Martin Henry
Bruce Golding was apparently not only born with political genes, but with radio genes as well. His last Wednesday of the month 'Jamaica House Live', although only at its second run, is shaping up to be a good talk show in its own right. Not a 'poppy show', as the smooth host himself warned a previous misleading caller not to treat it.
In sheer control and delivery, the prime minister behind the radio microphone is much better than many a talk-show host and some professional broadcasters. Jamaicans were widely critical, and correctly so, of the criticisms levelled by some professional broadcasters against the first broadcast of 'Jamaica House Live'. On 10 stations last broadcast, in 'time allowed for Government broadcast' under the Jamaica Information Service (JIS) law, Golding has the unfair advantage of not only being prime minister but the only syndicated talk-show host in the country!
Every medium of mass communication has its unique qualities - and its own stars, whose talent match the medium. Radio is the medium of personal, intimate conversation with mass audiences. Because it is a blind medium, it is the medium through which words come alive through sheer nuance of voice and vocal 'presence' and where messages, for the ear alone, must be kept simple, clear, brief, and sharp. It is a great medium for connectedness and intimacy. And hooked up to a telephone line, the effect is even greater. People 'know' and love their radio stars, whom they have never seen, much more so than TV broadcasters or newspaper writers.
Great medium
For all of these reasons, radio can be a great medium for political communication. It provides a virtual medium for 'pressing the flesh' with the masses. And since the early days of the medium, radio-savvy politicians have wrung maximum mileage out of the medium. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, three-time American president, 1933-1945, is perhaps the best-known political communication radio star.
But he had two great contemporaries on radio across the Atlantic: Adolf Hitler, who, with his communications chief, Joseph Goebbels, exploited radio to the max for Nazism and Winston Churchill, who used the medium for rallying the British war effort against Hitler in WWII. In more recent times, our neighbour, Fidel Castro, has cut a fine style on radio in propagandising the revolution in Cuba. And so has Chávez in Venezuela.
Golding, whom media has defined as without charisma on the ground, certainly has an engaging persona on radio. He is not telegenic.
Americans, in that pre-television age, 'knew' Roosevelt intimately and personally. When he died, one sorrowing American said, "I never saw him - but I knew him. Can you have forgotten how, with his voice, he came into our house, the president of these United States, calling us friends?"
Few people 'saw' leaders, anyway, before the age of television. Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States, 1801-1809, rode alone on horseback from Washington to Williamsburg, Virginia, stopping at taverns along the way and talking with people - incognito. Jefferson reasoned that people did not know what the president looked like! And newspapers banded in agreement not to publish any photographs of the polio-crippled Roosevelt sitting in his wheelchair.
'Fireside chats'
In the midst of the Great Depression, with one third of the labour force unemployed and banks closed, on Sunday evening, March 12, 1933, Roosevelt delivered the first of 31 presidential 'Fireside Chats'. With his calm and reassuring voice, the radio president explained how the nation was going to recover from the banking crisis. The fireside chats proved to be enormously successful, attracting more listeners than the most popular shows during the 'Golden Age of Radio'.
In those fireside chats, Roosevelt shared his hopes and plans for the nation and invited the American people to "tell me your troubles". Feedback was largely by letter, and millions of letters flooded the White House. People often wrote about how they felt during these radio talks as FDR entered their homes and spoke to each of them. They expressed their praise, appreciation and confidence in their leader and friend. People wrote to say they listened with a group of friends or relatives.
On radio, Prime Minister Golding has the advantage of the telephone connection and of the Internet for real-time interaction and feedback in real conversations. This, of course, also brings its own disadvantage, with the absence of a prepared text or any pre-planning of delivery. But Golding brings great spontaneous naturalness and smooth agility to his talk show. A danger, though, already evident, is a tendency to glibness and to hastily pulling pre-packaged answers from the prime ministerial bag of goodies.
People have been telling Prime Minister Golding their troubles via telephone and email and he has been delivering calm, warm, personal, feel-good responses to individuals and, by association, to their area and to the nation at large.
Whether instinctively or by technical advice, Golding has grasped that the medium cannot convey heavy and sustained policy discussion as some who do not understand radio have been calling for as their measure of worthwhileness. A word of free advice to the 'Jamaica House Live' talk-show host: Long reporting monologues won't fly well. Quickly get callers stuck on the telephones on air and break up the monologue with dialogue.
Strong, smooth and reassuring
The prime minister's grasp of the nuts and bolts and nooks and crannies of his government comes across strongly, smoothly and reassuringly. As does his knowledge of the nooks and crannies of Jamaica and his memory of events and people. Golding shouldn't have employment difficulties after Jamaica House, soon or late. And radio might help him to make it later, as the medium undoubtedly did for Roosevelt in the White House. But then, he is broadcasting against greater political cynicism and national dividedness than Roosevelt, even in the Great Depression and World War II.
Martin Henry is a communication consultant.
