Gail Alexan­der

The pres­ence of a suit­ed gov­ern­ment se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer in the Par­lia­ment's press sec­tion was not the on­ly un­usu­al ad­di­tion to yes­ter­day's House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives ses­sion. Ap­par­ent­ly aim­ing for re­bound from this week's furore in­volv­ing the me­dia and re­moval of ex-CN­MG co-an­chor Fazeer Mo­hammed, Gov­ern­ment ap­par­ent­ly looked in the next di­rec­tion. No­body was men­tion­ing (out loud) any per­ceived pen­chant by the pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion to use var­i­ous is­sues to dis­tract from hot-pota­to mat­ters. But ob­vi­ous­ly some on the PP side have long mem­o­ries. Much like Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ap­peared to have with her rec­ol­lec­tion of state­ments made by for­mer PM Patrick Man­ning in Sep­tem­ber 2008 about her al­leged link with the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion.

Yes­ter­day was Per­sad-Bisses­sar's time for pay­back on that score and the Op­po­si­tion PNM paid the full price in the House. As did Man­ning. "Un­der the for­mer gov­ern­ment, Big Broth­er seems to have tak­en a very keen in­ter­est in or­di­nary cit­i­zens' pri­vate lives and af­fairs," Per­sad-Bisses­sar pro­nounced, pro­duc­ing a list of peo­ple whose phones were al­leged­ly tapped by the Se­cu­ri­ty In­tel­li­gence Agency (SIA). The list she read out, though, com­prised no mere "or­di­nary cit­i­zens." It was heav­i­ly weight­ed with PP mem­bers–in­clud­ing sev­er­al for­mer me­dia work­ers now with the PP Gov­ern­ment–var­i­ous per­son­al­i­ties and a hand­ful of top- lev­el PN­Mites thrown in for good mea­sure.

Dressed in a black suit and sport­ing a new up­swept hair­do, Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not ap­pear in the least bur­dened by the CN­MG is­sue, Gov­ern­ment's need to bor­row, its dilem­ma with Cli­co pol­i­cy­hold­ers, or protests by any of the var­i­ous groups do­ing so re­cent­ly. While lam­bast­ing the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion for the al­leged wire-tap­ping, Per­sad-Bisses­sar how­ev­er sig­nalled her Gov­ern­ment's in­ten­tion to pur­sue "in­ter­cept com­mu­ni­ca­tion" leg­is­la­tion –in a re­vamped way–to fight crime. Her ad­min­is­tra­tion's chal­lenge how­ev­er may be one of trust on that score fol­low­ing yes­ter­day's dis­clo­sures–no mat­ter how many as­sur­ances Gov­ern­ment gives. At­tor­ney Robin Mon­tano, one of those on the list, con­tend­ed yes­ter­day that peo­ple whose phones were tapped have a right to dam­ages due to breach of their con­sti­tu­tion­al right to pri­va­cy. (He hasn't de­cid­ed yet if he will sue, he said.)

'First up'–and out for Fazeer

But as an is­sue of mass dis­trac­tion, the wire-tap­ping bac­cha­nal may still fail to side­track from the CN­MG mat­ter which has put Gov­ern­ment on the spot in an is­sue for which Per­sad-Bisses­sar pledged sup­port in her fist day in of­fice–me­dia free­doms. In­deed, PP mi­nor­i­ty part­ner–the COP–was meet­ing last night on the is­sue and on "press free­dom," COP chair­man Joseph Toney said. He added that there were views in the COP on the mat­ter. If with re­cent de­vel­op­ments the PP's hon­ey­moon is now over, it had ac­tu­al­ly last­ed longer than the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion's. In­deed, it was an is­sue of po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence con­cern­ing Prime Min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day and the me­dia which arose in Jan­u­ary 1996, two months af­ter Pan­day's par­ty as­sumed of­fice.

Guardian staff would re­call all too well the sce­nario which en­sued when Pan­day de­mand­ed the re­moval of then ed­i­tor-in-chief Jones P Madeira af­ter Pan­day took is­sue with a head­line, "Chut­ney Ris­ing," and an ed­i­to­r­i­al. Now 14 years lat­er with the PP, it is For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Su­ruj Ram­bachan who got­ten his ad­min­is­tra­tion in­to hot wa­ter over for­mer First Up host Fazeer Mo­hammed. In hot de­fence of Per­sad-Bisses­sar, he shift­ed from the role of in­ter­vie­wee to that of in­ter­view­er, try­ing to bait Mo­hammed on his opin­ions. Whether Ram­bachan sim­ply had a "Panchy­at" mo­ment hark­ing back to his own pre-Gov­ern­ment days as a talk­show host, or whether an agen­da was lurk­ing some­where, the sub­se­quent tim­ing of the "cost-cut­ting" ac­tion against Mo­hammed has com­plete­ly sup­port­ed the per­cep­tion of po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence. Es­pe­cial­ly since CN­MG cost-cut­ting had not been of­fi­cial­ly an­nounced by Gov­ern­ment.

