Long-standing media practitioners generally agree the current standoff between the government and the media is nothing new and is no different from what happened before. One even felt it was worse in the past.They were responding to questions on the current state of the relationship between the media and the government.
Some members of the media were offended after Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, at a political meeting last month, said there were a few rogue elements within the profession.Saying her charge should not be construed as an attack and reaffirming the Government's support for press freedom, the PM said integrity in journalism was based on being fair and unbiased.
She added: "And when that integrity is under attack by a few rogue elements within the profession we are all at risk, no matter what side of the political divide you stand on. "The evidence we have been seeing is that some so-called media professionals have now resorted to even distorting the facts." The PM's claim came after the T&T Guardian carried a story saying the Integrity Commission referred Sports Minister Anil Roberts to the Director of Public Prosecutions for investigation.
Roberts and the Integrity Commission denied the story.Roberts threatened to sue the T&T Guardian and denounced the reporter who wrote the story.National Security Minister Jack Warner jumped into the fray when he refused to respond to some 40 questions sent him by an Express investigative journalist over a Reuters story which alleged his son, Daryan, was a "co-operating witness" with the FBI into alleged corruption in international football.
Warner said if he answered the questions, he would be "validating character assassination posing as investigative journalism" against him. Instead, he e-mailed a response to 57 reporters.
�2 Wesley Gibbings and Sunity Maharaj
Wesley Gibbings, head of the Association of Caribbean Media, said: "Relations between the Government and the media are at a level one would expect at a time when political tensions and citizen anxieties are running high and it's no different than how it has always been."Governments everywhere yearn for a benign, compliant media and the media, in return, view themselves as systemically sceptical and even adversarial.
"From that standpoint, relations between the media and the Government are currently no different than they have been in the past or are likely to be in the future."The current threats are real but have always been with us. They move up or down in intensity, depending on broader socio-political factors."Former Media Association of T&T (MATT) president Sunity Maharaj felt the relationship between the Government and the media was marked by a high level of distrust on both sides.
Outlining what she believed might be the cause, Maharaj said: "There is a fine tension between government and the media, based on their different perspectives of what constitutes the public interest. "Media scepticism about government is a normal aspect of this tension.However, the tension could rise to the level of outright acrimony if one side or the other comes to the conclusion that it cannot trust the other," she warned.
�2 Basdeo Panday
Former prime minister Basdeo Panday, questioned on the matter, also recalled the 1988 Guardian incident. "When I was prime minister, I had only one fight with the media."A media mogul said the media had an untrammelled right to publish. I said this right was not to publish lies, half-truths and innuendoes. That's where that quote came from," he said, recalling the now well-known phrase."I still believe that."
And do journalists still print lies, half-truths and innuendoes? Pausing, Panday replied: "Sometimes the headlines do not represent the content of the articles."He recalled his one fight with the media to prove that relations between the media and the government had worsened.
�2 Andy Johnson
CEO of the Government Information Services Ltd (GISL) Andy Johnson, a former editor of the T&T Guardian, says he has no reason to dispute Communications Minister Jamal Mohammed's claim that the government had an excellent relationship with all arms of the media.He added: "I see no reason to dispute the minister. I don't see any problem between the government and the media.
"I maintain the position there would always be tension between certain individuals in the government and certain individuals in the media and media houses."Former US presidents George Bush, Ronald Reagan and John F Kennedy all had juicy things to say about media practitioners when they got under their skins but got along well enough with the media generally," he recalled.Johnson, who practised journalism for 40 years, does not believe relations between the media and the government have worsened either.
He said at a media seminar in November last year there was no threat to press freedom. This was barely reported by the media, he added.In the speech, Johnson recalled an Express front page story in 1988, headlined "The ULF grab for power.""Loud calls were issued at that time for people to boycott the Express. It was not the first time and there have been similar calls since then," he said.
He also recalled the infamous "Chutney Rising" headline in the T&T Guardian in 1996 when Basdeo Panday was prime minister."Panday declared he was not going to speak with anyone from the Guardian until the editor-in-chief at that time (Jones P Madeira) was removed.
"This incident led to the actual decapitation of the editorial staff at the Guardian, with some 14 editors and senior journalists walking off the job after the then managing director himself felt it necessary to resign, based on differences with his bosses over how that matter was being handled."
Johnson said he himself had been accused of writing articles not favourable to the government. He said these incidents gave him great conviction that nothing that was happening now (between the media and the Government) was new. He quoted Communications Minister Jamal Mohammed, who said freedom of the press was constitutionally enshrined in T&T and the government had no intention of trampling upon it.
Two days ago Mohammed said the media were hypersensitive and the government had an excellent relationship with all arms of the media."We are not picking a fight with the media...but that perception is being created when the media says it is under attack," he added.Asked his response again yesterday, he repeated what he said earlier: "We don't have any problems with any media house. We enjoy good and cordial relations with all journalists."