Peter Espeut

There is supposed to be a difference between journalism and cheerleading; one is supposed to be objective and balanced while the other is focused on optimism and support of the team, whether they are doing badly or not. We know how we feel when we listen to a United States (U.S.) feed during the Olympics; they only focus on American athletes, and if one comes second or third you have to listen hard to find out who won! For some media houses and media persons there seems to be a fine line (or no line at all) between journalism and public relations.

Cheerleading

We have that problem here in the Caribbean, but thankfully, not to the same degree as the U.S. I am beginning to feel that our cricket journalists are slipping into cheerleading. So we beat Pakistan, and we made a lot of it. Fine! The West Indies can win the World Cup! But then Ireland also beat Pakistan. Should that not lead an objective person to say, "Hey! If Ireland can beat Pakistan, maybe our victory over them was not such a big thing".

On Monday, we beat Zimbabwe with a couple of overs to spare. The radio commentators had declared us runaway victors after the end of the Zimbabwe innings, and even as the runs left/balls left equation slipped towards Zimbabwe, we were still easy winners, they told us. The truth is we were in quite a precarious position: if the catches off both Bravo and Lara had not been dropped, it could have been quite a different result.

The West Indies were lucky to be drawn in such a weak group; the Super-Eight will be quite another matter. Good cheerleading alone will not get us into the semi-finals. We cricket fans want good, solid analysis from our sports journalists, not cheerleading. Of course, every West Indian wants our cricket team to do well, but that is no excuse for abandoning objectivity and descending into cheerleading.

This raises the larger question of conflict of interest in the media. Every journalist and columnist has their own personal and business affiliations, and there is nothing wrong with that, as long as the interest is declared so readers know when and where to apply the grain or pinch of salt. For example, if when I write on environmental matters I don't declare that I work for an environment and development NGO, or if when I write about religious matters I don't declare that I am a Roman Catholic deacon, then my readers won't know where I am coming from. Not to declare interest would be to mislead my readers.

There are several persons in the media who have public relations contracts with government agencies, or who work for government agencies in highpositions, or who are board members of government entities. Suppose, for example, a columnist has a contract to do public relations for the police, and writes an article 'bigging up' the police force, how do you know how to interpret it?

Attempt to mislead

If the columnist does not come out and declare that he/she is contracted to make the police force look good, then one could be misled by the cheerleading. Or if a talk-show host is highly placed in the government propaganda agency, and doesn't tell us, how will we know how to interpret his/her observations? Or if a politicall person calls themselves 'independent', that is really an attempt to mislead. Or if a journalist is hired by a developer to facilitate the progress of their project, and the journalist does not declare that, then we may confuse public interest with self-interest.

We know our West Indian cricket journalists and commentators want the West Indies to do well, and we may excuse a little cheerleading, but ultimately we expect our journalists to be honest and tell it like it is. What is the point of spreading positive propaganda if it is less than the truth?