Or even since new in­ter­im CEO Ken Ali took over two weeks ago.

And par­tic­u­lar­ly since no one else has been chopped from CN­MG. Even to date. What cat­a­pult­ed the sit­u­a­tion from per­cep­tion to re­al­i­ty and com­pound­ed it be­yond bug­bear sta­tus, how­ev­er, is the ap­point­ment of Gov­ern­ment In­for­ma­tion Ser­vices Ltd CEO, Andy John­son, to re­place Mo­hammed as co-an­chor on the show. That one move has served to neg­a­tive­ly af­fect sev­er­al pro­files. CN­MG CEO Ali, a for­mer week­ly jour­nal­ist who sought to re­move the blame from Gov­ern­ment je­fes and tote it him­self, was at the PM's side in the US when the is­sue broke. A strange lo­ca­tion for a new CEO of a sta­tion. But Ali's re­mark that John­son was "best suit­ed" to ful­fil the ob­jec­tive of mak­ing the sta­tion more com­pet­i­tive in the morn­ing gives rise to cer­tain ques­tions:

How any for­mer jour­nal­ist could not per­ceive that plac­ing the head of the gov­ern­ment in­for­ma­tion di­vi­sion to host a show on a state-owned sta­tion would com­pro­mise the sta­tion's im­age as an in­de­pen­dent me­dia house and down­grade it to gov­ern­ment pro­pa­gan­da sta­tus?

Whether the ob­vi­ous an­gle of gov­ern­ment in­ter­fer­ence in the sta­tion–as op­posed to in­nocu­ous man­age­ment re­struc­tur­ing–es­caped no­tice?

If the view from new po­si­tions ob­scured the fact that First Up–a tra­di­tion­al­ly hard-hit­ting show which helped state-owned CN­MG's bid as a com­pet­i­tive me­dia house–would no longer be viewed as im­par­tial as a re­sult of its new GISL host?

And what im­pact would this have on as­sist­ing CN­MG be­come more "com­pet­i­tive"?

Al­so, how could it not be seen that any jour­nal­ist join­ing Gov­ern­ment–par­tic­u­lar­ly in a top role such as GISL head–would hard­ly be viewed as they once were in the pri­vate sec­tor.

More­over: did the "cost-cut­ting re­align­ment/re­struc­tur­ing" mea­sures re­ferred to by Gov­ern­ment have the sanc­tion of a CN­MG Board?

The last CN­MG Board un­der Mar­lon Hold­er re­signed two months ago and none has yet been an­nounced. Yes­ter­day PP Press Sec­re­tary Garvin Nicholas con­firmed that boards for CN­MG and GISL have not been fi­nalised or named dur­ing the last month of board se­lec­tion de­lib­er­a­tions.

Andy on­ly 'hold­ing on' tem­porar­i­ly

For­mer long­stand­ing jour­nal­ist John­son would al­so know all of the above, which rais­es ques­tions on his own in­put in­to the mat­ter when cho­sen/asked/in­struct­ed to hold on af­ter Mo­hammed. The op­er­a­tive word here may in­deed be "hold­ing on" since Gov­ern­ment sources ac­knowl­edged to TG that may be the sta­tus of his tenure on the show as his spot on First Up will in­deed have neg­a­tive ef­fects.

John­son may re­call his words on Feb­ru­ary 1996 on the is­sue with then PM Pan­day and the Guardian when he said Pan­day's ac­tion at the time "was on­ly the lat­est in­ci­dent in a long and con­tin­u­ing his­to­ry of at­tempts by politi­cians and prime min­is­ters to in­ter­fere in how the press func­tions and then pun­ish me­dia peo­ple for per­ceived wrongs."

Is­sues of al­leged po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence will al­so hard­ly be un­fa­mil­iar turf for Ali and Ram­bachan.

In Jan­u­ary 1997 un­der the Pan­day ad­min­is­tra­tion, Ram­bachan chaired state-owed ICN–CN­MG's pre­vi­ous in­car­na­tion–and Ali was a board mem­ber when ICN's board be­came news over a di­rec­tive on a TTUTA protest. A memo to then-ICN head of news Tony Fras­er com­plained about lack of bal­anced re­port­ing and sought to bar the voice of then TTUTA head An­tho­ny Gar­cia. Ali was re­port­ed as say­ing it was a board mi­nor­i­ty view. Ram­bachan was re­port­ed as be­ing in favour of air­ing the TTUTA side. But the en­tire board was lat­er fired, Fras­er con­firmed Thurs­day. None of the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion in­volv­ing Mo­hammed is helped by the–cu­ri­ous­ly timed–move of PP's De­vant Ma­haraj to form a new me­dia as­so­ci­a­tion called As­so­ci­a­tion of In­de­pen­dent Me­dia Work­ers, which could split the ranks of lo­cal me­dia work­ers.

