Owen James has been a journalist for some forty years. He is renown for his business programmes on TVJ but recently announced that he will be severing ties with the station to pursue new ventures In the first part of an interview with Caribbean Business Report, James discussed his early career which began at the Gleaner Company and the influence of Jack Anderson who he succeeded as Editor of The Star. He also told of how he moved on to the now defunct JBC further cementing his career.

JBC-building a team

In the early eighties Ulric Simmonds was General Manager of JBC and in him he found someone whom he could get along with and shared his vision to revamp the newsroom. They began to recruit professionals and develop a team that would put JBC on the map. At that time James had risen to Assistant Director of News, Sports and Current Affairs. With the help of the late Carl Stone he developed aptitude testing for recruits.

“We took on staff that became fine journalist, among them Joylene Griffiths Irving who is now Director of Public and Corporate Affairs at Scotiabank Jamaica, Mark Thomas, Yvette Rowe and Anthony Miller who now produces and presents ER. They all did a fantastic job covering Hurricane Gilbert back in 1988, which as you know caused major devastation to the country.

Anthony Miller is multi-dimensional. Today he is well known for his coverage of the entertainment industry but he is an excellent news journalist. That team definitely had ink in their blood. They were a fine generation of journalists who were intrepid and fearless,” said James tipping his hat to his former colleagues.

There was talk going around that JBC was to be divested and this created a frisson of uncertainty in the newsroom. James recalls that it was proving most difficult to motivate people at that time. It was during that period that JBC sought to recruit Gary Allen who is now the managing director of the RJR Group but they failed to land him.

With JBC being eventually divested in 1997, all the managers were made redundant. James took the opportunity to cash in his vacation leave which had accumulated considerably over eight years and walk away with his pension payments. Together with his girlfriend he took an extended holiday and time out of the news business.

Turning to television

“By 1998, life was becoming a bit boring. I became somewhat introspective and had to figure out what am I going to do now. One of the things I made up my mind not to do was to go and work in a newsroom. But what would I do with the skills I had acquired? Eleven years at The Gleaner and fifteen years at JBC. I began to look at the electronic landscape and I noticed the absence of business news. In Jamaica there is a preponderance of political and crime news but very little emphasis is placed on business.

“In 1998, I approached the then General Manager of Super Supreme Television (SSTV) Marcia Forbes and told her I wanted to do a business programme and I named it “The Business Day”. In those early days it was difficult to sell the programme to advertisers because it was not sports or entertainment. I therefore had to pitch it to corporate Jamaica. I remember speaking with the boss of Advertising & Marketing, Arnold Foote who encouraged me to press ahead with the programme. He put Ralston Hyman who was working as an advertising executive for Foote’s company and who is now a business news broadcaster and Financial Editor of The Sunday Herald on it. Ralston to his credit saw merit in the programme and gave me my first ad which was Citizens’ Bank which became a victim of the financial meltdown of the nineties.”

With James unable to solicit more advertising, Marcia Forbes suggested that perhaps the programme should be pulled. James proposed doing the show free of cost on the days that there were no advertising sponsorship. Eventually was agreed that he would receive a paltry sum of J$500 on the days that were not sponsored.

A friend advised him to continue improving the programme and then get one of the blue chip companies to come on board. In 1998 Alison Binger of Jamaica National liked the show and so came on board. To this very day Jamaica National still sponsors the show.

“In Jamaica we have a herd mentality. Once Jamaica National came on board the flood gates opened and in those early days I got all the advertising I needed without the help of advertising agencies. I went to them and told them what the programme could do for them. I built relationships that have stood the test of time.

“I had an idea to showcase entrepreneurship in Jamaica and I called an ex-JBC colleague of mine called Monica Campbell. I told her that I would require financial backing because I work independently of the stations. That programme was ” The Business Review” and the first sponsor was Doreen Frankson’s EdgeChem. With that programme we celebrated the successes of people with the entrepreneurial spirit not just the big companies. We featured people like Audrey Hinchcliffe who was so qualified, she couldn’t get a job in Jamaica. She started a cleaning business and the rest is history. I dubbed her “The Queen of Clean.”

“We featured what Audrey Marks did with Paymaster which was revolutionary at the time and she has since gone on from strength to strength. When Unilever pulled the rug from under GraceKennedy, Douglas Orane remarkably was able to assemble a SWOT team that put together their own brands which proved more successful than Unilever’s and took the company to even greater profitability than during its Unilever days.

