A free lunch is never free

I haven’t heard anything to the contrary so I assume the Commonwealth Journalists’ Association (CJA) headquarters is still to be based in Trinidad and that the recent embarrassment over the selection of its Executive Director has been resolved. I am also assuming that the Media Association of Trinidad and Tobago (MATT) has kissed and made up with both the CJA and its executive director designate. Of course I understand MATT’s consternation after lobbying for the headquarters to be in Trinidad, setting up a panel to select an executive director and then discovering that the interview panel could find no one for the job but a member of its own interview panel. What can I say? A lot really but it has more to do with the way the media functions in this country and the contradictions inherent in what MATT says and what it does. For example, MATT apparently has no difficulty in teaming up with a local bank to award prizes for excellence in journalism. It also seems to have no problem with getting another corporate body to underwrite the cost of a recent lunch. As far as I am aware, MATT exists to promote the independence and integrity of the profession. Is such independence not compromised when sponsorship is sought after in this way? I simply ask the question.

Excellent journalism is a worthy pursuit, but reliance on a local corporate body is not the way to provide an incentive. MATT should seek to establish an independent foundation, such as that which oversees the Pulitzer Prizes that are awarded in journalsim, music, the arts in the USA. Corporate citizens and individuals who have financial resources, beginning of course with the many publishing and broadcasting houses in Trinidad and Tobago, could be asked to fund such a foundation which would be managed by independent individuals drawn from a wide range of disciplines. This would remove any of the concerns that arise when one has a bank or corporate body spending considerable sums of money, paying the judges, paying for the prizes, paying for the gala function at which such prizes are handed out. Journalists who have trophies in their homes and cash in the bank from sponsors could find their independence and integrity compromised in dealing with any issues involving such sponsors. Many newspapers around the world forbid, under pain of dismissal, their editorial staff from accepting even a pen or pencil from corporate or other citizens because they see this as interferring with their independence. In our country journalists accept free trips around the world and do not seem to consider the implications.

MATT, which apparently does not have two cents to knock together succeeds in lobbying for Trinidad and Tobago to become the headquarters of the CJA. Why is it that the CJA which was founded in 1976 largely on the initiative of a few British journalists at a conference in Cyprus and has been headquartered in London ever since decide to relocate? Was the CJA being magnanimous? Or was it the old story of the British “granting” independence to its colonies when in fact they wished to be free of dependencies? We must not forget that similarly, the Privy Council also wants to be free of being our highest court of appeal. After all the British have to bear the cost in continuing to adjudicate on our behalf. The CJA was founded in the interest of journalists, to provide training to raise the standard of the profession and to resist the attacks on freedom of the press in many parts of the Commonwealth particularly in Africa where editors have been jailed and even murdered by dictatorial regimes. And indeed over the years the CJA has done some good work in this regard but in many ways it is still largely a talk shop that loves conferences in exotic places. Fast forwarding to today, MATT brings the CJA headquarters to Port-of-Spain and even before the news sinks in there is a fallout between MATT and the CJA. In this row I am on the side of MATT.

How could the CJA panel interview a whole batch of candidates, find that not one was good enough for the job and then appoint one of its own panel? MATT was quite correct in objecting not to the chosen individual per se but to the principle of the thing. But then is MATT really the independent body it is supposed to be? So where are we now? The two top officals of the CJA have reportedly disregarded MATT’s objections to the choice of executive director, which alone tells us a lot. So is MATT going to pull out of the CJA? Is the decision to establish the CJA headquarters in Trinidad now going to be over-turned? There is a lesson for all involved that should be taken to heart. There is no such thing as a free lunch. By the way, the Pulitzer Prize was named after a Hungarian-born American raised newspaper publisher, a passionate crusader against dishonest government. He is credited with being the first to call for the training of journalists at the university level in a school of journalism. In his 1904 will he made provision for the establishment of the Pulitzer Prizes as an incentive to excellence in journalism, drama, music and so on. He established an overseer advisory board with wide powers. Of course like everything else, the awards have attracted their fair share of criticism but the disadvantages outweigh the many advantages. Pulitzer’s will also established Columbia University as the seat of administration of the prize and endowed Columbia with millions to establish a School of Journalism. Pulitzer died in 1911. We should think about it.