By Klao Bell, Staff Reporter 
'BAD PRESS' has a number of starting points pegged to statistics, actual events, myth, stereotyping, questionable sources, misperception and journalistic competence.
Derrick Heaven, former Ambassador to the United Kingdom (UK), feels that misinformed Jamaicans with outdated ideas of Jamaica are a dangerous source of disservice to the country.
"Fuelling the adverse press are different sources, the most damaging are the Jamaicans themselves who make comments about the country from a position of ignorance. Having left Jamaica 30-40 years ago, their perception of the country is sometimes based on what they left or based on innuendos and rumours. They sometimes draw conclusions that are ill-informed and take these ill-informed conclusions to the press. When they speak to the British media it carries a lot of weight because they are Jamaican," the Ambassador said.
He added that stringers who sell stories to the British press also do the country a disservice.
"In Jamaica, there are also people who, for different reasons, put an interpretation on things sometimes that causes more damage than it helps. There are people, for example, both in Jamaica and the UK who are stringers, who get paid by the stories that get used, and the stories likely to get used are the sensational ones."
However, without any help from Jamaicans, British reporters unapologetically do a lot of damage with cobbled stories, laced with inaccuracies.
One such example of journalistic incompetence and poor ethics arose from a story in The Daily Telegraph of June 21, 2003, which listed Kingston among the "Top 10 most dangerous cities".
On Saturday 21 June 2003, national broadsheet The Daily Telegraph ran a story on page 3 entitled "10 cities to beware", The reporter, Charles Starmer-Smith, pinpoints the world's most crime-prone tourist destinations and describes some tricks to watch out for. Kingston was the first city listed.
The article stated: "All cities that attract tourists inevitably draw criminals who prey on them. But where are you most likely to be a victim? The Annual Personal Safety Survey, undertaken by Mercer Human Resource Consulting, offers a rough guide. As an aid to governments and big business sending employees abroad, Mercer ranks cities according to personal
safety, with scores based on crime levels, law enforcement and internal stability. In the latest survey, published in March, it judges Luxembourg to be the safest (No 1 out of 215) and Bangui capital of the Central African Republic and scene of a recent coup to be the most dangerous.
"But neither of those is a mainstream holiday destination. We have drawn the 10 worst-rated popular tourist destinations from the survey omitting any city whose ranking may have been affected by war, political strife,
terrorism or SARS."
The article proceeded to list Kingston as the number one most dangerous city, having received a ranking of 191/215 on the Mercer list.
"Despite government efforts to increase security in the capital, crimes against tourists show no sign of abating. Armed robbery, gang violence and shootings persist and travel to and from the airport can be dangerous, particularly on the Mountain View route. The Foreign Office advises: 'There are high levels of crime and violence, particularly in the Kingston area, and tourists should avoid certain routes'."
Starmer-Smith cited The Annual Personal Safety Survey compiled by Mercer Human Resource Consulting as the source of Kingston's number one ranking. In the second paragraph the Foreign Office is also cited.
When contacted regarding the statement "crimes against tourists show no sign of abating," Mr. Starmer-Smith said he could not find the exact statement and that the information may have come from the British Foreign Office.
He further stated that, although not reported in the media, there were many cases of tourists being attacked.
Ultimately, Mr. Starmer-Smith said the tone of the article was misleading and he had not intended for the article to state "crimes against tourists", instead he said it should have read, "crime shows no sign of abating."
AUTHOR OF SURVEY
The author of the Survey (which is actually called the 'Quality of Life Survey'), Slagin Parakatil, was asked whether the survey was intended to be a guide to tourists.
Or, if crimes were being committed against tourists and if it was appropriate to use the information from his survey in relation to tourism and travel.
Parakatil replied promptly by email: "I would like to draw your attention to the fact that comments below each city that appeared in The Daily Telegraph (June 21, 2003) are not the property of Mercer Human Resource Consulting LLC. These comments do not belong to any of Mercer Quality of Living reports, but rather personal documentation/research done by the author of The Daily Telegraph, United Kingdom: Mr. Charles Starmer-Smith. Mercer Human Resource Consulting LLC. does not have any purpose in providing any positive or negative 'publicity' for cities around the world. Furthermore, our reports are not intended or meant for tourist purposes."