All Media Services

“Now if I’m interviewing all these people with entrepreneurial fervour and flair, I must have learnt something from them and I did. In 2000 I started a company called All Media Services Limited and I set up office in a bedroom in a low income area.”

James surmises that the business community likes to see continuity and are risk averse. It likes to see something working. The programmes he created were successful and gained a following with a dedicated audience. He states that the programmes created good revenues for the RJR Group over the years.

How it worked was James would get a fee from the RJR Group plus a percentage of the advertising revenues. He believes those programmes played their part in enhancing shareholder value.

“I wish more persons at senior journalism levels would understand the importance of shareholder value because without it you do not have a job.

“My time with TVJ, a subsidiary of RJR lead me to believe that ownership was the way to go. In 2003 I conceptualised a programme called “On a Personal Note” which sought to highlight personal finance issues that impacted on Jamaicans. It focused on issues like young people remaining at home to save money, does one rent or buy a home? How do I buy my first car? The programme resonated with young people. I added a motivational piece in the show. Months after the advent of the show it won the top business award in Jamaica. I don’t like to blow my own trumpet but public opinion is my best reward. What the members of the public say about the value of my work is one of the things that have kept me going. The encouragement of the business elite has also being a motivating factor in my career. I am also encouraged by entrepreneurialism. That is how I think we are going to pull this country out of the quagmire it has found itself in for over two decades. If we can harness the skills of our bright young people and change the bureaucracy that has enslaved our business sector and change the mindset of some of our business leaders, then I see a way out for Jamaica.”

Companies must keep profits in Jamaica

James went on to say that he would like to see more Jamaican companies spend more of their profits here or put another way, he wants to see them repatriate less of what they earn. The way he sees it, companies that make their profits here have a moral obligation to spend a substantial percentage of it in Jamaica. More than US$1 billion a year is repatriated out of Jamaica by companies operating here.

“I would like to see companies that are sold because others see value in them, that some of the proceeds of the sale remain here to help bolster and help Jamaica. It has to be reinvested here because if we don’t go that route, we will continue to go down hill. Bring that money back to Jamaica and influence government policy. We need to be more business pro-active and get behind the idea of seeing more Jamaican businesses flourishing. We have to put in place business-oriented policies that no idealistic political leader can ever again, put in place strategies to scare away capital from this country. I feel very passionate about this. It is a dream I want to implement through my body of work. I am an advocate and supporter of the free enterprise system which even former communist countries are now espousing,” declared the creator of ‘The Business Day’.

But all this cannot come to fruition in a vacuum. James makes it clear that it is incumbent on inspirational private sector leadership to step up to the plate and accept some national responsibility. They have to head corporations that believe in Jamaica and have its best interests at heart.

How does Owen James view media in Jamaica today?

James with nearly forty years experience as a media practitioner would like to see greater mentorship and training in media houses. He sees talent in television, print and radio but says it needs to be harnessed. He added that he would not like to see many of his young colleagues go through what he had to. He would like to see the younger generation handle technical issues and complex controversial scenarios and come out unscathed.

“We are not the sole repository of knowledge and we have to recognise that. If you are weak in one area seek help from someone you trust and whose performance is tried and proven. The media landscape has been negatively impacted by the proliferation of media houses.

“When I entered journalism there were just two broadcast houses in Jamaica, RJR and JBC. Back then you had about five or six very talented journalists at RJR and about four at JBC. On the newspaper side you had The Gleaner and the Daily News came along later and faltered. No one then challenged the dominance of The Gleaner until the advent of the Jamaica Observer under its inspirational leader Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart. Both The Gleaner and The Jamaica Observer keeps each other on their toes and that is good for the consumer.

“With the explosive growth of broadcast entities in both radio and television there has been no commensurate growth in the quality of journalism. What has happened is that quality has been diluted because there is very little attention paid to training. Many of these media houses do not even have a meaningful training budget. For the profession to move forward this is necessary. You can’t just rely on foreign entities giving you a grant to train your employees. Training has to be an integral part of any media business. You must recruit personnel who are whole-heartedly interested in journalism, not law and accounting and simply use the profession as a stepping stone. It is perplexing to see the number of journalists who now fancy themselves as lawyers but have not mastered the art of communication. That’s not to say that one cannot study these disciplines in order to enhance their proficiency as a quality journalist.”