Ken Ali

?David (Big Broth­er) El­cock was dubbed Dean of Broad­cast­ers, sev­er­al years ago, for his rich ver­sa­til­i­ty and dom­i­nance of the ear­ly morn­ing air­waves. El­cock, now in his mid-60s, has been domi­ciled in the US for the past 11 years. He re­turned home for a nos­tal­gic get-to­geth­er of em­ploy­ees of Ra­dio 610, a pop­u­lar fre­quen­cy from the 1960s to the 1980s. He made time for an in­ter­view with the Sun­day Guardian.

Q: What are your thoughts on the cur­rent qual­i­ty of broad­cast­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go?

A: Gen­er­al­ly, sub-stan­dard! There are ex­cep­tions, but I shud­der to re­al­ly enu­mer­ate or call names. Ob­vi­ous­ly, I can­not mon­i­tor all sta­tions, but from what I've heard, there is a lot of au­toma­tion. I have heard there are many talk shows. I un­der­stand most morn­ing shows are host­ed by two per­son­al­i­ties, some­times more, with a lot of au­di­ence in­ter­ac­tion. I am not sure how great a pur­pose they serve. I get the im­pres­sion, as some­one from the old school, that not enough em­pha­sis is be­ing placed on train­ing, prop­er ed­u­ca­tion, abil­i­ty to speak flu­ent­ly, to enun­ci­ate well, and to be mind­ful of what one says on the air. Those stan­dards have dropped dra­mat­i­cal­ly. There are many sta­tions, but the ma­jor­i­ty–not all–need a lot of work in terms of pro­fes­sion­al­ism and qual­i­ty pro­gram­ming.

Is it that more hasn't meant bet­ter?

I would say so, Ken. In fact, I was in a dis­cus­sion on that sub­ject in a bar­ber shop. I went to vis­it my old bar­ber from 30 years, and there was spec­u­la­tion about how all the sta­tions are far­ing. Many of them have very few com­mer­cials, and I am sure they have lots of bills to pay. There is so much sim­i­lar­i­ty. More has not turned out to be bet­ter. I echo the sen­ti­ments of Ed Fung. It is sur­pris­ing that so many are still on the air. If there were no dra­mat­ic changes in con­tent and qual­i­ty, lots of them would have to fold up.

How could stan­dards be im­proved?

In sev­er­al ways. Most im­por­tant­ly is the screen­ing of your can­di­dates for on-air work. I know there are sev­er­al (train­ing) schools. Edi­son Carr does an ex­cel­lent job of train­ing an­nounc­ers. I think, at least, some CXC sub­jects are es­sen­tial. Eng­lish has got to be among them. They need to know what is go­ing on around them, in so­cial af­fairs. They need to be mind­ful. They should strive to be ex­em­plars in terms of their speech.

Man­agers should make it a point to hire an­nounc­ers who know the Eng­lish lan­guage and who have a lev­el of in­tel­li­gence and elo­quence,

One of the prob­lems, Ken, is that some man­agers look for pop­u­lar peo­ple, par­ty DJs, to say nice things, and to make peo­ple feel good. But ra­dio should be more than a feel-good medi­um. There needs to be more of the sense of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and pride of the old days, with broad­cast­ers like Ed Fung, Frank Hugh­es, Leo de Leon, Bob­by Thomas, Trevor Mc­Don­ald, Sam Ghany, Bob Git­tens, Er­rol Cheva­lier, Clyde Al­lyene, Desmond Bourne, Carl Red­head and more.

These peo­ple were al­most deities of broad­cast­ing to young ones. They had our re­spect, and if they cor­rect­ed us, we were hap­py that they took the time to show us the way. I don't know there are enough ex­em­plars (to­day). Ap­par­ent­ly, you are qual­i­fied as long as you have a bit of a per­son­al­i­ty, a voice and can string some sen­tences to­geth­er with some co­her­ence. To me, that is wrong. Man­age­ment has got to be more as­sid­u­ous in se­lect­ing on-air staff.

Is there a role for the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Au­thor­i­ty?

