The Tribune

GOOD journalism and well-crafted commentary play a critical role in public policy and political debates. They enliven and enlighten national dialogue.

They are a necessary alternative cum antidote to the trite, uninformed babble dominating social media, talk radio and other arenas of public discourse. And they are a potential bulwark against the performative stupidity of certain demagogues.

Author and New York Times Op-ed columnist David Brooks is an inspiring and nuanced writer and commentator, appearing on Fridays on the PBS Newshour to debate politics and weekly events. His insights are graced with a humanistic sensibility.

A mostly centre right thinker, Brooks spent most of his public life in Republican circles. His commentary and books rove an encyclopedia of topics such as ethics, technology, economics, politics, history, classical literature and sociology, among others.

Though one may disagree with some of his views, his commentary is well written, thoughtful, informative. He goes beyond the often trite and banal preoccupations of many of the journalistic tribes fixated on political fights and showmanship.

Brooks’s previous books include: Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There and The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement.

By his own admission, he was a cultural and political warrior in his earlier days, gladly, gleefully entering the pitch battles of the moment. But as he grew older and endured the trauma of a painful divorce in 2013, many of his preoccupations, interests and desires changed.

He grew less interested in excessive partisanship of all stripes and increasingly disinterested by the banality and boredom of much of the politics of the day. Some writers, journalists and commentators mature while others do not. Brooks began to explore new topics, often focusing on moral development.

In 2015, he published The Road to Character, of which he declared, “I wrote it, to be honest, to save my own soul.” In 2019 came The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life, a meditation on genuine happiness and the good life. In a chapter entitled, “Intellectual Commitments” he offers:

“Seeing reality seems like a straightforward thing. You just look out and see the world. But anybody who is around politics knows … how many of us see only what we want to see, and how many of us see through the filter of our fear, insecurity, or narcissism.

“Seeing well is not natural. It is an act of humility. It means getting your own self – your own needs and wishes – out of the way, so that you can see the thing you’re looking at as itself, and not just a mirror of your own interests.

“Seeing well is a skill you learn from others who see reality clearly: Leonard da Vinci, George Eliot, George Orwell, Jane Jacobs, James Baldwin, Leo Tolstoy.”

A journalist or commentator who has never read great literature or history or in the humanities is like a chef who cooks only with salt but fails to use a variety of seasonings to flavour one’s pot.

Likewise, a commentator or journalist cannot offer viewers and/or readers what he or she does not possess. If a commentator does not read or study beyond the daily local headlines they will simply continue to offer mostly simplistic views.

We all have certain patterns of observation and ways of proceeding. The better writers are able to interrogate and observe themselves in order to better understand and, if necessary, correct for their biases, self-interests and limitations.

A friend recalls his years in Central America during the 1980s as some military governments engaged in torture, summary executions, massacres, forced disappearances and other brutality.

In Guatemala, scores of Mayans were killed, in what some term a genocide, beginning in the 1960s and lasting until the mid-1990s. In El Salvador, the Salvadoran Army killed over 800 people over two days in the village of El Mozote during the Salvadoran Civil War.

This was one example of the frenzy of violence perpetuated by right-wing governments in the region for decades, many of the brutal scars of which are still raw, unhealed and unacknowledged.

The friend noted that the newspaper and broadcast stories he read and listened to, including in prestigious US journals, sometimes contained critical factual errors. Because of news and information he got in the region, he realised how poorly reported were many stories as well as the histories of the conflicts.

US-based reports were often skewed because many of the journalists did not understand the conflicts or were prone to report without greater inspection the propaganda they were fed by US government sources, including the military and intelligence agencies.

Some journalists who travelled to the region spent as much or more time in US embassies as they did on the ground in the conflict zones, limiting their understanding and awareness of events.

The better journalists knew the region’s history, read literary sources and developed a greater degree of understanding of the wars and conflicts. An extraordinary piece on the El Mozote massacre appeared in The New Yorker on December 6, 1993.

During the Anna Nicole Smith spectacle in The Bahamas and the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian, quite a number of observers witnessed in real time the sensationalism, factual errors and skewed reporting of a number of American editors, producers and journalists.

Nobel Literature Prize winner and Colombian-born Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927-2014) was a journalist, novelist, screenwriter and short-story writer. Mostly self-taught, he left law school for journalism.

Two of his more famous novels are One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) and Love in the Time of Cholera (1985). His magical realism captured the hearts and imagination of a global audience.

In a 2014 article entitled, “The best job in the world: Gabriel García Márquez on journalism” on the website Index on Censorship, he mused: “Perhaps the misfortune of schools of journalism is that while they do teach some useful tricks of the trade, they teach little about the profession itself.

“Any training in schools of journalism must be based on three fundamental principles: first and foremost, there must be aptitude and talent; then the knowledge that ‘investigative’ journalism is not something special, but that all journalism must, by definition, be investigative; and, third, the awareness that ethics are not merely an occasional condition of the trade, but an integral part…”

Clearly, US magazines have more resources than smaller countries, can engage in more in-depth reporting and afford better pay for journalists. Still, journalists and commentators are generalists, including in The Bahamas. They should have a high degree of general knowledge. Their focus should not be limited to politics and crime.

Brooks often laments that much of today’s political journalism and commentary are more about political fights than policy substance. To his credit, this journal’s business editor typically provides tremendous information and insight on various stories.

Sadly, many journalists cum commentators at home and abroad seem to lack the willingness, the capacity or the quality of research, study and analysis necessary to go beyond the temporary and often forgettable headlines of the moment.

A former Bahamian newspaper editor now retired from journalism laments the often shallow thinking in print and broadcast commentary. He observed that writers need to read more broadly to expand the scope of their minds so they can take up more creative subjects.

Given that we live in a society in which few seem to read on a regular basis, it is even more incumbent for journalists and commentators to read more in depth.

Commentary in our society can plant seeds in minds and hearts of the public and policy makers. New modes of thinking may help revive stale and sterile circular debates. Mostly political screeds every week are tiring, boring and ultimately unfulfilling.

But, even when commenting on politics and government, there remains a worrying ignorance of our political system, often perpetuated by some politicians, journalists and commentators who refuse to learn more about our system of government.

What is often disturbing is the inability of various commentators to explain the nature and history of our parliamentary system before offering hyperbolic and sensational commentary.

At minimum, journalists should regularly read a world-class journal in order to be better informed. Such a journal might also serve as a standard to which a print or broadcast journalist might aspire, including a greater familiarity with English which is sorely lacking among some Bahamian journalists.

The ability to write well is sine qua non for a journalist or commentator. But good writing and thinking requires more, including insatiable curiosity, non-defensiveness, openness to growth and constant reading.