Danger on the reporting job

 Debbie Jacob -
Debbie Jacob -

THIS IS the story of the night I realised entertainment reporting is hazardous duty. Forgive me for only remembering the big picture and not the small details, but about three decades ago, I waltzed into whatever calypso tent SuperBlue was singing in for that Carnival. I think it was the year he sang Jab Jab, but I could be wrong.

Anyway, a crowd of angry SuperBlue fans totally surrounded me and shouted, “You cost SuperBlue the calypso crown. Why did you write that story last week? Who gave you permission to write that story?”

Dumbfounded by the questions and the rage, I wondered why these fans thought I needed permission to write a truthful story covering a calypso tent?

The previous week, I had written about the night SuperBlue dropped the microphone while he had been tossing it from hand to hand as he often did during his performances. Flustered, he ran off stage in the middle of his calypso. He composed himself and returned, but it was too late to save a possible spot in the Calypso Monarch finals because the judges were there in the calypso tent that night.

My newspaper story had merely recounted those facts.

The circle of angry fans got tighter; the crowd grew angrier. Someone parted the crowd, reached inside, grabbed my hand and pulled me away. It was SuperBlue. He had been watching and listening.

“I gave her permission to write that story because if you want journalists to write the good things about you, they have to be free to write the bad things too,” he said.

Grateful and relieved, I walked away thinking that was one of the most magnanimous gestures I had experienced in entertainment reporting, which never proved to be a piece of cake. SuperBlue and I had never had such a conversation, but I appreciated his understanding that entertainment reporters are journalists, who must do their job impartially.

That memory came flooding back to me last week while listening to Mark Lyndersay’s presentation in the session Whither Journalism at the University of the West Indies’s online literary festival Littcon 2020.

Lyndersay spoke about the halcyon days of in-depth cultural reporting with Judy Stone and Jeremy Taylor and expressed disappointment at how the arts are reported today. The fearlessness and objectivity he alluded to in the past for cultural reporting has eroded.

“The challenge that takes place in cultural reporting is compromised and has been compromised over the years. There are two worlds, a world of journalism and another world of huge entertainment events.”

Newsday editor-in-chief Judy Raymond and journalist Dr Sheila Rampersad spoke of the pressure put on journalists to write positive pieces because organisers of events often provide tickets to journalists and then expect positive PR in return.

“It is difficult to deal with problematic situations and people who aren’t happy with what was written,” said Lyndersay. “If you’re going to write about cultural events, you have to do it from a point of deep love, but have to write about it honestly, truthfully and faithfully.” Rampersad recalled how journalist Deborah John had to leave Sparrow’s Young Brigade calypso tent one night after a calypsonian confronted John for writing a negative piece about her. John wasn’t as lucky as me. No one stood up for her, and she could never return to that calypso tent again.

The problem is, as Lyndersay rightfully pointed out, “cultural growth requires the need for honest evaluation because if it doesn’t come from us it will come from someone else outside of our culture.”

Constructive criticism brings growth. Calypsonian Scrunter eventually realised this. There was a time when I wrote several critical reviews of his performances. It felt like beating a puppy, but I had to be honest. He felt I was picking on him. Then, one night, he produced a moving performance of Kitchener’s Twelve Bar Joan. I wrote a glowing review.

Pleased and proud, Scrunter said that review proved special because of all the critical reviews I had done.

Newspapers are not in the business of doing PR for cultural events. As Raymond rightfully said, “We have produced writers like Derek Walcott and VS Naipaul so we should hold people to those standards.”

For me, the standard is this: every time entertainment reporters cover events, they must ask themselves how will people doing research in the future develop a true sense of our culture if they can’t trust reviews, news stories and features that we produce?

It took a literary festival to bring all these feelings to the surface for me.

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"Danger on the reporting job"

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