The Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion (Matt) and the T&T Pub­lish­ers and Broad­cast­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTP­BA) have en­dorsed the rec­om­men­da­tions on lo­cal me­dia made by the In­ter­na­tion­al Press In­sti­tute (IPI). The in­sti­tute called on the Gov­ern­ment to im­prove its re­spons­es to re­quests for in­for­ma­tion un­der the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act. It al­so rec­om­mend­ed the abo­li­tion of crim­i­nal defama­tion, called for acts of in­tim­i­da­tion against the me­dia to end and asked for the me­dia to be con­sult­ed on the laws which af­fect them.

The in­sti­tute al­so asked the me­dia to bring the is­sue of defama­tion in­to the pub­lic sphere, main­tain eth­i­cal stan­dards and work to strength­en the or­gan­i­sa­tions such as Matt and the TTP­BA. Pres­i­dent of Matt Suzanne Shep­pard, in an in­ter­view, said: "We ful­ly en­dorse the call for the abo­li­tion of crim­i­nal defama­tion and our po­si­tion on the acts of in­tim­i­da­tion against mem­bers of the news me­dia are well known, since in the last few weeks we have is­sued state­ments on those in­ci­dents."

She said the as­so­ci­a­tion would be look­ing at best prac­tices in­dus­try-wide to share with mem­bers as they re­late to the main­te­nance of the high­est eth­i­cal stan­dards. Sim­i­lar­ly, Ki­ran Ma­haraj, pres­i­dent of the TTP­BA, said in a tele­phone in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian that her or­gan­i­sa­tion al­so sup­port­ed the IPI's calls. Ma­haraj said the as­so­ci­a­tion would be launch­ing a se­ries of work­shops next Jan­u­ary on me­dia and law.