“NATTERING nabobs of negativism” was a description former U.S. Vice President Spiro Agnew heaped upon the media elite in that country. People then saw the remark as a cheap political shot, but today, people are now seeing the light of day (Marks, Christian Science Monitor).

Then there was U.S. media mogul, Randolph Hearst’s celebrated aphorism: “You furnish the pictures, and I’ll furnish the war.” Wanjohi Kabukuru cited Hearst’s remark in his article in the New African, calling on journalists in Kenya not to engage in sensational journalism so prominent in the Western world.

Hearst’s reporter, Frederic Remington, covering Cuba at the turn of the 20th Century, told Hearst that there was no likelihood of a war, and indicated his intention to return to the U.S. Hearst’s response was that he should remain in Cuba and produce pictures, and that he (Hearst) will provide the war. The Spanish-American War did happen; nonetheless, the battlefield of that war was the press. Kabukuru alluded to this era as one of yellow journalism; a concept that typifies excessive hyperbole. Yellow journalism has already invaded the journalism world.

‘…yellow journalism is not a thing of the past, and it is ever present in Guyana, too. Every day in Guyana, people read, listen, view, and form opinions on all kinds of stuff the mass media present to them. This is a natural process’

Look at what recently happened in Egypt. The new liberal media environment in Egypt gave the opening for both the independent media and the new Internet and satellite media to provide awareness of the Muslim-Copt (Christian) question in Egypt. But the latter persists in their efforts to politicize — indeed, sensationalize — the religious conflict between Muslims and Copts; only a few days ago, on New Year’s eve, a church bombing left 25 Copts dead and 80 injured.

There also was the Rwanda genocide of 1994, where 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred in fewer than 100 days; Professor Thompson (Pluto Press, 2007) argued that the radio and the print media were utilized as a tool of hate, where it encouraged neighbours to hate and hurt each other; these were the infamous radio broadcasts that fanned the flames of hatred.

The mass media in all of these instances played a villainous role in its perpetration of yellow journalism. And yellow journalism is not a thing of the past, and it is ever present in Guyana, too. Every day in Guyana, people read, listen, view, and form opinions on all kinds of stuff the mass media present to them. This is a natural process. Nonetheless, some parts of the mass media have intentions to politicize everything, to present excessive exaggeration.  While they bestow upon themselves the divine right to educate the public, their biased intentions colour and shape the education the public receives.

The mass media’s intentions, once they remain as intentions, are merely at the stage of attitudes, a mental state, thought, where nothing happens until some action takes place; once action occurs, behaviour is happening, as when the mass media lords decide to translate their content within the newspapers, etc., that is, their decision, which is an action (behaviour), transforms their intention (attitude) to a new realty: The newspaper content.

The mass media have great concerns and proclivity to make their intentions become a reality, to become a happening thing; that is, the mass media always have an interest in converting their intentions into behaviours, and ‘sensationalism’ in terms of approximating yellow journalism (I use ‘sensationalism’ in this manner throughout this Perspective) is their modus operandi to make this behaviour a happening thing.

This sensationalism can be quite graphic as when some mass media depict human demise with all its one thousand points of light and gory attributes intact; and people largely latch on to these desires, impulses, and images of ‘sensationalism’ as they talk about the day’s events.

Nevertheless, the graphics, photos, etc., are important, but more importantly, ‘sensationalism’ extends beyond these pictures and gory attributes; ‘sensationalism’ also clothes letter columns, opinion columns, editorials, etc., at least in some media houses. And the ‘sensationalism’ principle also invariably results in over-politicizing the content of these letter columns, opinion columns, editorials, etc.

And some of the media houses make certain that they are constantly in the ‘sensationalism’ mode because of its capacity to form opinions, and expectantly, to elicit particular behaviours that would match their intention, the intention to politicize everything through ‘sensationalism’.

Clearly, sensational stories are not accurate by definition, as in ‘sensationalism’, all knowledge flows from the senses, and, therefore, there is no innate knowledge. But this cannot be true as knowledge arises from sources other than the senses. Therefore, in the mediatic sense, media content rooted only in ‘sensationalism’ is incomplete; a yellow journalism in action in Guyana.

And as if this yellow journalism is not enough, with its hyperbole, too, it tries to justify the accuracy of its journalistic content; using ‘essentialism’ provides legitimacy to ‘sensationalism’. ‘Essentialism’ is the belief in the right essence of things, a belief in the unchanging and permanent qualities that describe the core of an entity (Fuss). ‘Essentialism’ opinions generally propel questions about what is right and what is wrong (Corner, THE).

The sensationalized journalism in some media houses focuses on the rightness and wrongness of something, and then the journalists, and I hope they are, go looking for the mistakes and the reasons for the mistakes. Every day, some media people identify something is wrong within the Government of Guyana, and then there is the predictable rummaging around to find out why this wrongdoing happened, and, indeed, the name calling , personal attacks, etc. earnestly begin, becoming all part of this daily media ritual. What these journalists should do in such circumstances is galvanize efforts to investigate the perspectives in question; unfortunately, this functioning is not part of the Guyana journalist makeup.

This is the state of Guyana’s journalism. This is how some media houses escape the wrath of journalistic justice. In fact, journalists here excessively indulge themselves in cherry picking, overgeneralization, and selective observation. No wonder, perhaps, people may describe some of them, in Agnew’s language, as “nattering nabobs of negativism.”