LABOUR VS THE MEDIA: THE CANCER IS UNDER ATTACK

THE PROBLEM IS THAT LACORBINIERE DOING SURGERY WITH A CHAINSAW

Tim Poleon: He's happy with his yellow backdrop.

This is not a war on the media apart from the one that is being manufactured by Rick Wayne, Richard Frederick and Caribbean News Now.

This is a surgery. A controversial, perhaps unnecessary surgery. With some very unpleasant chemotherapy to follow.

The cancer in the media exposed itself and now the cancer is being attacked. (Poor Tim, he’s just a lump in this entire analogy.)

So what war? What curbing of freedom of speech? What curtailing of the media?

Rick Wayne is off his rocker again, turning anything possible into an attack on Kenny Anthony and anyone in his near vicinity. On Monday, as usual, Wayne was calling up Tim Poleon’s midday talk show, playing sidekick to the only brand name journalist on the island with less training than him, trying to reshape the recent trouble between Tim and the Legal Affairs Chainsaw Victor LaCorbiniere into a widespread conspiratorial government attack on the entire media.

Rick Wayne: Sousousousou, kisskiss, kill...

 

But there is no responsible reporter on the entire island who feels under pressure from the Labour Government. In fact, those of us who can remember covering government pre-1997 have no doubt that Kenny Anthony’s Labour is the mother of free speech in this island.

It’s just that if you hit them, they might hit you back. And if you are wrong, you might be required to take it like a man. Even magnanimity has its limits.

Tim Poleon went on air and read a story that had no credibility, giving it credence among the foolish and thoughtless who rely on people like him in order to form useful opinions on matters of public interest. LaCorbs, fed up with what his party sees as Tim's repeated bias, seems to have decided that Tim is going to have to stand by his actions in a court of law.

 

 Chainsaw-in-Chief Vincent La Corbiniere

And Rick announces that Labour has declared war on the entire media. As though he and Tim are, in any way, representative of average reporters. These two motherfuckers aren't even real reporters. They're telephone journalists. Anchors. Talkers. Neither can remember the last time he even got wet by rain, much less ventured into a dangerous ghetto.

Jerry George gave democracy a pat on the back and called for better standards.

 

Thoughtful, non-partisan media veteran Jerry George says its democracy in action. He did all but say that Tim fucked up. But he fucked up. He could have commented on the story. He could have referred to it. Instead he read it out in its entirety.

But somehow, Rick hopes to escalate this in a war on the media. Because, of course, Tim is supposed to be able to act irresponsibly, set a shitty example for young reporters, do damage to the political capital of the party in power and just get away with it scot-free? Freedom isn’t free, son. Freedom is something you have to fight for. And when you step on someone else’s freedom in the exercise of your own, you might get the smackdown. Or, the legal hacksaw, as the case may be.

MASL President Clinton Reynolds called for media owners and workers to self-regulate before government gets its dirty hands on us. He barely focused attention on Tim at all.

 

The media workers president, meanwhile, has taken a position that is rather more well thought out than the confrontational message the VP put out a few weeks ago when Andre Paul and his sidekick Charlie got the smackdown on all their candy asses by the leader of the People’s Republic of ALBA, Alva Baptiste.

The short version of Reynolds speech is that he called for media owners and workers to come together to set standards and self-regulate in order to pre-empt any dangerous attempts at government regulation. Kinda like using alternative medicine on the cancer to avoid surgery and chemo. Essentially, both he and media lecturer Jerry George declined to support Tim and put the focus on low journalistic standards. Which could be interpreted as a condemnation of current journalistic standards. Not of Tim's of course. Even though Tim is what we are talking about here. You know what I’m saying?

But some people are still trying to stoke their imaginary a war on the media, when in fact it is merely free speech working for everyone, producing a conflict that is going to require some arbitration. You think democracy is easy? It ain’t. And thank God for that, otherwise, it wouldn’t be worth it.

Who is standing by Tim, unequivocally? The United Workers Party.

"So, are we cool?" It seems like Frederick and Chas are agreeing again. At least when it comes to Poleon. He's like the Bob Marley of all things Flambeau now.

 

Flambeau says it’s standing by Tim. What does that tell you?

There is no war on the media.

There is an attack on the cancer that is killing the media. (They just eh catch me yet. But I’m a new strain of cancer anyway. Provoking white blood cells to sue me is part of my business model).

And the Chainsaw-in Chief, having done several tests, has decided not to do therapy but to go straight to the operating table.

The irony, for him, is that the media seldom really loses against the government, even when they are wrong. Plus, LaCorbiniere looks like he’s doing surgery with a hacksaw. He might want to consider putting down the hacksaw, picking up a scalpel and calling Reynolds to help him do the surgery.

 

Zack! Stop it! That is NOT funny!!!! (snigger,  chuckle, snort!)