Hamjatta,
I salute you, too. Your points are well taken. Thanks.
Cherno Baba Jallow
Charlotte, NC
>From: Hamjatta Kanteh <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Attn. Cherno: On Jammeh's 'Third Wife' And Newsworthiness.
>Date: Sat, 1 Jan 2000 08:01:42 EST
>
>Cherno,
> I'm glad that you seem to share my concern about "credible newspapers
>to
>descend into Stygian depths of Yellow journalism" (your words). But my
>concern is themed on private lives of individuals being laundered in the
>public arena under the specious argument of political/public. figures
>cannot
>have private lives so long as they are in the public domain or remain
>representatives of The People. My Liberal instincts tell there is
>everything
>wrong with this reasoning and at best this is covered in the cobwebs of the
>ringing fallacies that political/public figures cannot have private lives
>that they own solely and which should they choose to would no share with
>the
>public. Experience teaches us that for a hundred mile journey you begin
>with
>but a step. I hold the view that once we muddy the private and public in
>national discourse, Yellow journalism would step in insidiously just as if
>it
>is natural. that was how the Tabloids developed in to the psyche and
>culture
>of the West. Thus I hold the contention that: so long as whatever has no
>bearing on the public interest, if it happens to be a public figures
>private
>life, it shall remain thus: PRIVATE. Nothing more, nothing less.
> Having said that, i ask you and the rest what interest is it to
>the
>public that an exclusive story of Jammeh's "third wife" is revealed? is
>Jammeh beholden by any laws that compel him to marry? or even compel him to
>have a benchmark/ceiling quantifying how many wives he can have at any
>time?
>nowhere would you find any classification/designation of an official
>position
>called "First Lady" in our constitution or other laws of our land that our
>leaders are beholden to or swear allegiance to defend. Suffice to say that
>our body polity is secular liberalism. it does not have as a prerequisite
>that candidates to public life must be married or if not should do so post
>haste. it does not precondition any public official to share or make
>his/her
>private life a subject trivial chit chats. public officials are under no
>duress to divulge what they do in private so long as it doesn't affect
>their
>public roles and ONLY if it is in the public interest. What has it
>increased
>any way to the daily struggles of Gambian masses now that The Independent
>has
>exclusively revealed Jammeh's "third wife"? Zilch. it has not ameliorated
>the
>poor farmer's travails; nor the underprivileged who have to trudge under
>the
>most miserable conditions to make a living; or give medicine to the sick
>who
>throng our hospitals. Again I hold thus that: the revelation that Jammeh
>has
>married a "third wife" is a trivial and frivolous blabbing fit for "Attaya
>Vous," cocktail rumour circuits and hostile snipes. It has no bearing
>direct
>on the ordinary people of The Gambia.
> Interestingly enough you took this occasion to qualify what would be
>"newsy" and what would not be. Bizarrely you chose to juxtapose my
>comparison
>of the Senegalese gov't and MFDC peace talks and Jammeh's "third wife" with
>that of the Observer's decision to make prominent in their headlines
>Dibba's
>allegation of the PPP's gov't overspending of taxpayers money and that of
>an
>international business conference that took place at the same time. my
>comparisons even reminded you of Omar Sey angst at your taking precedence
>of
>the Dibba story instead of the then gov't's attempts to sell the Gambia as
>business haven for investors. You went on that: "this reminds me of former
>foreign affairs minister Omar Sey, when he went bonkers over Daily
>Observer's
>front page in which Sheriff Dibba alleged that the PPP government had
>overspent tax payers' money within a short period, by over 1 billion
>dalasis.
>It happened that the story took place on the eve of a major international
>business conference. By Omar Sey's reckoning, the conference ought to have
>been given front page prominence not Dibba's revelations. Well, Omar Sey is
>journalist; he probably didn't know what was news or what wasn't." Cherno,
>you are a journalist and I presume not only that you do know what is news
>but
>also you have a decent sense of fairness. You know very well that you have
>chosen the wrong analogy here. The Dibba "revelations" mentioned cannot be
>compared to Jammeh's "third wife" in any case; be it newsworthiness or of
>national importance. The PPP's overspending of taxpayers' money to the tune
>of a billion dalasi (don't know where you got your stats from but they
>don't
>just add up, old boy), is a legitimate public concern and very news worthy
>in
>that it affects in no small way every fabric of our country. it is very
>risible you even make this comparison. Can you even imagine that the
>revelation of Jammeh's "third wife" having the same effect as the billion
>dalasi that came from Dibba's revelations?
