Ken Jones, Contributor

To joust with fellow journalists is not my cup of tea. It is a wasteful distraction, particularly when the profession is under siege by wicked people, dressed in brief authority and wielding swords they consider to be mightier than the pen. Such arrogant servants of ours must be resisted and I will not side with anyone who gives them comfort or provides excuses for even their minor misdemeanours.

Whether the offenders wear green or orange I am going to see red when the misdeeds are committed. I thought I made that clear when in a recent article I reported that the JLP had once used a clumsy hand against Public Opinion and certain journalists; and that the PNP in turn was even worse. My friend Mr. John Maxwell wasn't pleased because he may be thinking that the party he loves so well had never been guilty of assailing freedom of the press.

Adversities

John has been a journalist for over 50 years; so have I. He has suffered discrimination and reverses because of exercising freedom of the press; so have I. These adversities have not diminished his skills, his courage or his resolve in standing up for what he thinks is right. I wear the same kind of armour.

We should therefore be standing together in any struggle to preserve and defend the rights of journalists. Instead, he has, this time, written in a way that could mean a challenge to my veracity and professional integrity. He tells his readers: "Having dismissed the trifling incidents at Public Opinion, Ken Jones tells a story, which defies belief. According to him, during the 1970s, PNP types raided the offices of the JLP Voice and 'cut out the tongue' of an employee there before striking him dead. I believe Mr. Jones owes us all further and better particulars."

In that one paragraph, I was twice misquoted. Nevertheless, I will oblige with further and better particulars.

To set the record straight, I never said anything about 'PNP types'. I said 'criminals'. Nor did I dismiss the JLP government's starving of Public Opinion as trifling. Those are John's words. What I said is what I now repeat: "When the table was turned, the PNP proved even worse."

As for the incident concerning the murdered employee of TheVoice newspaper, John may think that it defies belief. Well, I'll help his unbelief. I had written from personal recollection, but The Gleaner of December 11, 1976, confirms the story on Page One. The more gory details are recorded in The Gleaner of December 14. I had not said it previously, but 'further and better particulars' are that the victim, Earl Woodburn, had been abducted at Pretoria Road and that his savagely mutilated body was found on St. Joseph Road, then a serious garrison area of the PNP.

State of Emergency

The brutal attack took place during the State of Emergency when the JLP's candidate for Southwest St. Andrew, Pearnel Charles, had been thrown in detention camp and Joseph McPherson, editor of The Voice was entered as a last-minute opponent of Portia Simpson. Shortly after his nomination, McPherson and his paper were made the subject of several attacks and once he had to be rescued by a helicopter. The Maxfield Avenue newspaper office was put under siege, invaded and a number of employees tortured and otherwise brutalised. There are living eye-witnesses who can give further and better particulars of the atrocities that culminated in the torching of the building.

John declares: "I believe that The Gleaner and THE STAR owe Jamaica and the Prime Minister some serious apologies." I do not know what this apology is about, but I'll take the opportunity to supply 'further and better particulars' of the time Prime Minister Manley adjourned a Cabinet meeting and along with P.J. Patterson, Tony Spaulding and others, led a mob on The Gleaner because they did not like what the paper was publishing. The theme of that threat was, "Next time! Next Time!" This was interpreted to mean that if they ever thought it necessary to revisit The Gleaner it might be more than shouted words. The same Prime Minister publicly referred to the newspaper as the "Call Girl of North Street," and he described the editors, writers and publishers as "pimps of imperialism."

A step further

The administration of the '70s went further. They withheld government advertising from The Gleaner and diverted the business to the Daily News. In addition, government ministries and departments were instructed not to buy Gleaner publications. So tight was the squeeze that in July 1978, The Gleaner had to seek financial support by offering to the public $4 million of debenture to help deal with its obligations. Let it be said that the people of Jamaica responded overwhelmingly and subscribed the necessary funds in record time and in such small amounts as $50 and $100.

