The Price for Being Who I Am: An Interview with Eric Jackson

I got into journalism because I came of age in the '60s. It just seemed one way for me to get things done.
Joe Klein

Journalism without a moral position is impossible. Every journalist is a moralist. It's absolutely unavoidable.
Marguerite Duras

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

The morning that I write this introduction—Monday, June 18—Eric Jackson is mentioned prominently in “Un agitado mercado bilingüe”: an article that appears in La Prensa, Panamá’s most highly-regarded Spanish-language newspaper. The article calls Eric an “important and historic player” in Panamanian English-language journalism.

When it comes to Panama’s past and present, Eric Jackson is the most knowledgeable person I’ve met. What’s more the breath of his knowledge—on an impressive array of subjects both within and outside of Panama—is wide and deep. This makes Eric’s journalism essential reading for all English-speakers who wish to become better informed about events that affect Panama.

But Eric writings also tend to get him into a lot of trouble because he’s not afraid to speak his mind. He has been at the forefront in bringing down American scam artists who come to this country to fleece wide-eyed innocent investors; and he’s an outspoken critic of all forms of corruption.

This has earned Eric some powerful enemies.

But Eric continues to write and publish The Panama News, in spite of its lack of profitability. But I’m thrilled he does so. I hate to think what Panama would become for English-speaking residents without Eric’s personal brand of honest, forthright, and intelligent journalism. The Panama News is a pillar of Panama’s English-language civic and cultural discourse, and that is why I contribute—ad honorem—a few of my writings to this noble effort.

Recently, I had a chance to chat with Eric, and that conversation resulted in this interview.

Sirias: Are you a Zonian?

Jackson: Depends on how you define it. I was raised colonial on the Atlantic side of the Canal Zone, but then there are people that think that "Zonian" is a state of mind, or a birthright that belongs exclusively to people born and raised in the Canal Zone.

If by “Zonian” you mean the sort of person who hangs around Tampa and moans about how Jimmy Carter stabbed us in the back, I'm not one of those. I supported the treaties.

If you mean someone who grew up in public housing that wasn't a slum, drank of the water of the Chagres and knows where Peter McGill is, then I’m one of those.

Sirias: At what age did you leave Panama?

Jackson: I was 13, in 1966.

Sirias: How long did you live in the States and what did you do there?

Jackson: For about 28 years and during that time I did many things.

First, I suffered profound culture shock and didn’t at all fit in Detroit's 'burbs.” Then I dropped out of that scene and out of high school to become the wildest of young hippie radicals. I ended up in Ypsilanti—the slums of Ann Arbor—where I became involved in public affairs. Eventually, I went back to school (a judge actually sentenced me to do so), got my BS in political science and history at Eastern Michigan University, went to child development extension courses at the University of Michigan, got my "second" JD from Detroit College of Law (a doctorate in jurisprudence, to go along with my juvenile delinquent record) and practiced law for about 10 years, a profession that I thoroughly came to hate. But all along I was involved in journalism, in various capacities.

Sirias: In what year did you return to Panama and why did you decide to come back?

Jackson: I had met some financial reverses and gone through a major depression. So I wound up the law practice and came back here in 1994 to cover that year's elections. I watched Rubén Blades self-destruct, got hired as editor of a new publication called The Panama News, and I’ve never looked back.

One big reason I came back is the depression that runs in my family: up in Michigan, even though I love the cold weather, I get these seasonal depressions due to fewer hours of sunlight in the winter. The doctors call this "Seasonal Affective Disorder." I don't have that problem here, even in the gloomiest of rainy season.

Sirias: How did you hook up with The Panama News?

Jackson: Panamanian-American-Brit Robin Morland—who used to assist my Little League coach when I was a kid—wanted to start an English-language paper and I applied for the editing job.

Sirias: How did you get your start in journalism?

Jackson: Aside from a few junior high and high school lessons, a community college course in journalism, and working for that community college's paper, I got my start in journalism when I was 17 working for a hippie radical "underground" newspaper in East Lansing. The following year I moved to Ypsilanti and really took the plunge into the underground press.

Along the way I became a politician and campaign manager, so I learned a lot about press relations from that end. I was also on the staff of the Detroit College of Law Review, which is a whole different kind of writing. And I was an associate editor with Agenda, an alternative monthly in Ann Arbor.

Sirias: Who are your journalistic heroes?

Jackson: Two women, whom I never met except through their work, come to the top of my mind: the late American columnist Molly Ivins and the late Canadian television journalist Barbara Frum. Ivins was wonderful at coining phrases and puncturing the pretensions of the pompous. Frum was the most amazing interviewer I ever saw, and I saw all the US television's stars. Frum was so good that they made a Canadian Sesame Street character, the purple journalist Barbara Plum, more or less in her image.

