Deosaran: Parliament ‘imprisoned’ by media

INDEPENDENT SENATOR Professor Ramesh Deosaran yesterday declared that parliamentarians are “prisoners of the mass media” in Trinidad and Tobago. Piloting a motion in the Senate for live, televised, parliamentary debates, Deosaran lamented that too many times much of what transpires in Parliament never sees the light of day in either the print or electronic media.

The Senator explained that while the media has a crucial role to play in nurturing the nation’s democratic processes, Parliament cannot be “subject to the vagaries of media reporting. There is a need to remove that large veil of ignorance from the public’s eye.  Deosaran said a recent survey by UWI’s Criminology Centre revealed that only a mere one percent of what happens in Parliament actually reaches the general public.

He observed that unlike the media, the role of parliamentarians was not a commercial one because “we are here about analysis and decision-making of the highest kind.” Deosaran lamented that under the current system of media reporting in Parliament, the population has very little facts upon which to draw sound conclusions. Deosaran said while not all parliamentarians’ contributions were “gems of wisdom,” they should never be “prisoners of the privately owned media”.

The Senator added that such debates were critical to the realisation of Government’s Vision 2020 and of a society where Parliament is transparent and accountable to the people. He said the debates would “create a better democracy and a more informed citizenry.”