Clean up your act

PRIME MINISTER Patrick Manning yesterday supported a call issued last month by Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Geoffrey Henderson for the establishment of a code of ethics for the  media and told local media houses “to get their act together.” Addressing the opening of the Caribbean Media Conference at the University of the West Indies’ Learning Resource Centre in St Augustine, the Prime Minister declared: “I have witnessed the lives of many people put at considerable disadvantage, almost destroyed, from careless, reckless and irresponsible work of many in the field of journalism. It is not enough for media associations and journalistic organisations to insist on the right of journalists and related practitioners to freedom of the press and freedom of expression. Theirs is also a responsibility to insist on standards. We are all culpable when we do not insist on standards for fear of being perceived as acting against the freedom of the press.

On the face of it, there is not only the need for a school of journalism and media training, there is also the need for the development and incorporation of an appropriate and workable code of ethics. It is important that we understand and act on appreciation of the fact that in unfair practices, journalists are not building that democracy, it is the intention of journalism to create but making another sense, strengthening bases for  undermining, disregarding and defeating the principles of democracy.” Manning observed that while governments in the most democratic of countries institute a certain measure of control over the press, “the empirical evidence has been that even with legislation, enough will not be achieved without the determined involvement of media, journalistic associations, etc to bring forward and abide by standards for those involved in the practice of journalism.

“There are some things that the State can and must legislate for but the ultimate realisation of which must be supplemented by the inspiration from and sanction of your peers,” he said. The Prime Minister said in several countries, including Trinidad and Tobago, there are “careless practitioners who, under the guise of freedom of the press, jeopardise the rights of men and women all over the world to both the entitlement and enlightenment of truth, fair play and decency” in the reporting of events occurring in the public domain. Manning said journalists “cannot pass off as professional journalism, approaches in which the media, deliberately and misleadingly, morph the messages through the headlines, common proactive or create and stimulate controversy, passing this off as nurturing or facilitating debate.”

The Prime Minister lamented that the local Media Complaints Authority is “yet to prove itself in the struggle for balance between those who constitute the Fourth Estate and those negatively affected by its processes.” He lamented that even when legal redress is available, “the damage is already done and is sometimes irreparably and irreversibly so. Press freedom is always of tremendous importance, but to my mind, the real challenge in TT at this time might not be that of press freedom as much of that of quality. Let us insist on proper standards, it is most essential. We (in TT) support and reach out to journalists all over the world where there are negative censures on press freedom. For us here in TT, for those whom much is given, much is expected. It is time for media houses to get their act together,” Manning declared.