MATT says it made no deal with PM to police media

The Media Association of Trinidad and Tobago (MATT) says it did not agree during a meeting with Prime Minister Patrick Manning that the media should be accountable to an independent body.

A release from the Office of the Prime Minister Thursday stated that MATT had agreed to that.

But in a release refuting that, MATT said the media's accountability to an independent body was part of the discussion between Manning and MATT but the media group did not agree to have any body police the media.

Manning met Tuesday with a MATT delegation comprising president Marlan Hopkinson and executive members, Sterling Henderson and Marcia Braveboy, at his office in St Clair, Port of Spain.

The meeting was arranged to discuss the issue Manning himself raised when he addressed a PNM political meeting on July 13 at which he said the media are not fulfilling their role to inform and educate the public.

The PM's office stated Thursday that "a significant agreement was reached by the participants, that the media should be accountable to an independent body" during the meeting.

The release also said the Ministries of Information and Public Administration and MATT would meet again "in order to formulate suggestions about how such an entity would operate".

But MATT's president insisted in a news release that there is no agreement about any such body. "The Media Association of Trinidad and Tobago distances itself from any reported agreement to the setting up of an independent body to which media practitioners would be accountable," Hopkinson said.

In a media release on the issue, the Congress of the People (COP) said it views with growing alarm attempts by the Manning Administration to influence and control the media in Trinidad and Tobago.

"Recent events point to a growing encroachment by the Government on the freedoms of the people of this nation and statements by the Prime Minister that the media has not been supporting his administration sends a chilling signal of willful intimidation of the free press", the party said.

It noted that the scope of the government’s advertising budget could allow the state to use that to "leverage favorable reports on their activities".

COP reaffirmed its commitment to a free press and said it "condemns any attempt to compromise and muzzle the fourth estate and further views any such efforts as an attack on our democracy."