Parakatil added further that: "This survey is especially intended for multinational and expatriates' purposes. When an expatriate is relocated from one city to the other, the HR Manager from multinational should be able to provide with the right salary package, compensations..., to the employees. Thus with our reports it enables them to assess and have a follow-up on the various hardship allowances necessary when traveling from one city to the other. Our survey takes into account various criteria such as political consideration, economic consideration and several others. I would like to draw your attention that these criteria have each one a specific weighting in our overall reports, thus some of the criteria will have more weight than the others."
ATTITUDE TO JAMAICANS
Starmer-Smith, who has never been to Jamaica, is an Oxford graduate with a little more two years experience in media. That this story, which possibly had wide-reaching implications for Jamaica in terms of revenue and reputation was cobbled, might be an indication of attitudes to Jamaica in the press fraternity.
If the trend of Jamaica being used as a by-word for crime and instability persists, then journalists might treat crime-related reports about Jamaica as a foregone conclusion.
The consequence of this would be the formation of further adverse perceptions of Jamaica and Jamaicans among journalists who would perpetuate those perceptions in their stories.
FEEDING THE YARDIE FERVOUR
Another situation arose from a story written by Tony Thompson, a prolific "Yardie" writer.
Thompson quoted statistics that could not be verified by the police but were stated as facts in a prominently placed article in the UK paper, The Observer.
The particular concern here, is that each time "Yardie" is mentioned, so is "Jamaica" or "Jamaican". And, although some might be able to make the distinction between Jamaica, the locale and Jamaicans in the UK, this type of negative association is disadvantageous to Jamaica's image.
On May 25, 2003, The Observer ran a story entitled "The Ethnic Connection: Immigrants behind crime wave". The "Yardies", under a headline, "They'll shoot anyone even the police," were among four featured gangs.
Thompson stated there were 2,000 active criminals, but it was not clear whether that number was among the Yardie gangs or within the Black Caribbean community.
The report stated: "The impact of Jamaican organised crime has been far greater than that of any other group in the UK. Since the first signs of Yardie activity surfaced here in the mid-Eighties, they have carried out more than 500 murders and 5,000 gun attacks."
Attempts to verify these figures with Scotland Yard, Operation Trident and the National Criminal Intelligence Service proved futile as each organisation either pointed to published reports or stated that this type of information is "sensitive".
The most informative response was received from Rebecca Coughlan of the Metropolitan Police.
"I have checked with the Press Bureau and they do not recognise the figures you quote. All stats for gun related crime and murders are currently running on the Met Web site. The figures you quote must be national figures as the MPS has around 120 - 150 murders in any one financial year. Also, it is not possible to speculate on the number of 'active criminal' in this country as not all forces have a specialised unit to deal with this. You may like to check the source of the figures with The Observer," she said.
HACKNEY INTERVENTION
A portentous example of how Jamaica is used as a by-word for criminality occurred during the December 2002 Hackney siege, where the media, apparently without real proof, labelled the gunman Jamaican. Quick action on the part of the Jamaican High Commission in London salvaged Jamaica's name from one of the UK's most notorious recent events.
From December 26, 2002 to January 11, a gunman, holed up in an apartment in Hackney, London was besieged by some 50 police officers. It was reported that the man fired shots at the police and held one neighbour hostage. He was burnt to death after setting the house ablaze on January 11.
This was said to be London's longest siege while other papers said it was the longest in British history. In the first few days of the story, media reports identified him as a "Jamaican" or "Jamaican-born" Eli Hall.
There were 225 references to "Eli Hall" and "Hackney" in British press reports between December 26 2002 and January 15, 2003.
Of this, 16 stories said Hall was born in Jamaica while 28 stories described him as Jamaican.
The possibility that all 225 references to the siege during that period did not link Hall with Jamaica might be due to the initiative of Vivienne Siva, communications attache to the High Commission.
"During the Hackney siege news reports said the gunman was Jamaican. Police officers who were a part of the task force working on the siege confirmed that the man was not a Jamaican and had in fact never been to Jamaica. I sent out a press release and some of the papers carried corrections while others stopped referring to him as Jamaican," Mrs. Siva said.
