#BTColumn – Fair comment – David Ellis and Brass Tacks

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author(s) do not represent the official position of Barbados TODAY.

By Ralph Jemmott

The call-in program Down to Brass Tacks on Monday, April 17, took an interesting turn. Moderator and veteran journalist, Mr. David Ellis, in his preamble, addressed the issue of the changed management in one of the top personnel at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH). He pointed to an ostensible inconsistency in aspects of the institution’s management policy. That particular issue did not concern me as I have been and remain concerned mainly about the performance of the hospital as it affects patient care. Of course, the two concerns are not totally unrelated. Management competence is a vital factor in performance outcomes.

What held one’s attention was the seeming assault on Mr. Ellis himself by a number of callers who took unwarranted issue with his style of moderating. David Ellis has over the last three or so decades been the leading journalist in the electronic media and, beyond any doubt, Barbados’ most competent moderator of so-called talk–radio. As he himself likes to say, he “has been in town long.” Perhaps Ellis’ greatest strength derives from the fact that he has, in fact, been long in town, from his early days as a journeyman reporter to the present. This has made him very wary of politicians of both stripes and their often inconsistent pronouncements and actions over time.

I have followed Ellis as a moderator for decades and honestly still cannot claim to know where his political bias rests. He has been fair in his critique of both Bees and Dees. On another program, a caller when asked by Ellis to state what he (Ellis) had said that was politically biased, said that the listeners could “hear it in the tone of his voice.” Stupidity knows no bounds.

Over the years, David Ellis has accumulated a vast array of knowledge about Barbados’ politics and society. It is often his insights into the workings of Barbadian society, even more than its politics, that catches my interest. In both arenas, Ellis demonstrates an objectivity that seems to allude most commentators these days in a society populated largely by charlatans.

Another of his journalistic strengths is his ability to take into account the human element and day-to-day realities of life, eschewing much of the catch-phrase verbiage that characterizes so much of contemporary discourse. Ellis can be said to have an ideology. He is like most Barbadians characteristically centrist. On labour issues, for example, he recognizes the legitimate claims of both capital and labour and where they both fall short from time to time.

My own formal schooling has led me to cherish objective thought that goes in search of the truth in so far as the truth can be known and is based on facts. It must be remembered that sometimes even “the facts” may be in dispute and that facts may not speak for themselves, they invariably have to be interpreted or subjected to exegesis.

That is why the Bible is so conflicting. People may read the same text but come to different interpretations, each making an exclusive claim on the Truth.d However, Truth should always reflect some degree of moral intuition. I owe a sense of objectivity to three of my teachers at Mona Jamaica, Professor Douglas Hall, Professor Roy Augier, and Dr. David Buisseret.

The latter once cautioned me: “Mr. Jemmott, you must look at all aspects of the question.” Those were the days when subjects taught were described as ‘disciplines’ and when university schooling inclined one as ‘how’ to think, not ‘what’ to think or copy from Google. It ‘educated’ the student to comprehend the difference between what Thowless called ‘straight and crooked thinking’ to know the difference between a fact and an opinion.

Ellis invariably has to remind callers that they cannot come on air and say anything they want based on partisan sentiment or vaulting, bloviated ego and that the station, Starcom Network, has to protect itself against libel in a society where the laws on slander are perhaps inordinately strict.

After David Ellis left his official post at Starcom Network, I was most surprised to hear that he didn’t have a university degree. Surprised because he appears to have an intellectually well trained mind. Not surprisingly, this brings him into conflict with many of the so-called regular callers to the Brass Tacks program, particularly those who have clearly become ‘political operatives’ for one side or the other. Such callers have little or no regard for Ellis’ more nuanced analysis. One caller on the day in question accused Mr. Ellis of having ‘convenient ears.’ That caller’s propensity for silly laughter often betrays the ostensible gravitas of the concern espoused in his discourses.

Towards the end of the program, Ellis was able to rally some well-deserved support. Miss P, herself once a regular caller, stated that he was ‘the consummate professional’ who could work anywhere in the world. Some felt that there was a growing tendency to disrespect the moderators and that Brass Tacks was becoming too much of ‘a soap opera.’ Some felt that callers needed to be kept in line or otherwise the program could be usurped by persons for their own political purposes and they thanked Mr. Ellis for attempting to ‘diversify’ the program.

Concluding the session, Ellis himself stated that: “They know that I like a fight.” This liking for ‘a fight’ may encourage offending callers to recidivism, to re-offend over and over again. The airwaves should not be about ‘picking a fight,’ but given the culture of indiscipline we now inhabit, we love a ‘bassa bassa,’ so very entertaining. We have come to cherish entertainment even in church. Make a joyful noise, they say. But sometimes that is just what it is, little meditative penitential thought, just NOISE.

Ralph Jemmott is a respected retired educator and commentator on social issues.