John Marquis, former editor of The Tribune, Bahamas, and the Falmouth Packet.

This article is posted here with Mr. Marquis kind permission. It first appeared in The Big T (The Tribune), Saturday, April 28, 2012.

FORMER editor Oswald Brown has called on the government to revoke the work permit of the new English managing editor of The Freeport News. But, in the age of globalisation, is this a sensible or realistic proposition? JOHN MARQUIS reports…

OSWALD BROWN has always been a favourite of mine among Bahamian journalists. He is of the old school – competent, courageous and true.

We’ve been in the trenches of daily journalism for half a century, exposing cheats and charlatans, puncturing the pomposity of politicians and waging war on those with something to hide.

Generally I’ve agreed with everything he’s said in his challenging and often controversial columns. But his call for the new managing editor of The Freeport News to be thrown out because he’s English is undiluted tosh – the kind of hysterical bunkum I would have expected from him when he was a Black Power tearaway on the old Bahamian Times nearly 50 years ago.

In those days, Ossie and I were polar opposites in the Bahamian journalistic spectrum, with him championing the PLP cause and me, having been severely disillusioned by the actions of Lynden Pindling, doing my damndest to undermine it.

I’m sure Ossie will not mind my saying that he was pretty racially minded in those days. He was a Black Power advocate on a mission. I was the arrogant young Brit at The Tribune. The Bahamian Times took delight in mocking my long hair. I used to read the paper avidly and laugh out loud.

In spite of our differences, I always liked and respected him. He was an affable guy with a ready smile. And I always thought his Black Power posture would soften with age, as indeed it did.

A protracted row with Pindling and virtual banishment from his own country by his once beloved PLP was enough to convince him that many of his youthful rants were, to say the least, a trifle misguided.

His erstwhile hero – the incomparable Ping – turned out to be somewhat less than he expected. Not only did he have feet of clay – he was in clay up to his armpits, with a huge dollop of horsedung stuck on top.

In fact – as Senator Charles Maynard pointed out some years back – there was such an odour around Pindling when he bowed out of political life in 1997 that none of his old parliamentary colleagues wanted to be seen within sniffing distance of their fallen leader.

By the time I arrived back in the Bahamas in 1999, Ossie was a confirmed FNM, tossing journalistic whizz-bombs at his old party and taking delight in ridiculing the preposterous PLP popinjay, Fred Mitchell.

In his new incarnation, Ossie was a paragon of moderation. His voice was no longer that of the strident activist, but of the mature commentator.

I was pleased, but not surprised, when he came out strongly on my side when the PLP government sought to deport me six years ago.

As a strong free speech advocate, and an editor not afraid to speak his mind, he felt obliged to take his old party to task. He was, of course, absolutely right to do so.

It’s a bit of a shock, therefore, to see Ossie back in PLP mode, calling for John Fleet, the new editorial boss at The Freeport News, to be sent packing because of his nationality.

There is, of course, history to consider here. Until two years ago, Ossie held that very same job. He parted company with his bosses in highly acrimonious circumstances and subsequently claimed he was fired.

I know nothing of the background to that affair, and am unable to throw light on the reasons for his departure. But I do know, from Ossie’s subsequent outbursts, that he was very bitter about the way he was treated.

He believed, rightly or wrongly, that Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham was a factor in his firing, and that it came about after he had criticised certain elements in the FNM.

Seeing an Englishman installed in his old job was, therefore, enough to ignite Ossie’s personal powder barrel. His response was volcanic.

In a column reproduced on a Bahamian website, he lashed his former employers for overlooking his assistants on the paper when they came to choose a person for the top job.

He believed that, having kept the paper going after his departure, they should have been handed the position because they were Bahamian.

His argument is deeply flawed.

For a start, nationality in itself is no guarantee of suitability for a particular position. I don’t know his assistants at The Freeport News, or their level of ability, but keeping the ship afloat is not reason enough in itself for giving them long-term responsibility.

Secondly, in the age of globalisation, it is nonsensical to expect higher management positions to be always filled by Bahamians. Around the world, top jobs are taken by foreigners in a wide range of industries – it’s the modern way. If employers want to seek executive talent abroad, that’s their prerogative.

Thirdly, there are solid reasons for treating the job of newspaper editor quite differently from those of senior executives in other spheres. The job requires qualities you would not expect of the CEO of a jam jar factory. Sheer guts is one of them, plus an ability to resist the blandishments of politicians.
In my long experience of Bahamian journalism, there has been a marked lack of moral courage among many home-grown journalists.

In the 1960s, when I was a young political reporter in Nassau, I used to ridicule in print the toadies and tailwaggers of Bahamian journalism.

I took delight in pillorying those who were more concerned with sucking up to their political masters than doing what they ought to have been doing, which was kicking their fat, complacent backsides.

There was even one media boss in those days who kept a life-size model of Lynden Pindling in his bedroom, so slavishly devoted was he to his political controller.

I even invented an imaginary award, The Silver Grovel, for those journalists who spent their professional lives on their knees.

Even today, there are Bahamian journalists who would rather jump off Potter’s Cay in a hurricane than offend a politician.

The harsh truth is that many Bahamian journalists are too close socially, politically and religiously to the people they should be hunting down like rats.

They are too compromised to do what they are meant to do – keep the politicians jumping like popcorn on a hot griddle.

Such people are not, I suggest, candidates for the editor’s chair.

Having said all that, I was proud of my Tribune staff for their courage and integrity, and can think of at least two young Bahamians who worked with me who ought to be destined for an editor’s chair in the future. They are the kind of people who will take no nonsense from politicians and can be relied upon to place their readers’ interests above everything.

Meanwhile, I hope my old friend Ossie takes stock of his latest outburst and asks himself the extent to which it was powered by his personal resentment.

Mr Fleet, who was my successor at The Tribune, brings many years experience at top-class newspapers to his new job.

He held senior positions at several leading regional papers in the UK like The Scotsman, The Sunday Sun and The Northern Echo, and also worked in executive positions at the Daily Mail and Scottish Daily Express. A year before arriving in Nassau, he won a top award for page design, and earned high praise from former colleagues.

A young nation like the Bahamas needs imported skills at the highest level as badly as it needs inward investment. With precious few examples worth following among the political class, young Bahamians need to work alongside competent people they can learn from and look up to.

Taking a narrow nationalistic line serves no purpose whatsoever, except to excite the brainless hordes that provide the support system for the PLP.

Ossie, you’re a great guy. Do me a favour – pop along to see Mr Fleet and say you’re sorry. You know you want to.