> Again you went on to moralise grandiloquently why Jammeh's "third
>wife"
>qualifies to be more newsworthy to than the MFDC and the Senegalese gov't's
>peace gathering in Banjul. You said: "I wasn't in the Gambia at the time of
>the Independent's publication of their article under scrutiny. But my
>reading
>of the situation is that Jammeh's 'third' wife was more newsy, contiguous
>to
>the national identity than a peace conference that held no optimism. In
>fact,
>soon after the signing of the peace conference, heavy fighting resumed in
>Casamance. To be sure, the peace talks were important, but how many times
>have the combatants been to the Gambia, working on peace formulas only to
>renege on them later. Can you imagine the boredom afflicting the minds of
>Gambians and Senegalese on the Casamance situation? Moreover, the story is
>about a next door neighbour, but it is foreign consumption to Gambian
>readers. It's always good for newspapers to give more coverage to local
>than
>foreign news. Too much foreign news in a local paper will consign that
>paper
>to obscurity, because the local population will look elsewhere for news
>that
>hits close to home, directly affecting their lives."
> Cherno, Cherno, how can you be so insensitive? Has the millennium
>partying and bug already rendered your humane faculties of sympathising
>with
>those under less favourable and traumatic conditions? How can you consign
>Casamance as "foreign" when the Gambia and Casamance are what I will call
>overlapping communities of fate? On what grounds do you hold the assertion
>that the "peace conference holds no optimism" and will be just like the
>others that were forerunners? Where is the evidence that The Independence
>or
>newspapers in the Gambia for that matter devote more space to foreign news
>as
>you seem to insinuate from the MFDC/Senegal gov't meeting? Where is the
>evidence that the peace talks would be another bout of "boredom afflicting
>Gambian Senegalese minds?"
> Cherno it goes without saying that almost every Gambian has a blood
>relation and almost all of us regard Senegal as a second home where distant
>uncles, aunts, cousins and the rest of it live. How can any sane person
>regard the traumatic experience of that area as "foreign news"? How can you
>be so callous? In any case what of the ordinary folks who had to live
>traumatic and displaced existence since this tragedy started in 1982? Even
>if
>you regard these peoples as "foreigners" where is your sense of humanity
>and
>African-Ness? Have you paused to think that as you rush to party in North
>Carolina, that displaced peoples are living wretched lives even on the eve
>of
>the millennium? Has it occurred to you that not everyone is fortunate
>enough
>to celebrate or even a cause to celebrate? Are you not afflicted by the neo
>colonial dementia of identity crisis by consigning news of Casamance to the
>dust bin of "foreign news" and Casamance as mere "neighbour" or "foreign"?
>As
>you chew at these in front of your PC with your fingers dipped in some
>pepperoni jepperoni pizza just remember not everyone has a cosy apartment
>to
>return to at night and the least you could do for these peoples is
>encourage
>any decent effort no matter how tedious, that they attempt to bring
>normalcy
>in their lives. It is very easy when you are in good Ole Uncle Sam to take
>these things for granted. Let this salve your conscience.
> Equally I'm concerned your wisdom of what would constitute a priority
>and
>tedium and how in the interest of humanity, the tedium can be catapulted
>into
>priority even though as you claim it might afflict boredom on a papers
>readership. I will give you the recent case of the Northern Ireland
>tragedy.
>Even though some many ceasefires were declared and deals signed, the
>British
>press were never found in wanting when it comes to highlighting the tragedy
>of the province. They certainly don't consign the Irish problem to
>"foreign"
>columns. Can you imagine the British press going after Cherie Blair's
>pregnancy whilst the Good Friday deal was being signed? It would be
>rebarbative and appal people. No matter how tedious, frustrating and
>reneging
>of deals by parties involved in the conflict, the British trudged
>nonetheless
>to carry out what was a moral responsibility to encourage the parties even
>it
>sometimes cost them readers. Not every problem of society is solved by
>liberal markets. Sometimes moral responsibilities demand you risk the wrath
>of readers and pursue humanist goals. This was what persevered the British
>press and look at the dividends they are reaping from it now. Today
>Northern
>Ireland on a shaky peace, is enjoying devolved government from Westminster
>and the Good Friday deal still holds as they prepare for disarmament.
> On a final note, you have perversely misinterpreted my application of
>"getting it right" within the context of the Independent story on Jammeh's
>"third wife." You interpreted that I mean by "getting it right" that: "the
>Independent's story does not have facts, and therefore false." Far from it
>my
>application doesn't in any mean I charge the Independent with publishing
>false information. By "getting it right" I mean that they didn't get their
>priorities right and were in a rush to publish a story of no legitimate
>importance to the public; that it was a frivolous and trivial blab of no
>direct importance to the ordinary people. By "getting it right," I mean
>again
>that the MFDC/Senegalese gov't gathering holds more importance to the
>ordinary peoples of Senegambia and Africa at large and that the Independent
>could have saved itself the trouble of a collusion course with an
>authoritarian populist like Jammeh, who as you claim earlier had always
>drawn
>the knives out for the Independent. On the veracity of the story we shall
>all
>in the mean time know the truth after the due process of the law.
>Happy New Year and Eid Mubarak in advance to y'all.
>I salute you.
>Hamjatta Kanteh
>hkanteh
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
>Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