'Further and better particulars' reveal how the PNP government witch-hunted journalists in the '70s and hauled some of them before the Bar of the House in an attempt to find out who was writing what. John has only to call our friend Wilmot Perkins to get a first-hand account of how that inquisition went. Or call former columnist David DaCosta, who was then considered part of a cabal with plans to overthrow the government. He might even get further if not better particulars from House Speaker Michael Peart whose father served with the search party. The younger Peart now comes to close doors against parliamentary reporters.

Dominant Owner of The Media

'Further and better particulars' could fill a book; and would tell of how the PNP government not only attacked sections of the press in Jamaica and what they called "the foreign press", but also how they sought to become the dominant owner of the media in this country. They couldn't buy The Gleaner, but they did taker over the Daily News. They already controlled the JBC radio stations and television but found it necessary to fire the general manager, Dwight Whylie, who later told of differences occurring when he did not, "adopt a more positive attitude toward the PNP's policy of democratic socialism." They nationalised RJR; they changed the name and purpose of the Jamaica Information Service and they even had the then president of the Press Association saying that he saw nothing wrong with government ownership of the press; and that such ownership was not incompatible with the concept of a free press.

'Further and better particulars' will tell of the effort to so twist and control the minds of journalists, that Dr. Trevor Munroe could boastfully write in 'Struggle' of August 1979: "It is the communists who at API, JBC, in the Daily News and in the Press Association are most uncompromising in beating back Seaga's lies and bringing the truth to the people."

'Further and better particulars' will indicate that the question of press freedom is not just about discriminating against individual journalists, withholding advertising or locking doors in parliament. It also concerns the heaping of reprisals against public employees who dare to inform the media of conditions affecting the people. Only last week, we heard of deaths and suffering caused because doctors are forbidden or are afraid to tell the media of conditions under which they have to work in some hospitals.

The question of press freedom is also founded upon the view of the government as to the role of the media. To understand this, one might examine statements made in the 1970s by Aggrey Brown, the former head of the organisation that trains young Jamaican journalists. Here are a few quotes:

"In the present Jamaican context, the concept of freedom of the press is a camouflage for the larger deception that is involved in the media owners protecting their own economic self-interests.

"All this poses an acute dilemma for the government of the PNP and its socialist intentions, for in order to disseminate its new ideology, it is dependent on a generally hostile mass media ...

"The socialist transformation of the society cannot be achieved in any situation where the counter-propaganda of private economic interests is able to overshadow official propaganda, and that is the situation that prevails in Jamaica at the present moment.

"The only alternative for the regime at this stage is to treat the mass media for what they are - entrenched big business ..."

'Further and better particulars' on the PNP's attitude to the media can be found in the party's enthusiastic embracing of the communist-supported draft resolution by the UNESCO Committee on the Media, in 1978. When that offensive document failed because of international rejection, the Jamaican Government announced a five-year communications plan to be used for "the psychological re-orientation of the society"; and to socialise the people into "becoming active agents ... and active participants" in the party's plan for the destiny of the country. They recognised then, as perhaps they do now, that "Communications play an essential role in the decision-making process ..." Hence, the desire to control and manipulate the media.

'Further and better particulars' will show that while John suffered at the hands of the JLP, he is not the only journalist to pay a price for the freedom we are today seeking to defend. John Hearne was beaten at a PNP conference because of what he wrote and said. Byron Balfour suffered instantaneous dismissal from his place at the JBC because he reported something that the PNP did not like. Wilmot Perkins was made to pay for his exercise of press freedom. I was manoeuvred out of my own public relations company by partners who had become indoctrinated, infatuated and foolishly fanatical in their support of the PNP. After that, I was dismissed from my job in the New York Consulate, without so much as an explanation, by PNP administrators. They were acting in the absence of the ailing Michael Manley and were still vexed about what I had written in my time as a columnist. But I bravely took those blows without whining, because crusaders must expect to be wounded in battle. And I am still doing it the way my conscience dictates - the way of truth.