Two journalists who wrote their best stuff before I was born or when I was a kid have been very inspiring to me: the late John Hersey (Hiroshima being the best of his best, but The Algiers Motel Incident was also part of the process of my radicalization in the late 60s), and the founder of environmental journalism, the late Rachel Carson (Silent Spring).

I knew the late Jerry Rubin, he was a fine writer and he helped me quite a bit. I spent a few days writing antiwar literature with a couple of the other founding Yippies: Judy Gumbo (Judy Clavair Albert) and her late husband, Stew Albert—a true master from whom I learned a bit about headline writing. One of my political mentors and heroes, the late Zolton Ferency—he was the first Democratic state party chair to oppose Lyndon Johnson over the Vietnam War, and paid a heavy political price for this—taught me a lot about what's newsworthy and what isn't.

Harlan Ellison's television reviewing, collected in his two Glass Teat volumes, was inspiring to me. I don't personally get into the savage insult style of reviewing, however, so whatever influence he may have had on my writing would be in other genres, such as his speculative fiction. But still I say that anyone who reads English and doesn't know the works of Harlan Ellison is culturally deprived.

Sirias: Your opinions sometimes cause great controversy, aren't you afraid of losing readers?

Jackson: I know that I do lose readers and, worse yet, sometimes the respect of people whom I had hoped would think better of me.

All of my adult life I’ve intentionally paid the price for being who I am without living a life of false pretenses. I’ve seen so many brilliant people shoehorn themselves into mainstream acceptability and they end up hating the tradeoff in the end. But then I’m childless and have been divorced most of my life. Had I been responsible for supporting kids it surely would have forced more compromises upon me.

I happen to be a man of the left, which is not to say that some of the people, ideas and actions coming out of the left have not from time to time embarrassed me. Really, if you believe sincerely in any cause for any length of time and you possess an ordinary sense of human decency, you will notice gray areas and contradictions about your side that aren't right. (Was the definitive smashing of youthful illusions my 1979 trip to Cuba? I went to a house where Che used to live, which has been turned into a museum, and there it was—a photo of Fidel and Che playing golf!)

No matter what I stand for, there will be readers who disagree. In the United States, things are so polarized these days that on all sides there are people who want to silence those who disagree with them. The Bush administration would like to silence those who report or discuss truths that are inconvenient for them. Yes, I am against torture. Yes, I am against going to war for a lie. Yes, there are elements of the American community in Panama who would silence me because I take these stands; and then there are those that just don't read The Panama News because of some of the opinions I’ve expressed.

Similarly, I take the Panamanian side of my dual citizenship seriously, and when I do that I’m against corruption and I avoid being a shill for any political party, aristocratic family or wannabe caudillo. I also refuse to accept funds from the Panamanian government to publish a lie about important national issues—whether it's the ACP (Autoridad del Canal de Panama) misrepresenting the contents of their own canal expansion studies or Toro Pérez Balladares (ex-president of Panama), who does not have a doctorate, plastering the country with signs saying "Dr. Pérez Balladares Cumple.”

And, you know, for everyone who's driven away from reading The Panama News, for everyone who doesn't understand that I’ve been cut off from access to certain institutions because I don’t play dishonest games, there are others that do understand and appreciate my work. The Panama News has more than 40,000 readers a month, more than any other English-language news publication from and about Panama.

And it’s important, I think, to understand who these readers are. There’s a segment of the so-called "American expat community" that believes they have a monopoly on the English language. Because of this attitude, they want to exclude non-Americans from any discussions that take place in English. But Panama has had an English-speaking community for 150 years, most of it of West Indian heritage. And most of my readers are neither wealthy nor very poor. And the people coming down here from North America to retire and who read The Panama News are overwhelmingly middle class—they're not snapping up apartments in that Donald Trump monstrosity that’s being built on Avenida Balboa. In addition, Panama's wealthiest classes speak English as a second language, and a lot of the middle class has learned English for their working lives. And then there are the overseas readers of The Panama News, and that includes all sorts of people with historic ties to this country—those who came with the US military and married Panamanians; Zonians transplanted to the Gulf Coast of the USA; Afro-Caribbean Americans with roots in Panama who now live in the Crown Heights area of Brooklyn, the Baltimore-DC area, Sacramento, and Florida, and Texas, and elsewhere. These folks don't fit IPAT's (Instituto Panameño de Turismo) and the hustlers' stereotype of rich white folks with more money than brains who are coming down here to be somebody's sucker. And I'm not writing for the 50-something guy who’s coming down here in search of teenage nookie, or the right-wing tax resistor who sees Panama as the next step in white flight. I'm not writing for the vanilla "expat community."

