Ian Boyne, Contributor

Can a journalist who works for the Government be independent and impartial? Is he necessarily less free as a journalist than his counterpart who works in private media? These are important questions as we observe National Journalism Week.

As a rule, I never reply to public criticisms. Over the years, I am probably the Gleaner columnist who receives the most public responses, but I don't respond.

My fellow columnist Kevin O'Brien Chang recently 'dissed' me by suggesting that because I am a speechwriter for the Government I would write just to please my employers. That is nothing short of accusing me of corruption. I never responded.

A TVJ colleague last week insulted me (unintentionally, I am sure) by saying, "Now we see why you take the positions you do," in reference to my work for the state. (My columns are clearly too long for him).

exposes and embarrasses

It is a tradition that the Fourth Estate is adversarial to the state. The celebrated journalist is the muckraker, the investigative newshound who exposes and embarrasses the government and champions the cause of the people, who must always be suspicious of their government.

This is an important role in journalism. This is why Cliff Hughes, Wilmot Perkins, Mark Wignall and Emily Crooks play such an important role in the country, for no government official, from Prime Minister to lowly civil servant, is safe while they are in the profession. They are sometimes acerbic, biting and irreverent. A society needs journalists like these to keep the politicians on their toes - particularly those politicians who exercise power. I honour my colleagues who have that role.

But it is one thing to acknowledge that honoured tradition in journalism and to go on to suggest that if one is not belligerent and involved in muckraking and scandal-uncovering, then somehow he is less of a journalist. We have an either-or mentality which suffocates critical thinking and demonstrates the lack of nuanced analysis. The journalist who works for the state clearly cannot go on a muckraking mission inside that very government, intent on bringing down the government.

He cannot use his access to power to overthrow that power. That would be unethical. He must do the honourable thing and resign and then do the muckraking function. The journalist who has a contract with the state cannot write in the trenchant way that Mark Wignall does, using the kind of language he does to describe the Prime Minister and government officials. Clearly not. He can't call on the very government for which he works to resign because it is too corrupt, as is the right of Wignall, Perkins, Hughes, Dionne Jackson-Miller, Anthony Abrahams and Emily Crooks.

Investigative pieces

But while the journalist who works for the state cannot call on the government to resign or publish investigative pieces aimed at embarrassing the government, it is quite another matter for him to use his position in the private media to advance the cause and interests of the government. That is corruption and an abuse of journalistic privilege. If that can be established he should be fired by the private media. Journalistic integrity demands that when the journalist is working as a journalist, as opposed to a communications consultant, his primary responsibility is to the public and not to any special interest.

His clients must understand and honour his obligations to the sacred tenets of his journalistic profession to be fair, impartial and independent in his analyses. So while I might not be free to comment as acerbically as Wignall and Perkins on some issues, it would be immoral and corrupt of me to write contrary to my conscience just because I want to maintain my paycheque. Refraining to comment on an issue is one thing, but commenting and spinning to serve the interest of public relations clients is unethical, corrupt and should be punished by the profession through shaming.

In my view, the issue of integrity and ethics is the biggest issue facing the Jamaican journalistic profession as we celebrate this National Journalism Week. But what is unfortunate about debates on journalism in Jamaica is that they are so parochial and bereft of an understanding of the wider international conversation. For example, we are in a time warp in Jamaica, for while my colleagues sometimes look at me askance because I work with a state information agency, they never touch the biggest issue in American journalism today, which is the role of big corporations and conglomerates in media.

The big issue in America is no longer of the role of journalists vis-à-vis Government. That is old hat. The big issue is the gobbling up of independent media by big corporations and how growing commercial interests are drowning out journalistic ethics and endangering editorial independence. When the adversarial role of the Fourth Estate versus the government was worked out in the early part of the last century, the state was all-powerful. In this liberalised, privatised world where transnationals and big corporations wield so much power and indeed control governments, we have to look at the supposed freedom of those journalists who work with the private media.