I have been ab­sent for 11 years. I am a firm be­liev­er in hav­ing en­ti­ties po­lice them­selves. You call them in and tell them we need bet­ter stan­dards. There is no ques­tion that things are not as they should be. I could see them sit­ting with the heads of the 30-odd sta­tions and dis­cussing the dos and don'ts, rather than is­su­ing a de­cree. They should rea­son to­geth­er. There should be more plan­ning and an­nounc­er train­ing.

Dis­cuss and come with some agree­ment. If af­ter a year there is lit­tle or no change, then the au­thor­i­ty can say if you guys can't po­lice your­self, then we have to do it for you. I would dread the day that takes place. It would cause fric­tion. But if ac­tion has to be tak­en, then so be it. I think it is late in the day, but T&T con­tent, as far as work­able, needs to have some kind of pres­ence. If sta­tions do their home­work, they could in­ter­weave qual­i­ty lo­cal acts in­to their pro­gram­ming.

What are your views on the cur­rent ten­sions be­tween the me­dia and the Prime Min­is­ter?

I was a trustee of MATT be­fore I went away. I would not want MATT to agree to have lo­cal me­dia over­seen by any au­thor­i­ty. That could be a can of worms. The me­dia should be al­lowed to po­lice them­selves. The Prime Min­is­ter has a point that things could be im­proved, but im­pos­ing an au­thor­i­ty would not be help­ful.

What is your take on the gen­er­al state of the na­tion and of gov­er­nance?

My heart bleeds for the state of af­fairs of the coun­try, in terms of crime and what seems to be se­ri­ous cor­rup­tion at cer­tain lev­els. I have heard that some mem­bers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vice are al­leged­ly in­volved in un­savoury acts. It re­al­ly dis­turbs me. In the US, every pres­i­dent I have heard–Clin­ton, Bush and Oba­ma–al­ways said the first and most im­por­tant re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the pres­i­dent and gov­ern­ment is the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of the peo­ple. I won­der if this is the mind­set of those in charge. One in­stance was the woman whose car was ac­cost­ed, and she drove in­to a po­lice sta­tion, think­ing it was a safe haven, and was killed.

There are cas­es where peo­ple are shot in the head or chest and the gun­man cool­ly walks away, be­cause he knows no one would bear wit­ness in the case. Law­less­ness is rife. Those in au­thor­i­ty are pay­ing lip ser­vice. It is time to con­sid­er manda­to­ry train­ing cen­tres, in var­i­ous skills. Thou­sands of young peo­ple could be in a kind of boot camp, and train­ing would be the or­der of the day. Al­so, a na­tion­al sports foun­da­tion could be set up. We don't know how many out­stand­ing sports peo­ple could emerge. At present, there is nowhere to train him or for him to re­lease his tal­ent. Set up these cen­tres across the coun­try. Let the coun­try see there is a strat­e­gy and plan, and not just talk.

Are you con­fi­dent that T&T can at­tain de­vel­oped na­tion sta­tus by 2020?

Ken, I am the eter­nal op­ti­mist. I al­so feel when you have reached the low­est point, the on­ly way out is up. But em­pha­sis has to be tak­en away from the sky­scrap­ers, the huge ho­tels, smelt­ing plants and the in­dus­tri­al push that is the hall­mark of those in pow­er. They must be mixed with pro­grammes that up­lift peo­ple. I don't want 2020 to come and to see a va­grant over­turn­ing a bin down­town to look for food. Put peo­ple first. With­out a shift of em­pha­sis to in­clude the pop­u­la­tion in a mas­sive way, then 2020 would be on­ly a dream.

Is there any­thing about the sub­stance or style of Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma that our Prime Min­is­ter could em­u­late?

Yes, but the Pres­i­dent of the US, and, be­fore him, Clin­ton and Kennedy, had that elu­sive qual­i­ty called charis­ma. Oba­ma, of course, is an ac­com­plished lawyer and a State sen­a­tor in Chica­go. Hav­ing been in Mr Oba­ma's pres­ence, I feel Mr Man­ning could take a leaf from his book. Mr Oba­ma is still mak­ing his way. He has two wars to over­see; he has to push his health care pro­gramme, with enor­mous op­po­si­tion from the con­ser­v­a­tives, in ad­di­tion to oth­er chal­lenges. He is ob­vi­ous­ly bent on mak­ing a dif­fer­ence as Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States.