THESE past two weeks have been tumultuous for the media which have been placed under the national, regional and global microscope of investigation, thereby in some key respects ‘becoming the message’ in less than praiseworthy circumstances.

At the local level, further Wikileaks disclosures by the Jamaica Observer alleging unflattering utterances by Dr Peter Phillips of the Opposition party, placed The Gleaner in an unenviable light and forced it into an unusually defensive position about its gatekeeping practice.

Then, in the week just concluded, media reports of an incredible statement by a senior police officer about an alleged connection between gays and ‘organised’ crime showed how reformatted stories could be manipulated to convey a meaning that protects the credibility of the public messenger.

On the regional scene, the media in Grenada and the regional body, the Association of Caribbean Media Workers (ACM) have also come under the microscope for firstly misrepresenting the facts of a story, albeit not deliberately, and in the case of the Grenadian journalists, for subsequently under-reporting the same story. That story is about the ‘dramatic’ court appearance and arrest of well-known publisher of the Grenadian Voice, Leslie Pierre.

On the international level, far and away the biggest story of last week was the crumbling Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation conglomerate involving the closing of his flagship, 167-year-old subsidiary, News of the World. Revelations related to that closure have been especially riveting as the nature and extent of the News of the World phone-hacking allegations are uncovered. Besides the legal implications globally, the scandal has put an end to Murdoch’s massive bid to gain complete control of the UK satellite giant British Sky Broadcasting.

While Murdoch fights for his publishing life, the revelations also ominously threaten the tenuous hold on power of the recently elected Conservative Government in the UK because of its close connection to the News of the World gatekeepers. Resignations and prosecutions continue apace in this ongoing saga, with the most recent and unexpected development being the demise of Wall Street Journal publisher Les Hinton in response to his involvement with the News of the World at the time of the infractions.

The News of the World scandal has again highlighted concerns about the links between the political leadership and media gatekeepers and how this affects the public interest. The credibility of many politically related stories published or broadcast have often been questioned on the basis of relationships between politicians and or political parties and journalists and other media workers. The media in Jamaica and our sister countries in the Caribbean Community are not immune from such negative perceptions and we would do well to put in place long-standing proposals of self-regulation in our own professional interest but much more so in the public interest.

A recently developing story in Grenada again underlines concerns about the role of media gatekeepers and the interest they serve. The journalists in question engaged in a knee-jerk critical reaction to a statement by Opposition leader Keith Mitchell, who from several accounts is not a media favourite, while collectively failing to provide related information that the public had a right to be told.

That story related to circumstances in which veteran newspaper publisher Leslie Pierre was hauled before the court for failing to make good on a court order that went against him in favour of an attorney. When he refused and was ordered detained by the judge, he proceeded to let the court hear of his displeasure, using some choice words in the process.

Pierre is perhaps best known for serving a period at Grenada’s Richmond Hill detention centre under the Maurice Bishop regime and his subsequent release in the wake of the US invasion of that country in 1983. His forced return to that facility, for whatever reasons, must have been a traumatic experience for him in his waning years. It is said that he is not considered on friendly terms with Grenada’s new regime and following his recent arrest, Opposition Leader Keith Mitchell criticised the media for failing to condemn their colleague’ streatment.

This criticism was brought to the attention of the ACM which published its own concern about the alleged treatment. Although subsequently retracted with apologies, the ACM statement reflected a failure to undertake its own investigation prior to publishing its concern. The president has since assured me that the ACM had unsuccessfully sought a response from their affiliate association the Media Workers Association of Grenada (MWAG) even before releasing that statement which they now regret and chided their colleagues in Grenada for not reporting the story about Pierre’s detention even after a week had transpired.

Following the ACM’s retraction, MWAG sought to defend its ‘silence’ by noting that Pierre’s arrest was not about a press freedom issue. Further, it seems they had misguidedly sought to protect the privacy of their colleague and his family by withholding the information deemed embarrassing.

Similar concerns about the media’s gatekeeping decisions were highlighted in Jamaica when this newspaper embarrassed The Gleaner by disclosing the contents of a Wikileaks cable quoting Dr Peter Phillips’ rant against his political party and its leader Portia Simpson. Dr Phillips has since refuted the comment against his party’s performance over its 18-year term in office and I have absolutely no reason to doubt his statement. The issue here, though, is the effect of the disclosure by the Observer that undoubtedly left ‘egg on the face’ of The Gleaner for not doing so before the Observer’s story was published.

This development gave some credence to claims by government spokesmen, notably Information Minister Daryl Vaz, to a charge that The Gleaner was protecting Opposition interests in the selection of cables for release. Fortunately, The Gleaner provided ample evidence to the contrary by publishing a content analysis of the stories published, backed up by a front page editorial, showing that in terms of frequency of stories published deemed embarrassing to either parties, the numbers were fairly even. But the damage in terms of credibility was done and Minister Vaz’s subsequent crowing later on may be understandable. Gone almost unnoticed is the fact that this is yet the sole story to have been published by the Observer which, unlike The Gleaner, makes no claims to the publishing rights agreed to with Wikileaks.

The other story of note last week was the mind-boggling charge by a senior police officer that gays were the major players in organised crime, and that they (gays) led in the criminal activities that leeched money from foreigners in lottery scams. Besides the incredible nature of that assertion, what I found interesting is the fact that by the following day, he sought to backtrack by limiting his criticism to the lottery scam, although still not providing any basis for that charge. Equally disturbing was that all the media stories commenting on his response have complied with the modified account of his statement. I hope that he does not seek to fault the media for misquoting him in the first place and for the outrage this has created. It is good that the direct quote remains accessible at the TVJ website.

These developments at home and abroad cry out for some sort of regulatory system to respond to public concerns about how information is treated in the public domain. This is especially significant in an age where public information is no longer the preserve of mainstream media entities; rather, it is significantly influenced by social networking and bloggers. It is now some time since the Press Association and the Media Association of Jamaica proposed and agreed to the establishment of a Media Complaints Commission. However, given the silence on the subject, it seems that the proposal bas become moribund. I hope not.