It is not just us journalists who work for the state who don't have unlimited freedom in practice. It might be totally coincidental, but the hardest-hitting columnists in the JamaicaObserver, Mark Wignall and the leftist John Maxwell, have never produced any searing, damning critique of Butch Stewart and his business operations, despite the many times his business interests have been in the spotlight. I have never seen an unfavourable editorial in the Jamaica Observer about Mr. Stewart or his business operations.

And, again perhaps purely coincidentally, no matter the big public controversy involving Butch's interests, the Jamaica Observer Observer always finds itself on its owner's side and the columnists never rip into him.

I don't charge them with anything untoward. It would be corrupt of them to write against their conscience and to come out in defence of Butch just for their paycheques. I am not accusing them of that. Nor can we assume automatically that because a journalist writes favourably in his bosses' interests, it means that is because he is singing for his supper. That is the kind of foolish analysis which none should associate with me.

To be fair, it is not likely either that The Gleaner would be carrying any column calling on Chairman Oliver Clarke to resign, no matter what controversy he is involved in. So let us be honest as journalists and admit that our freedom is not unrestricted. The capitalists who own private media also have their interests to protect, just as the politicians. Let us not fool ourselves. The advertisers and sponsors exert power. If journalists who have worked with both government and private media are fair, they would admit that advertisers and capitalists can be more overweening, overbearing and disrespectful of journalistic independence than politicians.

Communications capacities

For 30 years I have worked with the state in communications capacities and I have never been pressured about my journalism. I market myself in such a way that no employer would dare interfere with my independence as a thinker and journalist.

In the 1970s, I worked with the PNP administration at what is now JIS. When the JLP won and fired political activists at JIS and the JBC, I was left, though I was a supporter of Michael Manley. One Friday in 1983 JLP Industry Minister Douglas Vaz met me on an assignment and said "why you don't come work with me?" By Monday morning Ken Jones, then head of the agency, sent me to work as Vaz's press secretary and speechwriter. I have written speeches for JLP and PNP governments ever since. Vaz never one day asked me about my politics.

I later went on to work with Karl Samuda, Ryan Peralto, and Tony Johnson as JLP ministers. Not one of them ever questioned my personal politics. I have always been absolutely confidential, absolutely ethical in dealing with my employers.

The PNP won in 1989 and I became press secretary/speechwriter to Industry Minister Claude Clarke. In 1990 my former boss Dougie Vaz was making his budget presentation in reply to Claude's the day before. Claude, Bruce Golding and I were in conversation as Vaz spoke.

"You wrote that speech, Ian?" Claude joked. Bruce then said, "Ian probably wrote your speech and Dougie's own and then turn around and critique both of them!" We all had an uproarious laugh. But Bruce probably saw something in me that even some colleagues miss.

biased and unfair

While offering my communications expertise to the PNP Government, I have written favourably about Edward Seaga and Bruce Golding many times. I have strongly defended Seaga in my columns when Cliff Hughes, Mark Wignall and even Wilmot Perkins were attacking him savagely in the media. Thank God for the Internet. Go back and read, 'The Resurrection of Edward Seaga' (November 19, 2000); 'Media Sniffing Seaga's Blood' (January 18, 2004) in which I charged the media with being biased and unfair to Mr. Seaga.

My admiration for Golding has been long-standing. The only time I ever publicly lashed Cliff Hughes was when he criticised Bruce Golding for his speech launching his bid for the leadership of the JLP(see column of August 15, 2004). See also 'Seaga Plays the Golding Card', September 15, 2002. (This was when the polls were showing the JLP behind, and I was still praising Seaga and the JLP, not fearing for my contract with the Government.) Finally, see my column highly praising Golding's budget speech (May 7, 2006) - when it was my responsibility to help craft a reply to that very speech for the Prime Minister!

My record of impartiality and independence is impeccable. It is a tribute to the JLP and PNP that they have been big enough to hire an independent thinker like me and that they have never once sought to muzzle me because they were signing my paycheque.

We demonise our politicians but, truth be told, they are more respectful of professionals than some private sector employers. Reporters in newsrooms, speak up!

Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist who may contacted via email at ianboyne1@yahoo.com