Express - October 8, 2000
By Raffique Shah
AS A journalist, and more than that, as a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago, I waver between bouts of seething anger and coming close to tears when I watch how TTT, the State-owned television station, is being run to the ground through political interference. In fact, the entire NBN network, which includes the second oldest radio station in the country (Radio 610), has been so emasculated over the past five years, I am not surprised that many of the newer radio stations that are woeful when it comes to quality announcers are more popular than NBN.
What compounds this is the fact that NBN has the State's resources to back it up, but rather than help uplift the media house, money is being pumped into it by the Government to grind it to dust.
I don't know how many viewers tune in to TTT's Panorama news at night. I end up switching from CCN's TV6 news to Panorama, and frankly, I feel sorry for the anchors and reporters at TTT. There is no doubt that Hansley Ajodha is one of the finest television journalists in the business when it comes to command of language, voice modulation and holding viewers’ attention.
But from hosting T&T This Morning to anchoring Panorama at nights, one gets the impression that Hansley is so constrained by the new dictates that govern the station, he often comes across as a shadow of himself, as some ordinary rookie reporter who is at the extreme opposite of TV personalities like Trevor McDonald or David Frost.
And TTT's programming is growing worse, almost exponentially. Last Friday evening, for example, the first item on its newscast was Prime Minister Basdeo Panday dealing with the Mackay Report in Parliament earlier that day.
While what the PM said was news, did the station have to feature him speaking uninterrupted for almost five minutes? Looking and listening to the clip, I almost got lost, thinking that I was viewing one of the Information Division's propaganda pieces, and not news. It was done in such an unprofessional manner, there weren't even token inserts of a reporter's voice to lend news-legitimacy to it.
While I may not care for television, the realities of modern life and the demands on any journalist who wants to be au courant with world affairs dictate that we must look at television. But what I see on TTT, in contrast to the relative liveliness of TV6’s news, sports and other programming, has boiled down almost to the chalk-and-cheese parallel.
CCN's principals Ken Gordon and Craig Reynald must he happy with the political straightjacket that TTT has found itself in, giving TV6 a virtual free run, and more than that, making the latter's operations very profitable. But even so, I am sure they must shed a tear or two for the rival station, especially the way its demise has come about. In fact, it's a well-established principle in business that a company tends to perform better when it is faced with strong competition. In the face of an obscenely emasculated TTT, though, there are few challenges left for TV6’s managers and staff to keep atop the local market, which may not be healthy for their creativity.
I need add here that with a plethora of radio stations assaulting our ears through announcers who seem to have been selected by these stations because they failed in English language at CXC or General Paper at A’ Level, NBN, by contrast, has a pool of excellent radio-journalists.
Enter the Basdeo Panday Government with its sinister agenda to either control or cow the media, and things started falling apart at the merged media house. I need point out that previous PNM administrations also tried to exercise control over the State- owned stations. I shan't dwell on incidents that date back to 1970 when Radio 610 was ordered not to carry news of the mutiny at Teteron Barracks for almost 48 hours after it had taken place. The Government of the day will have pleaded that national security superseded “breaking news”.
Most people are aware, too, of the ban imposed on frontline ULF leaders in 1975 by the Government through the boards of Radio 610 and TTT. And throughout its 30 unbroken years in office, the PNM, from time to time, intervened in the stations' broadcast policies by either firing those who resisted its directives (Raoul Pantin, Alfred Aguiton, Astra Da Costa) or by imposing its own party hacks in key positions.
Indeed, as recently as during the Patrick Manning administration, it was felt that the appointment of known PNMite Louis Lee Sing to the top post at NBN was politically motivated, although, to be fair to Louis, he did display astute management (his subsequent foray into Power 102 bears this out).
But the way the UNC Government has invaded NBN, from management to newsroom, is nothing short of obscene. It seems that after the party failed in its numerous attempts to produce a newspaper (The Rising Sun), it decided to use the established NBN as its private property.
So board members who attempt to act professionally are axed, program managers who seek to exercise their skills to the best of their ability are sent on leave—royally escorted out of the premises by security guards, and the stench of ethnic cleansing hangs heavy over the once-proud media house.
What is worse is that the network is sure to lose money through an exodus of advertisers, with taxpayers picking up the multi-million-dollar loss-tab.
Recently, employees of the company picketed its premises because they were offered little or no increase in salaries even as the station hired managers and presenters at very high “compensation packages”. And all the latter need to do (besides holding party discount cards) is ensure that they project the image of the ruling party in the best light.
The TTT/NBN experience over the past five years is a sad indictment on a government bent on having its way and its say, whatever the cost to journalism as a profession or to taxpayers and the listening or viewing audiences. This bid to control the media, which began almost from the day the UNC came to power, must never again be allowed to happen.
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Copyright © Raffique Shah