What that in mind, I do my best to serve the readers who appreciate The Panama News, and I give space for those who disagree with me or with any of the contributors. But I’m forthright with my opinions, even if they're unpopular, and above all I try not to insult the readers’ intelligence with dumbed-down McJournalism or insincere opinions.

The bottom line? I call 'em like I see 'em.

Sirias: How do you respond to people who claim that you use The Panama News to pursue personal crusades?

Jackson: They have to identify specifically what they mean. But I do stand for certain things. I’m against government corruption. I’m against the use of Panama as a base for international frauds. I’m against torture, "preventive" wars and other forms of uncalled-for violence. I’m against the irrational and hateful social exclusions and economic discriminations that divide societies, in general, and specifically rob Panama of much talent that it can't afford to waste.

I’m for the rights and dignity of working people. I’m for preserving, restoring and properly managing our natural resources. I’m for a new constitution and a new set of social and political arrangements in Panama because, as I see it, the present system works to the disadvantage of most people.

So which crusade? Those who want to get personal with me had better get specific.

Sirias: Whatever the complaints about your brand of journalism, you're an excellent writer. How did you develop this talent?

Jackson: I had a few good teachers along the way. Mrs. Jorstad in fourth grade, Mr. Palumbo in junior high, Tom Williams who taught me black history and black literature, Nadean Bishop who taught me English composition, Leonas Sabaliunas who taught me political science, and Harold Norris who taught me criminal law all come to mind.

Although it's a different type of writing, my legal writing classes in law school were the most rigorous lessons I had.

But it started with my parents being bookworms and has continued with my also being an avid reader. To write well you need to read a lot of good writing, as well as some not so good stuff, and learn how to tell the difference.

Sirias: You're very open about your struggle with bouts of depression. Aren't you concerned that it makes you vulnerable to personal attacks from your critics?

Jackson: Oh, it has. But most people are gradually becoming educated about the perils of depression. Although we have different tastes in music, I take my hat off to Tipper Gore for being upfront about having a chemical imbalance disorder that they call manic depression or bipolar affective disorder. This ailment can be deadly—both my father and my cousin died at age 43 when it made them suicidal—but it can be controlled and lived with.

Sirias: How do you deal with the personal, sometimes virulent attacks you receive in letters? Sometimes, in fact, these letters can be classified as hate mail.

Jackson: Often I laugh. I never cry. When a reader has a valid point, and good reason to be mad at me, I try to do justice.

I print most of the hate mail because it's instructive to readers about what's going on in the community. But sometimes people send vicious mail in another person’s name, so I’m being a bit more careful about the letters that I publish.

But these letters go back to the "personal crusades" allegation above.

I remember when the Americans were not so well accepted in Panama, and it was not just for geopolitical reasons. It was because some of our personal attitudes, personal behaviors—that went on to become political emblems—made real human beings into political and sometimes actual targets.

It’s important for the American community, in particular, and the English-speaking community, in general, to ostracize the worms among us. The English-language newspaper must be the first to denounce the American child molester who seeks refuge and fertile ground here, the swindler who is here to run scams, the Rex Freemans, and Eddie Ray Kahns, and Marc Harrises who give Americans bad names while living in our midst. If it's not our own community that raises the alarm, then someday some demagogue who means us ill will be able to point to Americans in general and say we're all a bunch of scum and they’ll win over a few Panamanians who will then try to drive us out. When your first real political experience in life is being evacuated from your house under sniper fire at age 11 during an anti-American riot—which is the case with me—then these kinds of concerns are neither abstract nor theoretical.

Sirias: What has been the most pleasant surprise you've had as editor of The Panama News?

Jackson: There have been many. One of them was just a few days ago, when The Panama News website was down for several days during a server change. I got an email expressing concern from a guy with the US forces in Iraq.

Also, several years ago, the then secretary general of the Association of Caribbean States contacted me and said that he'd like to have his column in The Panama News. This was another pleasant moment because I didn't know at the time how extensive a West Indian following The Panama News really had.

Sirias: What are your hopes for the future of The Panama News?

Jackson: The right kind of business alliances that would make the publication grow to the point that it would expand in several directions and become an even more prominent voice for culture and intelligence.

When The Panama News is what it ought to be, it will be much less marked by my personal opinions and idiosyncrasies. As much as I may agree with my own opinions—and to the extent that I change my mind about things, I don't always agree—I realize that I’m only one person and that my tastes and points of view are often very far from the norm.

As part of a larger picture, I'd like to see The Panama News as part of a movement that can help change the North to South monologue, so that as much as people in Latin America now look to CNN or The New York Times or the Miami Herald for information, people in the industrialized countries can look to media from Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia to become better informed about the world. You see, the northern news businesses have failed us and instead of moaning about it, I'm trying to fill as much of the gap as I can.