Martin Henry, Contributor

This is a difficult column to write and to publish. It is the equivalent at street level of being an 'informer'.

I deeply thank my like-minded media colleague, Ian Boyne, for taking the lead last Sunday with his piece, 'Press freedom threatened?' with a super-size question mark. Boyne, in that bold piece, has lowered the pressure and created space for others to speak out.

The dilemma, which many media practitioners like myself face in the Ragashanti-NewsTalk 93 vs the Broadcasting Commission affair, is balancing loyalty to our area of engagement with its powerful unwritten code of conduct in favour of not rocking the boat against faithfulness to our personal sense of fair play and decency. In my own case, not only do I enjoy multiple engagements in the field as a commentator, I have recently been asked to join the NewsTalk 93 flagship Breakfast Club as a club member, a role which I enjoy and would like to keep, but not at the expense of my conscience.

In the reigning paradigm of media relations, it is easy to cast the Broadcasting Commission in the role of dragon. Undoubtedly, there are many things to be fixed in its mode of operations. But laws and procedures can and should flex with use which exposes weaknesses and loopholes. The Ragashanti affair provides a golden opportunity for a frank and open review of the way the Broadcasting Commission operates. But the affair also provides to the same opportunity for the media fraternity to examine frankly how it operates to set and uphold standards to protect both the public interest and itself.

While there is blind support on the part of many fans for the country's most popular talk-show host, no reasonable person who has read the transcripts of Dr Stewart's on air 'dirty' performances would want to justify them. The only open question is what sanction best fits those disgraceful performances.

Savage attack

In many organisations, the calculated, savage attack which Kingsley launched for a sustained period upon a fellow UWI employee and the slurs entertained against an ethnic group in this 'out of many one people' country, or any other civilised place, even if done only on the compound, would have led to instant dismissal. Done in front of a media microphone on the most popular 9-12 morning programme in the country, the damage is infinitely greater.

And 'the enemy' has no media microphone. There are rules of conduct even in war. One of the hallowed principles of media practice is the right of response. But even when that right is facilitated in the interest of fair play and balance, whoever controls the microphone, the camera or the print space has considerably more power than the person allowed a little 'borrows'. That raw power comes with enormous responsibility.

And we don't really need to invoke any highfalutin code of ethics sitting on a piece of paper. Kingsley with his large, tender, ego bruised from his personal grievance, appealed to his dead mother in his on-air tirade. That mother or anybody who raised him, however roughly, would have taught him that you shouldn't "handle people so", and two wrongs don't make a right.

"I question your suitability and your credibility to be in such an influential position, given your obvious insensitivity," Stewart raged on air against his "wicked, cruel, awful, dutty enemy." His employers and the minister of information now have the sticky task of answering that question applied to Ragashanti himself.

I can't read, listen to or view everything in media as some commentators pretend and imply that they can do, but I haven't seen the statements of the Broadcasting Commission getting anywhere near the media coverage of the criticisms levelled against it.

Fair play

A pity for fair play and balance. Especially at this time when the defamation laws of the country are to be significantly overhauled by the Government under intense media scrutiny and the Justice Hugh Small Committee has reported, the Ragashanti affair is of great moment requiring fair and balanced treatment.

The commission, without its own media microphone, has circulated by email, briefing notes detailing its course of action and the transcripts of the Ragashanti breaches. [In fairness and for the records, to my certain knowledge, the Breakfast Club has offered access to its microphone to the executive director of the Broadcasting Commission, Cordel Green. And the station, only under regulatory pressure, has apologised on air.]

From its engagement with the media organisation, "it was determined, among other things," the commission says, "the licensee had taken no disciplinary action, the licensee had not issued any guidelines, the licensee had not made any arrangements for training in relevant standards."

So, "in accordance with Section 22 (1) (a) of the Broadcasting and Radio Rediffusion Act, the commission recommended sus-pension of [the] broadcast licence until the licensee is able to demonstrate that adequate remedial action has been taken to prevent recurrence. And a checklist of recommendations is set out which does not include firing the offending talk-show host."

"Recommendation [of] suspension is an action of last resort by the commission," the watchdog agency states. "Such action only occurs where a licensee has been given an opportunity to demonstrate that an egregious breach of licence has been treated seriously, but fails to do so." And even then, "before a minister can suspend a licence, the licensee is afforded an opportunity to show why the licence should not be suspended."

Fragile government

As Ian Boyne pointed out last week, this fragile government, and no government in this country with one of the highest press freedom rankings in the world, will be easily inclined to pull the plug. And public opinion constructed through media filters, filters which are very much in favour of media itself in this case, is decidedly against any such action.

But NewsTalk 93 and the entire media fraternity within which the term 'moral high ground' is regularly tossed around with reference to government and politics should make it as easy as possible for Minister Olivia Grange to say a reasoned and reasonable 'no' to the recommendation of the Broadcasting Commission.

Martin Henry is a communications consultant.