While free­dom of the press is en­shrined in the Con­sti­tu­tion of T&T, the law must be up­held. To en­sure that me­dia stan­dards and reg­u­la­tions are main­tained Pres­i­dent of the T&T Pub­lish­ers and Broad­cast­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTP­BA) Ki­ran Ma­haraj said the prop­er for­mat and pol­i­cy must be in place.

"Each me­dia house is sup­posed to have a set of me­dia stan­dards in place based on what­ev­er the pro­gram­ming for­mat and pol­i­cy. The sit­u­a­tion is that every me­dia house must have a pol­i­cy in place," Ma­haraj said in a brief in­ter­view. Al­so com­ment­ing on the re­cent ar­rest of Crime Watch host Ian Al­leyne vet­er­an jour­nal­ist Max­ie Cuffie said the very premise of free­dom of the press and free­dom of ex­pres­sion means your free­dom should not be con­strained by any­body else.

Cuffie said the on­ly con­straint in terms of me­dia is what the pub­lic is will­ing to ac­cept. "It is not up to any­one to de­cide what is good or bad. "You have a right to ex­er­cise your free­dom as guar­an­teed by the Con­sti­tu­tion-in do­ing so you al­so have to abide by all laws. The is­sue in­volv­ing Ian Al­leyne is not an is­sue of stan­dard it is an is­sue of law to de­cide whether the broad­cast was with­in the law. It is a le­gal is­sue to de­ter­mine whether the broad­cast in­fringed on the law."