Rose Bennett

KLAS-FM’s First Edition morning news and current affairs programme has built up an unofficial ‘club’ of callers, seemingly around the lawyer cum talk show host, Rose Bennett. Naively, she denies it has anything to do with her chirpy, people-friendly style. But what she can’t deny is that the ‘club’ appeared after she went on air last September. And as if they wanted her to know, ‘members’ welcome her back to the show even when she is off for one day!

Rose Marie Bennett was not thinking about being a talk show host when Easton Douglas, the former government minister who was then a moderator on First Edition, spotted a passion, if not a fire, and a razor sharp intellect in her while she worked on a legal project for the ministry. He thought that would bring something that the show needed more of. Ask Bennett about that and all you’ll get is a very, wide-eyed, matter-of-fact “what passion, what intellect?”

But then it is that honesty that has pulled her callers to the show. Noel Thomas, a government accountant who listens regularly to Bennett, finds her fascinating and not your typical talk show host.

“She is refreshing and honest. She balances the issues but is not afraid to take a position she knows her callers would generally disagree with,” Thomas remarks. “I enjoy listening to her and have no doubt she’ll do well.”

JLP councillor in the last local government polls, Leslie McLean, the consummate talk show caller who is known as “Jamintel”, recently declared her his “favourite talk show host”. That could be the kiss of death, depending on how you take it. Or it could be just the biggest accolade any caller could give a host. He too alluded to her honesty.

Bennett steers clear of partisan politics and is developing a reputation for examining the issues dispassionately. And she is not afraid to admit to weaknesses even big media personalities don’t wish to acknowledge.

“I don’t know everything. I’m not an expert on every subject,” she says as if it doesn’t matter. People give you the impression that they expect a talk show host to know everything. Well, that’s not me…

“What I like about being on air is the opportunity to exchange thoughts on the issues with different people and to be a part of the channel for the expression of ideas and information. The cut and thrust of daily existence is often captured in exciting ways in the exchange. It’s worth it when people leave feeling more enlightened,” Bennett glistens.

Bennett admits that prior to going on air, she used to listen to the radio programme and thought it was fun. “I have since learnt that it is hard work too: Getting up at dawn; preparing my 12-year-old son, Adrian’s breakfast and rushing out to spend the first three or so hours of the radio morning discussing a wide variety of topics and issues that demand careful attention and research.”

“Mind you, it can be easy if you only want to sit in front of the microphone and talk and if you don’t mind remaining at that level of mediocrity. But it’s wonderful being on air and it’s something I think I could do full time, although I can’t see myself giving up law which I love for the intellectual challenge,” she goes on, as if arguing with herself in the same way she argues with callers.

The law she can’t see herself giving up is civil and criminal law, although she has not practised the latter. In 14 years of practice between the United States and Jamaica, the Clarendon College old girl from Old Harbour, St Catherine has built up an impressive body of experience in local government legal work. In a manner of speaking, the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation (KSAC) hardly moves a muscle without her, in matters of the law.

She still relishes her defeat of the eminent and feared Dr Lloyd Barnett in the Temple of Light case for the KSAC which went all the way to the Court of Appeal. And she is currently preparing to go to the United Kingdom Privy Council with a pending case. It is a measure of the confidence which her clients repose in her, as partner in her Kingston-based law firm, Bennett Beecher-Bravo.

Unlike many others, she has not started calling herself a journalist and explains why. “I have never had journalism training. Being on air a few months doesn’t make me a journalist. My experience as a lawyer gives me something to bring to the news and current affairs programme and I am happy for the opportunity.”

This lack of journalism training comes out on air, Bennett admits. Sometimes she doesn’t have all the information at her fingertips. And exasperated callers often make the point that the show’s hosts do not always ‘correct’ wrong information brought by other callers.

“But it’s something I am working on very hard. The programme is forcing me to be very current and the truth is, I don’t mind. It’s good to be as informed as possible,” Bennett adds.

She finds most of the interviews she and co-hosts Lincoln Robinson, Bevon Morrison or Gladstone Wilson conduct on the show to be “sheer joy”, citing the example of the series they did during the US-led War against Iraq, with mothers and loved ones with sons or relatives who saw action in the Gulf.