Yesterday, I met a young man who is leaving Jamaica. He is young, in his twenties, and gay. He often chooses to dress up in what are traditionally regarded as women’s clothes and accessories. He is leaving because he does not feel safe. He does not have a secure place to live, nor a stable means of generating income. He will hopefully be issued a Visa by the Canadian government in the next few weeks.

This is one story. I hear others, via both firsthand accounts and in the media. Some people relay that they can live relatively normal lives, while some people are harassed daily because of their sexual preferences. For the media, it is a challenge to accurately portray this situation.

Of late, I have been writing a lot about the media’s responsibility in covering sensitive topics such as this. Check out some of the pieces here, here and here.

And check out fellow blogger Annie Paul’s take on yesterday’s reporting on a tragic accident in which a jet ski driver killed a young girl and injured another (the reporter chose not to mention anything about the alleged perpetrator, only focusing on the victims. Paul asserted that the reporter is aiming to uphold the privilege enjoyed by wealthier Jamaicans). Also, a Facebook post alerted me to this story, criticizing the writer for this sentence:

“Frano’ could hardly have been more unfortunate in the looks department. A corpulent man who makes the shade black look black, Francis knows what it takes to make athletes run pretty quickly with poise and beauty.”

This story profiles track star Shelly Ann Fraser-Pryce’s coach with the supposition that even though he is not traditionally “pretty,” he still deserves the love and respect of fellow Jamaicans. No need to analyze what is wrong with this thought, it is not deserving of your time.

So why did I initially tell you about the young man I met yesterday? He got me thinking again about the media’s role and responsibility, as did the examples I cited. This young has a story, it is tragic yet contains seeds of hope. It reinforces the stereotype that Jamaica is a hostile place for people who do not conform to its norms, yet it is a story worth telling. So how do you tell a story that by shedding light on it, you can possibly lead to positive change? Perhaps the Toronto Star’s recent piece is a baseline, although even that was subject to criticism.

Since the Toronto Star ran this story about Jamaica being a homophobic country, some people reacted with negativity, claiming that the story did not portray the situation accurately. This came from members of the LGBTQ community, who say that they can live “normal” and safe lives. They claim that media coverage focuses too much on the sensational.

I continue to ponder this question. How do you tell stories that need to be told, that highlight issues that need immediate attention, while staying “right-sized,” while maintaining the correct proportion? I guess it depends on both the source and the recipient. For this young man who must leave Jamaica in order to have a safe, fulfilling life, it is of crisis proportions. Yet for many gay Jamaicans, this issue does not demand daily, immediate attention.

For the family of the young girl who was killed by the jet ski, life cannot get much worse now, and the reporter portrayed this and focused on them as victims. Yet the reporter chose to leave out an entire portion of the equation, this mysterious person driving the jet ski. I am almost certain that the girls’ parents would not choose this narrative for the story.

For the coach, who is portrayed as ugly yet still deserving of our love and respect, how does he respond to this article now? I am almost certain he would not choose this narrative to tell his own story.

Yet these stories are now on record, accurate or not, fair or not, with people’s feelings as casualties.

So how do you adopt the correct narrative? How do you tell stories with respect, accuracy and fairness? It is something I continue to ponder.