Editorial | Gleaner at 192 – Vanguard of truth in an age of misinformation

Who really is @jayjaybrown97?

@jayjaybrown97 is on the social media platform X. At the moment, he, she or they, has/have a few thousand followers and a toy dog as a profile picture.

We have no idea of the demographic groupings into which Jay Brown falls but, let’s call Jay “he”.

Jay circles like corbeaux swooping down to pick at certain specific kinds of content or to pursue particular and rather narrow lines of argument.

A few weeks ago, The Gleaner made an access to information request of the Office of the Prime Minister and, just one day after we made it, Jay plastered on X the fact of our request, asking whether The Gleaner didn’t consider that it had more important stories to pursue.

How did Jay get his hands on our request? We will never be able to prove, but there he was, intercepting, shadow boxing and hiding his hand.

Jay is only an example, though, just one of myriad operatives of this entity, or that.

Some of these public relations agents of sorts, weaponise social media, spewing out random, careless and sometimes quite dangerous posts without ever having to take responsibility.

During the run-up to the last General Election one year ago, blatant lies and vile innuendoes were posted in social media spaces by persons unknown, suggesting, and in some cases stating as fact, that Gleaner journalists were in the pockets of partisans.

These invisibles offered not an iota of proof but, armed with devious intent and a smart phone, in an instant, they ensured that the security of members of our team became a matter we had to navigate as a company for the entire campaign season.

Then there are the citizen journalists and thousands of others who post information labelling it as news without applying any journalistic rigour.

Over half a billion people across the world could be described as active monthly users of X.

The jury is out on how many of them are real people. It may be even harder to discern how many of those “real” people are indeed who they claim to be.

Many of the billions of posts and shares across Instagram, X and other platforms contain facts. But the inclusion of facts does not deliver a full picture, and millions are consuming these bits and pieces from hither, thither and yon.

This is part of the context in which journalism must seek to thrive in 2026.

Today marks 192 years since “ The Gleaner and Weekly Compendium of News” was first published and while in Jamaica we may not generally be in fear for our lives, the space which true journalism is asked to navigate may now be more hazardous than ever.

Our team members work their sources and angles, sometimes they write their pieces, agonisingly holding on to them as they await comment or confirmation. Then they put their names, their real names, above and below their stories.

They cannot do what Jay does.

Nor do they have the luxury of the range of content creators who sit, wait and simply take our work to build their brands.

Last month, a YouTuber snatched work done by our business desk, adjusted commas, changed a word here or there, and presented it as though it was his own endeavour. He does this from time to time.

The grunt work is ours, but he swoops in, lends his voice to it, and earns at no cost to him: no overheads, no real work.

The work, by the way, required sifting through public, but not easily accessible data, downloading Excel datasets, analysing, and distilling the content to write the piece.

Yet, Mr YouTuber pawned it off as his own and had the temerity to invite those interested in “his” content to “like, subscribe and hit the notification bell”.

We, of course, embrace social media and all digital spaces, but our content, even the bite-sized version often required, is still the result of authentic journalistic work.

This is not to suggest that we never get it wrong.

While committed to the time-honoured tenets of truth, accuracy, balance and right of reply, the human condition guarantees that we will make mistakes and, when we do, we are pilloried. We must take our ‘licks’ and, most importantly, take responsibility.

Credibility doesn’t mean we don’t get it wrong, it means our guiding principle, our North Star, is to be comprehensive and to get it right the first time. We actively work towards that and we are accountable when we veer.

Information is not scarce. Properly researched, balanced news is, and may become more scarce because it’s a jungle out there and we are squaring off with the known and the unknown, with jumbies, duppies and Jay.

These are not days of quill and ink and the ‘power of the pen’ is hardly literal, but the core responsibility remains and, like the gleaners in the fields of old, our teams do the detailed work of gathering far beyond the easy pickings and the surface work of the first harvesters, pulling the remaining wheat together into something substantial.

We don’t want a society without that. We cannot afford to have a society without that.

So, as we head towards 200 years and beyond, in the face of changing news consumption habits and morphing platforms, we recommit to seeking truth and pursuing balance, telling the stories that matter, and holding accountable those who are in possession of the people’s proxy.

We do so declaring our transparency with the bylines of our team members and the weight of The Gleaner brand behind our work.

Unlike Jay, we cannot hide, and our raison d’être is larger than ourselves.

The editorial department expresses appreciation to the Editorial Board of the Gleaner Company (Media) Limited, for ceding the column space for this one-off, special, 192nd anniversary instalment of the Editorial. – Moya J. Thomas , editor-in-chief.