Melis­sa Doughty

Pres­i­dent of Trinidad and To­ba­go George Maxwell Richard has said the risks for me­dia prac­ti­tion­ers are ever-in­creas­ing in a chang­ing world en­vi­ron­ment. And he queried whether jour­nal­ists ever thought of them­selves as diplo­mats. Richards urged jour­nal­ists to give some thought to the prac­ti­tion­ers of the diplo­mat­ic art in the con­text of the vi­sion of the IPI founders.

"Jour­nal­ism is no walk in the park," he said. He made the com­ments yes­ter­day in de­liv­er­ing the open­ing ad­dress at the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the 60th In­ter­na­tion­al Press In­sti­tute (IPI) World Con­gress and Con­fer­ence ti­tled Me­dia in a chal­leng­ing World: A 360-de­gree per­spec­tive. The con­fer­ence is be­ing held at Hy­att Re­gency, Port-of-Spain. It start­ed on Sat­ur­day and ends to­mor­row.

Not­ing that this is the first time that the Caribbean is host­ing the IPI con­fer­ence, Richards said he was un­sure the re­gion is re­port­ed on as it should be. "Per­haps af­ter this con­gress we will be bet­ter known and our news more wide­ly sought and dis­sem­i­nat­ed glob­al­ly." He said pos­si­bly the time has come for some in­ter­na­tion­al im­mu­ni­ty to be agreed so that the risks to jour­nal­ists can be min­imised or erad­i­cat­ed.

His com­ments came amid re­ports that 72 jour­nal­ists had been killed for the year al­ready. This dis­cus­sion, he said, can­not be con­fined to the IPI. The Pres­i­dent said jour­nal­ists, as po­lit­i­cal mouth­pieces, will res­onate in­tense­ly with the me­dia in T&T. "While it is not new to us, the in­ci­dents of move­ment from the news­room to the of­fi­cial en­clave have in­creased with­in re­cent times," he said.

"Re­ac­tion has been var­ied and it may well be use­ful for pa­ra­me­ters in the con­text of in­de­pen­dence to be aired with a view to a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing on the part of the pub­lic." He said there is a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to train re­cruits in every as­pect of the work. Ca­reer de­vel­op­ment, he told the jour­nal­ists, must be a part of the plan with some se­ri­ous lessons in lan­guage arts and com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills, in­clud­ing gram­mar hav­ing a cen­tral place.

Richards said while news can­not be a free ser­vice, it must serve the pub­lic in­ter­est. He said he be­lieved even in schools chil­dren should be taught an ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the news. He told the au­di­ence while the in­ter­net is a very use­ful and mar­velous de­vel­op­ment, it can­not re­place the me­dia.

"There ought to be no com­pe­ti­tion which can have the neg­a­tive re­sult of sen­sa­tion re­plac­ing re­spon­si­ble jour­nal­ism," he said. The Pres­i­dent was pre­sent­ed with a to­ken of ap­pre­ci­a­tion from IPI ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor Al­i­son Bethel McKen­zie. Shiv Shak­ti dancers and Ma­lik Folk Per­form­ers en­ter­tained the au­di­ence as they danced to a sub­dued ver­sion of David Rud­der's Ganges meets the Nile.

The open­ing cer­e­mo­ny was host­ed by for­mer Miss Uni­verse 1998 Wendy Fitzwilliam and saw at­ten­dance from Min­is­ter of Food Pro­duc­tion and for­mer Min­is­ter of Trans­port De­vant Ma­haraj, Wes­ley Gib­bings, pres­i­dent of the As­so­ci­a­tion of Caribbean Me­dia Work­ers and IPI chair­man Carl-Eu­gen Eber­le.