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'Sinister auguries' for free speech
May 15, 1999
By Denis Solomon
Prime Minister Mr. Basdeo Panday, has renewed his attacks on the media, this time including films and the Internet. At the inauguration of the Board of the National Broadcasting Network (NBN), an amalgamation of three state-owned radio and television stations, he criticised the media, including satellite and cable TV providers, for '\negative' programming, promotion of foreign life-styles, and excessive portrayal of violence, to which he unequivocally attributed the rise in crime. The minister for community development, at the opening of a distance-learning centre, echoed the remarks.
The Prime Minister proclaimed the intention of the government to mandate the NBN to provide local programming, promote family values, and give precedence to 'positive' over 'negative' news coverage. As an example, he suggested that the recent murder, wounding and suicide that took place at his official residence might not have been reported by NBN 'if there were something better going on'. Minister of Information Dr. Rupert Griffith later threatened to revoke the licences of radio and TV stations which did not conform to government standards of 'positive' programme content.
In apparent implementation of this policy, the regular news programme of Trinidad and Tobago Television (one of the stations that will be part of the NBN) was pre-empted on 4 May by a live broadcast of the meeting of the Commonwealth Law Ministers being held in Port of Spain. Mr. Panday told that meeting that lawmakers must find ways to protect society from Internet pornography.
On the other hand, Mr. Panday hinted in another speech that he may now consider signing the Declaration of Chapultepec on Media Freedom, which he had earlier refused to sign as long as it did not condemn 'lies, half-truths and innuendoes', the offences of which he continually accuses the Trinidad and Tobago media.
Information Minister Griffith, (a fugitive from the opposition), told the new Board of Film Censors that 'your role as custodian of our country's moral development is critical' and that one of its tasks would be to propose a revision of the Cinematography Act. The amendments to the Act submitted to the previous government by the previous Board suggested abandoning the practice of banning or cutting films in favour of rating them for the guidance of parents, and the Board had been operating on those lines.
Now the minister seems to be reverting from the principle that adults are fit to decide what they watch, to the earlier system of prohibition. His remarks to the new Board also suggest that it will be expected to censor television also, though he did not suggest how they might go about so huge a task.
Below is the text of an Expresseditorial of May 1st:
Since its election the present government has been hostile to the media. The Prime Minister's strictures, echoed by many of his ministers, on the 'irresponsibility' of newspapers, radio and television; his demand for the firing of the Guardianeditor; the Green Paper on the Media; the attacks on individual journalists at TV6 over the 'Referendum' programme; the harassment of Prime 102 FM by the Director of Telecommunications over a calypso, and his demand for the tapes of a Round Table' broadcast; all these have soured the relationship between government and media since 1995.
Most of the criticisms levelled by Ministers at the media have alleged bias, racism and a sinister conspiracy to manipulate news in favour of an unnamed group in the society bent on overthrowing the government. Now, suspiciously coincident with the launching of the National Broadcasting Network formed from TTT, NBS and TIC, the emphasis has shifted to accusations of promoting violence, glorifying foreign lifestyles and values, and 'negative' news programming.
The Prime Minister, the Minister of Community Development and the Minister of Information, Dr. Rupert Griffith, have all harped on this theme in the last ten days. Dr. Griffith's contribution was made on Thursday as he inaugurated the Board of Directors of the National Broadcasting Network. His address carried more sinister auguries for the media, particularly the broadcast media, because it contained direct threats to revoke licences of stations that did not conform to the government's ideas of what broadcasting in Trinidad and Tobago should be about.
The Government's claims of bias, racism and conspiracy are paranoid hokum.
On the other hand, the problem of broadcasting standards and undesirable external influences, particularly in a developing country, is a very real one. It has exercised the minds of every country in the world, and is a continually on the agenda of UNESCO.
For that very reason the question of control and development of broadcasting must be the subject of national consensus. It cannot be dealt with dictatorially or in the confrontational spirit Dr. Griffith is adopting.
The mandate the government has laid down for NBN- local programming, high educational content, promotion of family values, 'positive' news coverage - is entirely laudable, as far as it can be implemented in practice. But it is not fulfilled by threatening the commercial stations and cable operators with punitive action under the Telecommunications Act for ill-defined offences such as 'gratuitous' violence or excessive foreign content. These things must be defined in the broadcasting code that was supposed to be part of the Act but as far as anyone knows does not exist.
If the Government--any government--is to lead the way to better broadcasting, it must establish its bona fides by creating a Telecommunications Authority answerable not to the executive, but to Parliament, with, among other provisions, a credible appeals procedure. Dr. Griffith is doing just the opposite, by emphasising that the vague provisions of the Act as embodied in the broadcasting licences are to be interpreted and acted upon by the Telecommunications Division and his Ministry alone.
He is merely extending to all the broadcasting houses the not very veiled threats that the Director of Telecommunications issued to Power 102FM. Against the background of paranoia the Government has always shown toward the media, this is not a hopeful sign.'
Copyright © Denis Solomon
