RECENT comments by TVJ’s highly entertaining sports commentator Oral Tracey have caused me to return to the subject of codes of practice and the importance of balanced journalism.

I am referring specifically to his commentary on three hot topics — the ‘racism’ accusation against the England and Chelsea Captain John Terry; the sentencing of three Pakistani players convicted of match fixing; and the Chris Gayle imbroglio with the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB).

In response to previous comments raised in this column about Tracey some readers apparently felt that my reference to him as a comedian implied that I was unappreciative of the effectiveness of the use of comedy in public discourse such as employed by John Stewart on US network TV, or even by Jay Leno. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I go further by repeating that I am a regular viewer of Sports Commentary not only because I regard Tracey as fun to watch and, to some extent, to listen to, but also because I believe he invests a lot of effort and skill in getting the job done for TVJ each night. I also think that he is fairly knowledgeable about sports in general, and football in particular, which remains the most popular sport in Jamaica despite our relative lack of success on the international stage in recent years.

So, I do appreciate his views on the outcomes of games and the performance of our athletes in general. But Tracey tends to go awry in some of his comments about matters often tangentially related to the field of play, some of which have a bearing on ethical principles.

One has to hand it to Tracey, however, that he somehow manages to come up with a subject of interest every night. I don’t for a minute think that I am alone in contending that writing a weekly column is a most challenging undertaking.

It is just as reasonable to believe that the production of a nightly sports (or news of any sort) commentary is equally demanding. So I applaud Tracey for what he has done and done exceedingly well.

His remarks about the ‘racism’ charge against John Terry, however, made me sit up to take special note. Tracey apparently feels that black people tend to be too sensitive about their race and that there is a ‘knee-jerk’ reaction every time a black person is referred to as such.

While some of that may be true, no one should be misguided into thinking that racism is a closed chapter in the UK and other parts of the Caucasian-dominated world, so much so that people like Terry can get off with outrageous comments such as what he is being investigated by the football establishment. It comes as no surprise that the black player Anton Ferdinand, at the centre of the impasse, has since been the recipient of at least one death threat that is now being investigated by the UK police.

The issue of race remains such an explosive one in the UK, as in some other parts of the world, that this is part of the reason most management bodies worldwide, like journalism codes, stipulate the avoidance of prejudicial or pejorative reference to a person’s race, colour, religion, etc. It was not very long ago that a black player had to be three times as good to be even considered for the English national team.

Hence, while that country and its football leagues have come a long way, one has to be careful that we don’t go to the other extreme by not stomping on displays of bigotry, signs of which Terry showed in his altercation with Ferdinand during the Chelsea vs Queens Park Premier League game. Arising from that encounter, Terry admitted using the phrase “f…ing black c..t”, but claims he did so after denying using it in the first place against Ferdinand.

Tracey feels that Terry, in the heat of the game, was simply referring to Ferdinand as ‘black’ in much the same way as he would refer to a short man as ‘short’, or a tall man as ‘tall’. I suspect that Tracey is a fan of the Chelsea player, because how else could one explain away the Chelsea captain’s description of Ferdinand as anything less than a state of mind that is inviting of racism?

For the record, I would like to take Terry at his word, but still feel that his choice of words reflect a negative mind-frame in much the same way as it would if the shoe were on the other foot.

If Tracey’s comments about Terry’s utterance caused me to sit up, his response to the sentencing of three Pakistani players last week was astonishing. The justice meted out to the players must have been guided by similar sentiments in the sentencing to prison of US Olympian Marion Jones who admitted to cheating and as such to bringing the sport into disrepute. Does Tracey believe that that trial judge also erred in Jones’ case?

The three Pakistani players — Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif, and Mohammad Amir — and their agent Mazhar Majeed were sentenced to terms of between two years, eight months, and six months for match-fixing in the Lord’s Test match last summer. What is especially interesting is that the charge and conviction against the four arose from a media sting operation by News of the World. The four are now the first sportsmen to be jailed for on-field corruption in the UK for almost 50 years.

The words of the trial judge, Mr Justice Cooke, in sentencing, best sum up the global sentiments that “their actions undermined the integrity and image of cricket and meant no fan could ever trust what they saw on the field again”.

The judge made it clear that the evidence pointed to the players and Majeed being involved in more extensive corruption than that detailed during the four-week trial, and also suggested the involvement of other players.

Noman Niaz, Pakistani cricket analyst and a former assistant manager of the Pakistan national team, said the shock of the prison terms could help stamp out corruption in the game. So what was Tracey thinking when he declared in his usual dramatic style that he was opposed to the harshness of the sentence?

In fairness to the TVJ commentator, he declared that he was among those against match-fixing and that such a practice ought not to go unpunished, but maintained that the sentence was too harsh. So while he may not have been advocating a mere ‘slap on the wrist’, he definitely gave the impression that something less than jail time would be more acceptable. Now, how else can one regard such an observation as anything other than sheer comedy?

The other sports commentary bomber by Tracey was his comparison in the treatment of a Manchester City footballer with that of Chris Gayle by the WICB. Apologies have been required from both players by their management boards before they can be again considered for selection. Describing the two as an “apples and oranges’ situation, Tracey declared that Gayle was more valuable to West Indies cricket while the UK player’s services were dispensable, so on those grounds Gayle should be immediately reinstated. Now how is that for comedy?

I support Tracey’s views that the WICB is not without sin. However, infractions certainly cannot be assessed largely on the basis of a player’s status and talent.