This Friday, I will be presenting at the Larry Chang Human Rights Symposium on Homelessness and Forced Migration in the Jamaican LGBT Community. I was asked to do so after recently posting a piece about the media’s treatment of this community.

As soon as I moved here over a year ago, I was immediately struck by the difference in the way the Jamaican media cover this community as compared to North America. I did not want to write about it, however, because I am a foreigner, an outsider unfamiliar with the landscape. But I was finally spurred to write a post after the media essentially pinned the blame for a violent confrontation at a carnival event on a group of perceived homosexuals . Read it here if you wish. It was unfair, disrespectful and inflammatory. The post was very popular and well-received.

I must add that the media here does not restrict this type of disrespectful coverage to the LGBT community. It regularly exploits other marginalized, vulnerable people, such as the poor and uneducated, as well as people who have just experienced horrible tragedies. (Of course, this practice is not exclusive to Jamaican media). I am struck, here, though, by the tone of this coverage. It can often read as sensational and voyeuristic. Part of the reason for this is that in general, the way in which Jamaican people express themselves is colourful, exciting, flowery, animated and beautiful. This, of course, is not a bad thing. However, it doesn’t seem to translate well to media. To me, while the writing is often a pleasure to read, its flowery nature can come off as flippant or less than sober, so when serious stories about life and death issues run, they can be perceived as disrespectful. I learned old-school practices of using the simplest and fewest words you can when writing “hard” news stories, and I don’t see this practice employed here so much.

There is no doubt that the Jamaican media is professional, respectful and well-intentioned. I think it is just a case of trying to get the story and trying to adhere to a well-established style. In general, it is not an easy job to be a reporter. You are often forced to ask people awkward and invasive questions at sensitive times. But there is a line you must not cross when portraying these people. You must not scrub away their humanity and render them a caricature or a character in a movie plot. You must remember they are human beings, above all else. And this is the problem I have with media in general. Because of the nature of the medium (scarce resources in terms of space and time), the risk with journalism is such that human beings become one-dimensional. There is little room for nuance and shading, contingencies and context. This is unfortunate, but in the hands of a skilled writer and reporter, most of these risks can be mitigated.

I hope to address this issue adequately at Friday’s forum. We should all be equal in the eyes of the press.