GILLIAN LUCKY

When peo­ple oc­cu­py the Op­po­si­tion bench, they ap­plaud the me­dia for call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to ac­count for its mis­deeds and to ex­plain its faux pas in of­fice and when those in­di­vid­u­als oc­cu­py the seat of Gov­ern­ment, they blast the me­dia for ex­er­cis­ing its right to ad­verse­ly re­port on mat­ters which paint the Gov­ern­ment in a poor light.The role of the me­dia in any thriv­ing democ­ra­cy is to re­port fear­less­ly and in­de­pen­dent­ly and to in­su­late it­self from al­le­ga­tions of po­lit­i­cal bias.Re­porters, and more so in­ves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ists, are ex­pect­ed to con­duct them­selves with the high­est ethics in terms of en­sur­ing that the truth is told and that am­ple op­por­tu­ni­ty is giv­en to par­ties af­fect­ed to state their side of the sto­ry.

In the end, the pub­lic is sup­posed to have be­fore it all the in­for­ma­tion on the mat­ter so that the views ex­pressed by cit­i­zens are based on all avail­able ma­te­r­i­al.If, on any giv­en is­sue, an af­fect­ed par­ty ex­er­cis­es the op­tion to re­main silent or refuse to com­ment or de­lib­er­ate­ly make him­self un­avail­able, then there is a greater onus on the re­porter to en­sure that all the ma­te­r­i­al placed in the pub­lic do­main has been ver­i­fied and con­firmed.Pro­vid­ed that there is a rig­or­ous ap­proach in en­sur­ing ac­cu­ra­cy in any re­port that when pub­lished may call for proof of the truth of its con­tent, no one should chas­tise a jour­nal­ist for do­ing his or her job which is pri­mar­i­ly the dis­sem­i­na­tion of in­for­ma­tion of pub­lic in­ter­est.

Of course the phrase "of pub­lic in­ter­est" is sub­jec­tive and when the phrase ap­pears in pro­posed con­tracts with me­dia hous­es in which the Gov­ern­ment will be in­ter­pret­ing the phrase, there is a cause for con­cern.

The bright side

It is ob­vi­ous that ar­ti­cles which speak glow­ing­ly about the per­for­mance of in­di­vid­ual min­is­ters and the Gov­ern­ment as a whole will al­ways be ap­pre­ci­at­ed by a rul­ing regime but the ex­pec­ta­tion that there will on­ly be a bright side or more good than bad re­ports of its per­for­mance is far too am­bi­tious for any ad­min­is­tra­tion that finds it­self em­broiled in con­tro­ver­sy af­ter con­tro­ver­sy.No one likes bad press, but such is life when one is con­stant­ly un­der the pub­lic mi­cro­scope and harsh as it may sound, "if you can't stand the heat, then get out of the kitchen."

In its ear­ly tenure, this regime en­joyed great press be­cause it spoke of im­ple­ment­ing pos­i­tive change and held it­self out as a great pro­mot­er of democ­ra­cy, pre­pared to ad­here to the high­est stan­dards of trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty.If, for some rea­son, there are sto­ries and re­ports which chal­lenge the con­duct of the Gov­ern­ment which ap­pears to be in vi­o­lent con­tra­dic­tion of its stat­ed man­date, then sure­ly those pub­li­ca­tions would be viewed as bad press.In such sit­u­a­tions, it is for the re­spec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion de­part­ments in the min­istries to ad­dress the con­cerns raised or to counter any in­ac­cu­ra­cy in the re­port or pro­vide bet­ter par­tic­u­lars on the mat­ter.

The al­le­ga­tion by the Gov­ern­ment that the me­dia is not print­ing or pro­mot­ing its achieve­ments in of­fice and the suc­cess of many of its projects and ini­tia­tives is again, in my view, an in­dict­ment against those re­spon­si­ble for dis­sem­i­nat­ing that in­for­ma­tion to the me­dia.As stat­ed by Ms Ki­ran Ma­haraj, pres­i­dent of the T&T Pub­lish­ers and Broad­cast­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, "I think that the (Com­mu­ni­ca­tions) min­istry had been in­ef­fec­tive in com­mu­ni­cat­ing what the Gov­ern­ment has been do­ing and shed­ding pos­i­tive light on all these projects."

And with all the reg­u­lar full-page ad­ver­tise­ments and pull-outs pub­lished in the print me­dia fea­tur­ing min­is­ters in ac­tive du­ty speak­ing of their achieve­ments, it seems that mem­bers of the Gov­ern­ment do not want to be the sub­jects in any ar­ti­cles that bring their con­duct in­to ques­tion.

Am­ple op­por­tu­ni­ty

A gov­ern­ment has at its dis­pos­al the re­sources of the state which must be used at all times for the wel­fare and ben­e­fit of the na­tion.A gov­ern­ment has sev­er­al av­enues to place in the pub­lic do­main in­for­ma­tion about its ac­tiv­i­ties and ac­com­plish­ments.In Par­lia­ment, min­is­ters reg­u­lar­ly use the op­por­tu­ni­ty to make state­ments about mat­ters that paint them in a pos­i­tive light.It is, there­fore, cru­cial that the me­dia re­main a vig­i­lant watch­dog to mon­i­tor the op­er­a­tion of the Gov­ern­ment to en­sure that mat­ters of na­tion­al im­por­tance are not swept un­der the car­pet.If the sug­ges­tion is that if there is noth­ing good to say about the Gov­ern­ment, then do not print it, such an ap­proach would re­sult in a run­away dic­ta­tor­ship–a mat­ter which was of great con­cern to the pre­vi­ous Op­po­si­tion about the for­mer gov­ern­ment.

If the Gov­ern­ment is con­cerned that it is the sub­ject of too much bad press, then in­stead of mak­ing wild al­le­ga­tions about rogue el­e­ments in the me­dia, it should fo­cus on im­prov­ing its per­for­mance and, if nec­es­sary, re-com­mit­ting to its orig­i­nal man­date.