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Sunday, July 6, 2025

Maharaj: Abide by own code of conduct and ethics

by

20140502

To­day is World Press Free­dom Day and, to date, lo­cal jour­nal­ists are hold­ing their own, says Suni­ty Ma­haraj, me­dia con­sul­tant and man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of the Lloyd Best In­sti­tute of the West In­dies. "The sit­u­a­tion is not par­tic­u­lar­ly trou­bling."

Re­fer­ring to the ten­sions be­tween some mem­bers of the me­dia and the Gov­ern­ment, Ma­haraj said she did not think it was un­healthy in a democ­ra­cy. The me­dia is per­ceived as the watch­dog by mem­bers of the pub­lic, and the Gov­ern­ment is de­fend­ing its po­si­tion, she said, and this was not new and had ex­ist­ed un­der dif­fer­ent ad­min­is­tra­tions."I am not say­ing the Gov­ern­ment does not try to in­flu­ence the me­dia by us­ing soft tac­tics like bribes, but I don't think jour­nal­ists are cowed."

She said there are in­di­vid­ual politi­cians who may have al­so crossed the line by in­vad­ing a re­porter's pri­va­cy.Ma­haraj said all jour­nal­ists need­ed to do is abide by their own code of con­duct and ethics.Asked to com­ment on mem­bers of the me­dia hav­ing re­la­tion­ships with politi­cians, she re­peat­ed, "Me­dia hous­es need to be rig­or­ous in abid­ing by their own code of con­duct."

She said if a re­porter finds him-or her­self in a sit­u­a­tion where there is a con­flict of in­ter­est, the mat­ter should be brought in­to the open and dealt with pro­fes­sion­al­ly. If it was just gos­sip, it would be laid to rest.Jour­nal­ists the T&T Guardian spoke to said they do not feel op­pressed at any point in time."Once you can prove it's the truth and it falls with­in the tenets of good jour­nal­ism, there's noth­ing to fear."Even if politi­cians try to in­tim­i­date you, there is re­course."

Lo­cal ra­dio com­men­ta­tors yes­ter­day felt the lo­cal me­dia fo­cused too much on crime and pol­i­tics.


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