Media in service of people, not politics

The palpable arrogance of Junior Finance Minister Mariano Browne’s responses at Thursday’s post-Cabinet press conference sends a dangerous message to media practitioners about the attitude of the Government regarding our essential business.

The silence of the Government on his startling statements suggests official endorsement of troubling trends in policy regarding information availability and transparency in public governance.

Questioned about the possibility of a removal of the two-billion dollar gas subsidy which directly affects the cost of transportation, Browne launched into a lengthy economic discourse. After the reporter pressed on with his questions, Browne rebuffed the line of questioning, suggesting that the reporter “read economics.”

Underlining the Government’s apparent position on questioning intended to result in answers that might reflect an addressing of public concerns rather than a tertiary level financial discourse, Information Minister Neil Parsanal simply cut off the reporter’s microphone.

During this “discussion” period with the press, the junior Finance Minister also made clear his position on financial transparency, telling a room full of reporters that he would not recommend that the Government share information about feasibility studies or cost-benefit analyses related to the purchase of a TT$400 million jet because he did not believe that the business of government should be articulated in the media.

If one wished to be charitable, it could be noted that Minister Browne was appointed late to the Cabinet and missed the one week beachside coaching opportunity for new ministers of government. Coming from the upper echelons of the private sector finance, his sense of reserve at sharing financial information is understandable, but absurdly out of place.

Efforts at muzzling the scope and freedom of the media to report on issues of importance to the public have been a consistent part of the relationship between governance and reporting.

Much of the time it finds expression in courtship and charm, the pleasant selling of a governmental perspective accompanied by updated versions of “rum and roti” offerings designed to divert focused attention from areas of concern.

At other times, however, the effort becomes more focused and draconian, finding expression in odious attempts to apply artificial barriers to the reporter’s scope of inquiry.

The late 1990s attempt to float the notorious Green Paper on Media Reform by the UNC finally collapsed in the face of media outcry, and a libel lawsuit brought against Basdeo Panday by Ken Gordon.

The media practitioners of Trinidad and Tobago are among the most admired in the Caribbean region, but such regard must continue to be earned, and efforts to circumvent our effective articulation of the concerns of the public to those in power and to report on the realities and ramifications of their decisions cannot ever be curtailed.

Perhaps, it is necessary to respond to Minister Browne and say it directly, so that members of Cabinet understand; the business of the government is the business of the people and the actions of the stewards of the national economy must be reported to them in all the detail our published pages and broadcast time will allow.

It is to be expected that the agendas of the Government and the media will sometimes be at odds. Our respective ideas about what constitutes national development, for instance, will probably always diverge at their roots.

But no clear-thinking, rational representative of government could ever reasonably expect the media of Trinidad and Tobago to calmly accept having the essential role of their business dismissed, their capacity to report insulted and then silenced by a dead microphone.

Such actions stand in direct defiance of the Government’s lip service on transparency and the fundamental right of nationals of Trinidad and Tobago to know what is being done with their money, in their name.

Trinidad Guardian Editorial - March 17, 2008