Promoting Good Governance: The Role of the Media

• Author: John Maxwell
• Pages: 454-470

454 STATE, ECONOMY AND SOCIETY

before we begin to discuss the question of the media and governance I want

to say, straight off, that the words governance and media both offend me.

I prefer the press to the media because it is more precise than the currently

modish expression which describes an amorphous conglomeration of various

agencies combining to produce myths by the score, great gobs of “entertainment”

– mostly violent – and a great deal of material calculated to keep the masses

ignorant, confused and afraid to venture from their media-appointed places in

the world.

I really do not believe that the fundamental purpose of the media, as it is

constituted, can be to provide the public with the survival information we need,

and I believe that if you do any real study of what is around you, you may come

to agree with me. The press, I learned at the knees of Hector Bernard and O.T.

Fairclough, was the shield and sword of the people, dedicated to the truth,

giving voice to the voiceless and making life miserable for their oppressors.

In relation to government and governance, I get a confused picture or vibe,

as the media might term it, when reading documents on the web from official

authorities on governance such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation

and Development (OECD). The OECD is the godfather of the globalisation

movement. Reading their literature, I have formed the opinion that governance

is a stealth mechanism to ensure compliance from people who are being

prevented from knowing what’s going on above and about them.

For me, governance is altogether too woolly, too indiscriminate – suspect. I

am not sure what it describes, but I suspect that it has become an elite’s code

word to conceal the creeping takeover of government by non-elected forces,

groups and interests. For instance, people in Jamaica think labour reform means

cleaning up the conditions under which people work and bringing labour

standards into some compliance with civilised standards. When the World

Trade Organisation talks about Labour Reform it is aimed directly at the idea so

well expressed by Michael Manley, that the worker’s job is his property. While

ProMotinG Good GovernanCe:

the role of the Media

JOHN MAXWELL

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Promoting Good Governance 455

other property rights are entrenched in our Jamaican constitution, we are

discovering that, under the WTO’s General Agreement on Trade and Services,

workers do not have rights. We find these things out when the crunch comes,

when finance ministers confess that they cannot change anything, that they

have no power over policy. I get the feeling that the government of Jamaica is

telling me that the real government, or perhaps governance of Jamaica, is

elsewhere. Abraham Lincoln didn’t say “Governance of the people, by the people

and for the people”! He said government which, in my opinion, is the essential

tool for the securing of life, liberty and the possibility of happiness for most

people. The distinction is important because I believe that the idea of self-

government, autonomy, independence and the protection of human dignity

and human rights are likely to become lost in the soft and fuzzy concepts of

governance.

Functions of JournalismFunctions of Journalism

Functions of JournalismFunctions of Journalism

Functions of Journalism

Let me start by defining what I understand to be the function of the journalist.

Journalism, as I understand it, is what most theorists say it is: one of the

foundations of democracy. The function of the journalist and of journalism is to

provide the essential information people need to make up their minds on the

issues which concern them. An informed public opinion, we are told, is the best

defence against misgovernment of any kind. As the world becomes more

complex, people cannot discern every danger to their existence, survival or

welfare as clearly as they might when they lived in tribes. Then, there was

always a watchman, a sentry on the lookout for predators, both human and

animal. As societies became more complex the watchmen became the town

criers, professional news carriers warning about external threats and alerting

the societies to opportunities. The news was essentially still about survival. By

the time Lord Macaulay wrote in 1840 that journalists “were become the Fourth

Estate of the realm”, after the king, church and parliament, journalists were

becoming part of the establishment. People like Tom Paine, John Wilkes or John

Peter Zenger or, for that matter, Roger Mais, are in very short supply these days.

Some were thought to represent radical movements seeking to infiltrate or

overthrow the establishment. If we represent the people to the best of my ability,

I do not care what I am called.

Now that many corporations have become much larger than most countries,

under worldwide statutes, they enjoy personhood. (In 1998, of the 100 largest

entities in the world, 49 were countries and 51 were corporation.) The corporate

personality is now better recognised in some quarters than is the national or

individual personality. Corporations have become principalities and powers

owing no allegiance to national law, culture, tradition or custom – as the case of

Enron neatly and comprehensively illustrates. The predators today are much