men­tion these and many oth­er trans­gres­sions of Michael Manley, cast­ing him as an icon­ic mata­dor of demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples and ideals,as a teenag­er grow­ing up under his rule I was a wit­ness to his­to­ry, I was there, I don’t need to be told what hap­pened I saw for myself, I saw the good of his intentions,But I also saw for myself his naiveté ‚and mul­ti­ple mis­takes. Being a rous­ing speak­er does not qual­i­fy one to be a good leader, ideas imple­ment­ed improp­er­ly does no one any good they are just ideas. Michael Manley under­stood his frail­ties as a leader, he under­stood his mis­takes, some­thing his cult fol­low­ing does not. Hence Manley’s mea cul­pa when he came back to con­test the elec­tions that saw the back of Edward Seaga.

The Gleaner through all the grow­ing pains of our coun­try main­tained it’s integri­ty as the true source of infor­ma­tion for the Jamaican peo­ple . as a peo­ple who did not have many choic­es when we thought about news­pa­per we thought about the Gleaner , when we thought about tooth­paste it was Colgate, when we thought about Beer we thought about Red Stripe, those were ours, proud­ly Jamaican prod­ucts, irre­spec­tive of what came after those were the names that were indeli­bly seared into our souls.

Oliver Clarke has unfor­tu­nate­ly passed the torch to some­one else, of course all good things must come to an end, and as such we have seen a dra­mat­ic decline in the qual­i­ty of the prod­uct. Despite tech­no­log­i­cal addi­tions to the Gleaner’s prod­uct, like it’s web­site which pur­ports to allow com­ments, a good thing, if not manip­u­lat­ed to push agen­das. This has opened the prod­uct to the world bring­ing Jamaicans in the dias­po­ra into the con­ver­sa­tion, allow­ing every­one the oppor­tu­ni­ty to see what’s hap­pen­ing on the ground. Those advances if used prop­er­ly has tremen­dous poten­tial for inform­ing the dias­po­ra, sell­ing Jamaica to the world, and reap­ing untold finan­cial wind­fall for the Gleaner.This would how­ev­er require informed vision­ary lead­er­ship devoid of myopia or chained to local polit­i­cal preferences.

Instead what has steadi­ly been hap­pen­ing at the Gleaner is a small-mind­ed manip­u­la­tion of it’s read­er­ship, through slant­ed report­ing , and in some cas­es out­right cheer lead­ing, and sub­tle manip­u­la­tion using imagery all toward a nar­row parochial sup­port for the People’s National Party. Editors like every­one else are enti­tled to their opin­ions, what they are not allowed to do is to dis­tort facts to suit their polit­i­cal agen­das. Jamaicans large­ly do not agree with homo­sex­u­al­i­ty that is their right, Neither Britain nor any­one else have the right to tell Jamaicans what to think . nei­ther does any­one or any coun­try have the right to threat­en to use eco­nom­ic black­mail to ter­rorise us . We are a free peo­ple all 2.8 mil­lion who live on the Island and the mil­lions more who live across the globe, gay or straight, black or white, chris­t­ian or Muslim, athe­ist or agnos­tic, male or female.

Let me be clear no one who is gay should be killed, dis­crim­i­nat­ed against because they are gay , denied any ben­e­fit that is avail­able to oth­ers of oth­er sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion, nei­ther should any gay per­son be denied the right to be gain­ful­ly employed in any dis­ci­pline to which he or she has appro­pri­ate qual­i­fi­ca­tion because of their sex­u­al orientation.

However Gays are in the minor­i­ty and we live in soci­eties that embrace major­i­ty rule, until we go to a for­mu­la of minor­i­ty rule I will not be told by any homo­sex­u­al that I must embrace that lifestyle as nor­mal , or moral, no homo­sex­u­al will con­vince me that I must sur­ren­der my chris­t­ian val­ues on the altar of car­nal­i­ty by sup­port­ing their cause. My God cre­at­ed a man and woman to fill the earth , I will for­ev­er believe his word, and will nev­er bend to elit­ist dog­ma which pro­fess­es that who do not embrace homo­sex­u­al­i­ty, or share their views are beneath them. I will respect their right to be what they are , but they must respect my right to believe that their car­nal immoral lifestyle is an abom­i­na­tion to my God,and as such I will call it for what it is,.….… an abom­i­na­tion !

The Gleaner’s cam­paign to pro­mul­gate homo­sex­u­al­i­ty on the Jamaican nation is an affront to our dig­ni­ty and our val­ues , the over­whelm­ing major­i­ty of us are opposed to this repug­nant counter-cul­ture, and even though we believe in fair­ness we are opposed to any­one push­ing what they believe on us.

The Gleaner’s Editor if he is gay should have the courage to come out of the clos­et and declare his sex­u­al pref­er­ence to the nation, instead of hid­ing behind his Editorials pre­tend­ing to cham­pi­on the rights of homo­sex­u­als when he may very well be defend­ing his own sex­u­al­i­ty. The finan­cial argu­ments he has used has fall­en flat as they have not tak­en into account the poten­tial dis­as­trous con­se­quence to the health sec­tor from dis­eases derived from homo­sex­u­al indul­gence. As such his cru­sade should be seen as the cru­sade of a pos­si­ble gay per­son who is afraid of his own homo­sex­u­al­i­ty, too much of a cow­ard to declare who he is or stand by what he is .

Whatever the out­come of the elec­tions on Thursday December 29^th, a day that just hap­pen to be the date of my birth, Jamaicans will have to live with the choice they make. Whether the win­ner is Miller or Holness that lead­er’s deci­sions will decide Jamaica’s course, pos­si­bly for gen­er­a­tions to come, we get the gov­ern­ment we deserve. Jamaicans will have to decide if the way for­ward will con­tin­ue to be one of hand­outs from friends and rel­a­tives liv­ing abroad or they will once and for all take their future and that of their chil­dren into their own hands,understanding that hand­outs and cheap polit­i­cal pork bar­rel pro­grams will not get them to eco­nom­ic free­dom. Economic free­dom will only be achieved through hard work, Education and sacrifice.