MATT hate sports journalists

The Media Association of Trinidad and Tobago (MATT) do not care about sports journalism, and that is a fact they cannot deny. It is a sad tale of a bunch of individuals who organise the affairs of journalists in this country, who perpetuate a lie, and are only interested in journalism in so far as sports is not involved. It may just be that the people who control the Media Association in Trinidad and Tobago are just not sport minded or sports inclined. If that is the case, then this is wrong and a dastardly indictment on the independence and competence, even relevance of MATT. A simpleton, and I am not speaking of only one of  the  MATT executive, can easily understand that people will favour the things they know and like, even if some of these things are not without sin. One MATT executive has stated that the problem with the growth of sports journalism in Trinidad and Tobago is that the field is not well represented on the various bodies. But perhaps the answer for that lies in the fact that there is no encouragement by MATT for sports journalists in all areas of media, print and electronic (knock, knock, anyone there?). These bunch of pretenders who pronounce loud views on irrelevant matters, are yet to come to terms with the fact that the one uniting force in any country is sports as it brings together a nation divided by race and religion.

Only in Trinidad and Tobago, where like the Football Federation and now the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board of Control, we have leaders remaining in power forever do we see eventually an erosion of ideas. We have instilled a one-upmanship that is tantamount to shortman syndrome, described by some as being brought upon by a lack of maturity of thought not only height elasticity (Knock, knock, anything up there?). My sadness though is that in all the years of media awards, we have not given a significant award to the practitioners of sports journalism, and I do not mean just the handing out of plaques and cheques on a yearly basis. Something more must be done. When was the last time that someone from the media in sports was given the “Journalist of the Year” award? It certainly is not because of a lack of talent. It clearly exists, but without encouragement, without a caring association, can you expect anything else? Instead those in MATT (and in my view it stands for “Mediocrity in Management”), are content to hand out awards to people in business and politics, who quite frankly are less skilled based on the reproduction of business ineptitude that is printed weekly or heard over the radio daily. In most private companies, businessmen laugh at the level of business journalism that is faked in the newspapers under the pretence of being fact; it is just that business executives are too busy to bother (knock, knock, can you understand this?). Having digressed, we need to understand that change, while never easy is informative of the time we live in. This backward and at times barbaric behaviour of the MATT executive of living in their own world has to stop. If we have outdated laws as is the case because of an ineffective legislation, then we need to change this, rather than sit down and pat ourselves on the back while everyone pisses on us.

People have no respect for MATT, because they are not only toothless, but more particularly because they are perceived to play favourites and look after their own. Some in the sports media would even say that just as in sporting administrations in Trinidad and Tobago, they are only concerned with free trips and accommodation in five star hotels. If that be the case then the Media Association and that is all media are tainted even further (knock, knock, is there room for another there?). The recent election of Ellis Lewis to the presidency of the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board is a case in point, for which MATT will share some blame. Here is a case of the media not being treated fairly and MATT remaining silent and noticeably so. Imagine no media person  was allowed in the building where the elections were conducted, and it means nothing to the MATT executive. If this was a news story and a member of the news media was abused by an irate family or the police, we would have witnessed some grandstanding from the wayward ones at MATT (knock, knock, your time is up).

In fact only I.955 FM Radio’s Joel Villafana was there from the start with most of the other media preferring to arrive nearer the time for the press conference because they all had accepted their fate of being nearly men in sports. This is absolute rubbish. I hesitate to say this, but if I did not love sport and this country so much, I would just walk away as MATT do and turn a blind eye. Sports can save this society and sports reporting, whether it is daily journalism or commentary, is integral in any developing world. Maybe it is time for the sports journalists to forget about MATT and instead form their own fraternity. Maybe then sports and their writers and commentators will get the respect they deserve (knock, knock, Peter paying for Paul). Shortsightedness, shortcut, shortcoming, short-circuit and shortfall are all significant words to describe MATT. Let them beware, because Dancing Brave (alias the Fearless One) has a short-fuse. Visit cornelis-associates.com for the best website management and change management.