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The reporter and the recording that brought down the SSB Chairman

GeneralThe reporter and the recording that brought down the SSB Chairman

A News Analysis
BELIZE CITY, Sun. Apr. 19, 2020– On Tuesday, April 14, the Chairman of the Belize Social Security Board, Doug Singh, resigned less than two hours after an interview he gave to Belize Breaking News (BBN) reporter Aaron Humes went viral on social media.

Singh also resigned as Chairman of the Elections and Boundaries Commission and Director of Belize Telemedia Limited (BTL), all postings that he got from Prime Minister Dean Barrow, to whom his resignation letter was addressed.

Singh’s resignation in record time made both journalism and social media history, since his downfall was a first in both spheres.

On social media, Humes has been hailed as a hero by many, but there are others, some in the media, who think that he breached some ethical principles of the journalism profession. Humes’ sin, they are quick to point out, is that he recorded the interview without telling Singh and then “leaked it” on social media.

Humes, in a telephone conversation with this newspaper this afternoon, insisted that he did not leak the interview; he said that he merely shared it with his colleagues at BBN in a Facebook Messenger group they have for sharing information with each other.

Some enterprising person in the group or outside the group decided that the interview was explosive enough to be worth spreading outside of their group, and hence, it was posted in the public domain.

Humes admitted that “it was a raw interview that was not intended to be published in its exact format.”

Based on our conversation, it seems that Humes did not have any malicious intent toward Doug Singh.

Having established that, let’s look at the content of some of Singh’s remarks that he gratuitously offered without any coercion on the part of the reporter, Humes.

The subject of interviews is wide: there are all kinds of interviews — for example “off the record interviews,” “background interviews,” and “profile interviews,” just to mention a few.

In the case of Humes’s interview, it was supposed to have been a basic, straightforward interview during which Singh was probed for information about the government’s unemployment program for persons who had lost their employment due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Even when Singh was “going off” and was spewing a torrent of vulgar terms and profanities, Humes remained calm, and focused on asking questions about the government’s unemployment assistance to needy Belizeans.

These are the same needy Belizeans who somehow caught Singh’s ire — so much so that he could not contain himself and approach the interview professionally.

Singh came across as rude, uncaring and insensitive to a whole class of Belizeans, many of whom lost their employment due to the pandemic. He was particularly unkind to some single mothers.

Furthermore, if Singh respected Humes as a reporter, he would not have used profanity or veered off-course in many of his remarks, which came across as being intolerant of less privileged Belizeans.

Singh’s remarks were outstandingly vulgar and unbecoming of a man who held such high public offices in Belize.

The mainstream television stations have refused to quote extensively from Singh’s remarks because they reason that he was recorded without his knowledge.

Those same media personalities, however, did not hesitate to publish remarks made by the Leader of the Opposition in a private conversation that was secretly recorded. The handling of Singh’s recording now appears to be a double standard for the aforementioned media personalities.

Feature photo: (l-r) Doug Singh and Aaron Humes

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