Kevin Baldeosingh
With their large ears and long noses and cheap pens, media hounds make cute but troublesome pets. However, if you train them well and give them an occasional tummy rub, you will never be bored.It must be emphasised, however, that there are some persons who do not like media hounds (canis reporticus), others who only pretend to like them, and many more who like and dislike them at different times.
When retired Justice Zainool Hosein (judex superbum), for example, was sworn in as chairman of the Integrity Commission last year he was asked by reporters if he intended to retire as head of the Retired Judges Association (Justitia penurious), which was formed to lobby for higher pensions by judges who, after earning top-tier tax-free salaries plus housing and travel allowances, found themselves in financial difficulties when they retired.
This clearly was a newsworthy angle, but Hosein tried to collar the hounds. "You don't either understand English or you are not prepared to hear what I am saying," he barked at the reporter, denying there was any conflict of interest.Then, two days later, he resigned from the association, hence tacitly admitting that he was either illiterate, deaf, or not a Boy Scout.
And, last week, apparently having learned nothing from that incident, Hosein complained about being hounded by the media who were seeking answers to questions about the manner in which the commission had terminated the Emailgate investigation (Rowleyus paginae falsum).
It is a fact that the best media hounds are trained to track their prey, who are often officials whose officiousness offends. "I feel like I was in some lynch mob," Hosein said, adding that, because he was approached at his mosque by journalists, the Muslim community (Conubium duodecum) had become upset.Interestingly, this was exactly what Islamist and left-wing apologists (intellectualis ignoramus) said after the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists were murdered in January.
In 2009, however, Hosein had absolutely no objections to the media finding out that he had resigned from the IC just hours after being appointed because he was miffed he hadn't been made Deputy Chair. Apparently, as a Muslim man, he felt a deputy was essential.Even so, thanks to President Anthony Carmona's powers that he does have, Hosein was put in the chairman's seat on his return to the commission.
Ironically, his vice-chair, another judge Sebastian Ventour (Homo cunctabundum), was soon after hounded by journalists when he resigned from the IC in February that year because he had three outstanding judgments to deliver and could not legally do so as a member of the commission.When Ventour was re-appointed a few weeks later, he refused to answer journalists' questions, saying, "Ladies and gentlemen, I think you should redirect the cameras.
There are so many ills affecting T&T at this point in time. You have got to refocus. I hope your prayers are with me."
Yet, instead of praying to God and God and the other God, like Ventour advised, media commentators continued hounding him. As a result, Ventour eventually issued a statement two months later admitting that, "On reflection, I consider it was my responsibility to have brought the issue of the outstanding judgments to the attention of the President at the material time. That I did not was an oversight which I regret but, given the long history of recall, this did not appear to be a problem at the time."
President Carmona himself (Homo nullum tributum) had no problem playing musical chairs with the commission's seats, but he doesn't consider media to be hounds: instead, he has made several speeches suggesting that media commentators are more like pitbulls, or at least that comedian Rachel Price is a female one.
Indeed, the reporter who had hounded Ventour with those questions was afterwards banned from covering presidential events for reasons never given by the President's House (or, rather the President's rent-free units at Flagstaff for which he received a monthly $28,000 rent allowance).
Now there are some people who argue that there are no media hounds, but only media pothounds. "No statistics exist on...public opinion of media," one media critic writes, apparently oblivious to surveys over the past eight years from Market Opinion and Research International (MORI), Market Facts & Opinion (MFO) and Solutions by Simulation (SBS) that would contradict his opinion by revealing relatively high public trust in the media.
In any case, even pothounds are good at warning when suspicious characters are around. Which is why journalists are often seen at Parliament, State companies, and rumshops.
�2 Kevin Baldeosingh in a professional writer, author of three novels, and co-author of a history textbook.