By Joel B. Liburd

he one thing that the world probably is grateful to Donald Trump for, is his spotlighting of “fake news”. However, while Trump chooses to use the phenomenon to blame for all of his misfortunes and criticisms, his opponents argue that it was media manipulation that catapulted him to the White House. What is indisputable is that over the past decade, information has become a commodity, and its value as an influencer has skyrocketed. Indeed, information is power and the strategic use of it can be deadly – especially in war and politics.

Independent thought has become a rare commodity in these days of mass media. Most people today conform to any number of different dimensions, usually for a sense of belonging, because it’s lonely to be alone. And more so in terms of your own perspectives and opinions. Media gives people the opportunity to belong together and find strength in numbers. For instance, people are easily divided by their viewership of Game of Thrones, or Harry Potter. But that’s pure fiction and production. Now, the news is what is used to split our views.

Newsrooms have always meant money. It is the costliest part of any media operation, but it has the potential to generate the most income by creating high-priced prime times and prime pages for advertisers. At the turn of the century, the name of the game was getting the story first. That resulted in mistakes, misquotes and lawsuits which invariably led to a massive vertical integration of the media industry; meaning that multinational companies and investment firms started buying majority shares in media companies. This move over the last decade has created the perfect environment for agenda-setting.

Agenda-setting allows for a single person or small group of people to actually dictate what the news will be for the purchasing public. Shocking, ain’t it? Well, this tactic ensures that an entity can broadcast or publish according to its needs; play down its own negative issues, while highlighting those of the competitor. It’s probably why Jim Clancy left CNN in the run-up to the Trump campaign, because CNN had become polarized to the Democrats, yet still pretended to be objective, unlike its network competitor FOX, which is quintessentially Republican, Conservative, and Right Wing.

In St Kitts and Nevis, we all know which side each media house is rooting for, which is why one must have a bag of salt nearby when listening to or reading the news. There’s no objectivity. Our media has become so politicized that the State media seems the most credible choice for information.

Social media has filled the gap somewhat, but Kittitians and Nevisians have become a largely more sophisticated population today, and tend to be very suspicious of social media pronouncements and activity. It’s probably why most of us screenshot articles and conversations for forwarding, so as not to leave any evidence that we “shared” a particular item. This presents a very real challenge – especially in this campaign season – as to how a party is expected to spread its messages without being branded as propaganda and hence ignored.

Many persons have noted the increasing frequency – over the past few months – that our little twin-island Federation has been prominently featured in the global media. From the UK’s Daily Mail to Yahoo! News, we seem proud that we have been noticed. However, some have noticed that these stories are written with a slant that praises the smallest deed by the Team Unity administration and Prime Minister Tim Harris, while continuing to grind away at what are still essentially rumours concerning the Labour party leader, Dr Denzil Douglas.

Even though the plantations have been long closed, we as a people seem to have not divorced ourselves of the “Massa” syndrome; that once the White Man says it, it must be true.

The simple reason why there has been this glaring media slant on the international reportage of our domestic affairs is simple… it is being paid for.

The government of St Kitts and Nevis has been unable to toot its own horn in its own band in its own land, so Harris has turned to the international propagandist, PR Newswire, in order to seed the media with favourable articles.

PR Newswire operates the Cision Distribution platform, which is basically a pay-to-publish service. Nothing illegal here. However, the company’s website states clearly:

“Every Cision Distribution press release is targeted to specific keywords chosen by our expert editorial staff. Clients are able to further target influencers with specific geographical and industry distribution solutions.

Our network reaches nearly 3,000 newsrooms, like The New York Times, ABC News, BuzzFeed and more. We send content to more than 550 news content systems like Moody’s, SmartBriefs, LexisNexis and McGraw-Hill. Furthermore, our media portal PR Newswire for Journalists has more than 39,000 active monthly users.

PR Newswire’s network reaches more than 4,500 U.S. websites, including popular sites such as Yahoo! Finance, MarketWatch and Business Journals. Our global network reaches nearly 10,000 websites, portals and databases.

Cision Distribution supports world-wide social media distribution across the leading networks: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.”

Now it’s beginning to sound like Cambridge Analytica, albeit with a waistcoat and top hat. Also, this PR-gun-for-hire doesn’t come cheap. A cursory look at PR Newswire’s pricing guide reveals a myriad of options that are tailored into a custom package. Media monitoring of mentions of Harris and Team Unity has revealed a pattern in distribution and publication.

A rough calculation would show the following expenses:

–        Annual subscription: USD 195

–        Generation of News Release: USD 4,950

–        Global Distribution per release: USD 5,000 [400 words] + USD 1,300 [each additional 100 words]

A quick Boolean Search on Google (“PR Newswire”+”Timothy Harris”) turns up 1,670 results. Another search (“PR Newswire”+”Denzil Douglas”) turns up 72. It means that the PR Newswire machinery has generated 1,742 “news” items about Timothy Harris (good) and Denzil Douglas (bad). Approximately two-thirds of that figure are accounted for by re-published articles, meaning that PR Newswire has actually actively generated about 580 articles over the past two years. Multiply that by the basic rate for a single 400-word release (USD 5,000), and then add the annual fee and generation/editorial fee, and you get USD 2,905,145 or ECD 7,698,634.25. This is how much baggy-man Harris is paying a second-rate media company to unleash drivel on the citizens of St Kits and Nevis.

How can Timothy Harris justify paying nearly three million US dollars to paint a pretty international picture, while his people are at home suffering with grumbling bellies, grovelling for jobs, griping about poor healthcare, grasping for higher education and gasping for economic breath as the cost of living soars? How can Harris sleep comfortably at night, amidst the weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth as the Federation flounders under his watch?

But PR Newswire was not Harris’ idea – he is not that intuitive. In fact, the man who brought the pay-for-news proposal to Harris is a Barbadian businessman, who has now become his key financier. This Barbadian – of mixed white and Portuguese roots – has our Prime Minister by the leash. Mr Bajan has no problems tossing a few million dollars to ensure Tim wins. After all, the new Basseterre High School has had its initial estimate go from ECD 40 million to well over ECD 100 million.

So where is the extra ECD 60 million going? Well, the Bajans have a saying, “If greedy wait, hot will cool.”

Added to his mismanagement of the economy, transparent and in-your-face nepotism, gargantuan graft and corruption, and his blatant disregard and disrespect for the people of St Kitts and Nevis, how can anyone in his or her right mind vote for Timothy Harris and his band of sycophants back into political power on Friday 5^th June? We gave them a chance five years ago in 2015.

We thought that Team Unity would do better for the country and the people. But we were wrong; massively wrong. After five years we have learned from our collective mistake. Never gain. Ali Baba and his gang of thieves must go. The time for Change has come, and we the voters have a stewardship responsibility to do the right thing for the country and for our children. YES WE CAN and YES WE MUST.

— 
Joel B. Liburd
Communications ConsultantBasseterre/Quebec

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DISCLAMER: The above Commentary and the opinion, belief and viewpoint expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the opinion, belief and viewpoint of iNews Cayman/ieyenews.com or official policies of iNews Cayman/ieyenews.com