Ma­haraj said he wants to form AIM be­cause he felt the Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (MATT) was "pro- PNM." This at a time when fears about the col­lapse of the "dwin­dling" (sic) in­dus­try were re­cent­ly ar­tic­u­lat­ed by T&T Pub­lish­ers & Broad­cast­ers As­so­ci­a­tion head Ki­ran Ma­haraj. And un­for­tu­nate­ly, the ris­ing num­ber of for­mer me­dia work­ers en­sconced in gov­ern­ment posts– from Works and the AG's of­fice to OPM and Le­gal Af­fairs–may not nec­es­sar­i­ly mean a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of the role of the me­dia. As the ex­pe­ri­ence of Fazeer and First Up clear­ly shows.

Blow to PNM

The blows which the Op­po­si­tion PNM–more so for­mer leader Man­ning–took on yes­ter­day's wire-tap­ping is­sue comes on the heels of re­cent rum­bles in the PNM against new leader Kei­th Row­ley. And it al­so fol­lows Man­ning's re­cent moves to break his si­lence in the Par­lia­ment and have greater in­put in de­bates. How the sit­u­a­tion will af­fect Man­ning's cur­rent po­lit­i­cal stocks re­mains to be seen. How­ev­er, yes­ter­day's im­age of Man­ning re­peat­ed­ly ap­peal­ing to House Speak­er Mark for a chance to speak (and be­ing re­buffed just as many times) will not help any. The re­ac­tions from the past and present PNM lead­ers to yes­ter­day's wire-tap­ping rev­e­la­tions al­so clear­ly in­di­cate the dis­tance be­tween some in the par­ty.

Man­ning de­fend­ed him­self on the is­sue, al­so say­ing SIA staff were not in­struct­ed on how to do their job. Row­ley–one of those af­fect­ed by the wire­tap­ping–dis­tanced him­self from the sit­u­a­tion and re­in­forced his oft re­peat­ed po­si­tion of re­fus­ing to de­fend any­one's wrong­do­ing. As well, rev­e­la­tions that Row­ley as well as oth­er PN­Mites sup­port­ive of him–Don­na Cox, Pen­ny Beck­les, Faris Al Rawi–were be­ing mon­i­tored by the SIA un­der Man­ning's tenure, will hard­ly serve to re­in­force the par­ty's bond­ing process, al­ready in a hap­haz­ard sta­tus. It al­so re­mains to be seen what ef­fect on the process will arise from the news that MP Colm Im­bert–one of Man­ning's stal­warts while in Gov­ern­ment–was al­so af­fect­ed by the wire-tap­ping.

First up...or not

�2 What­ev­er words of wis­dom on life in the spot­light ac­tress Ju­lia Roberts may have had for PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar when they rubbed shoul­ders on Tues­day, the PM may al­ready have known.

�2 It would be hard not to face facts hav­ing been praised in one mag­a­zine's re­port this month (Glam­our) and panned in an­oth­er's (Time).

�2 But Per­sad-Bisses­sar may be pre­pared since she said yes­ter­day in Par­lia­ment, "Rest as­sured I do not an­tic­i­pate any­one else oc­cu­py­ing this chair for the next ten years."

�2 PNM Sen­a­tor Fitzger­ald Hinds was hav­ing so much fun on Tues­day dis­miss­ing the Gov­ern-ment as "dis­com­bob­u­lat­ed" in the Sen­ate that he fell vic­tim to same in his con­tri­bu­tion.

�2 Hinds, act­ing PNM Sen­ate leader, nar­row­ly missed in­clud­ing the fact that the land ac­qui­si­tion mo­tion un­der de­bate lacked cer­tain im­por­tant de­tails.

�2 His PNM col­leagues hur­ried­ly re­mind­ed him of it as he con­clud­ed, af­ter which Hinds ad­mit­ted that if he had omit­ted the de­tails the bill would have passed as is, and would have had to be re­de­bat­ed to in­clude the miss­ing as­pects.

�2 Was it lunch or just Hinds?

�2 What­ev­er, PP Sen­a­tor Vas­ant Bharath seemed in ill hu­mour–af­ter ar­riv­ing late for Tues­day's ses­sion and find­ing Hinds mid-stride in giv­ing him thun­der for drop­ping the "smelly bomb" re­gard­ing can­cel­la­tion of EM­BD con­tracts.

�2 Bharath shot a cou­ple acer­bic re­marks at Hinds across the floor, but kept his cool oth­er­wise.

�2 Not so PP Sen­ate leader Sub­has Pan­day, who jumped up shout­ing "35.2!"–quot­ing Par­lia­ment's Stand­ing Or­ders to try and halt Hinds from re­peat­ing that the Gov­ern­ment was "dan­ger­ous."

�2 (Yet an­oth­er word of the day from the PNM Sen­a­tor.)

�2 How­ev­er, Sub­has back­tracked, thought a minute, looked down at the Stand­ing Or­ders, then amend­ed his ap­peal to an equal­ly loud "36.2!"

�2 But Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Tim­o­thy Hamel Smith wasn't hav­ing any and al­lowed Hinds to pro­ceed.