Freedom of Press - a struggle

While much of the world, save for dictatorships, has moved away from troubling, overt governmental restrictions on the right of the Media to publish and broadcast there never has been and I wager never will be, at least in my time, anything approaching near full freedom of the Press.

By this I do not mean licence, but at least the freedom that Trinidad and Tobago refers to in its 1976 Republican Constitution under the somewhat pompous heading "The Recognition and Protection of Fundamental Human Rights and Freedoms."

"It is hereby recognised and declared that in Trinidad and Tobago there have existed and continue to exist without discrimination by reason of race, origin, colour, religion or sex, the following fundamental rights and freedoms...." Freedom of the Press is one of them. But the very wording "by reason of race, origin, colour, religion or sex" infers, although this clearly could not have been the intention a hobbling of Press freedom and others as well on other grounds.

The relatively recent passing into law of the Freedom of Information Act, and this after much battling and long after the approval of the 1976 Constitution is a reminder of the limiting of our freedom to know, to be in formed in earlier days. In the United States of America, for example, the Freedom of Information Act was only made law in 1966 on the 170th anniversary of that country’s Independence. And even that Act had been a full 20 years after the creation of the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946, which while it affected the posture of freedom of information, allowed for the withholding of information on the now recognised questionable ground of secrecy.

And in the same way that our Freedom of Information Act allows not simply the man in the street to seek and access material which would have been otherwise withheld from him, but the Press as well, any attempt to restrict what should be the right of the Press, the media to be free to publish, the broadcast is also a restriction of the right of the individual to be informed through the Press, the media. But the United States did not recognise this until 1966! Admittedly, we in Trinidad and Tobago are fortunate to have been heirs, at our Independence at least, to the benefits of the struggles of Europe (including the United Kingdom) into the 19th and 20th centuries to be on the road to Press freedom.

Ironically, because any limiting of freedom of the Press in Trinidad and Tobago in pre-Independence days was greater than that in the UK, there was the lingering belief of the new leaders that this should continue. In the UK, for example, there had been until the second half of the 19th century the infamous "tax on knowledge," a punitive, special tax on newspapers which was removed in 1861. It would continue for a while in this country. Other tough restrictions would prevail in the UK until 1869.

Perhaps I should have mentioned earlier that the Press in Europe, its colonies and the USA has always been a crucial component in the overall forming of public opinion. Many rulers in Europe and the colonies they owned had been somewhat unfortable with this, and perhaps understandably so, of the weapon or instrument of public opinion and often reacted nervously when thus opinion went against it. I cite one case, admittedly extreme, that of Otto Von Bismarck’s making public in the Press of the infamous Ems telegram which inflamed public opinion and let to the Franco-Prussian War. But this was not a case, however, of an article or articles in the Press creating public opinion, whether or not unfavourable to the Government, but rather a senior Government official — Von Bismarck - using the Press to whip up public opinion which would force his Government to act against France.

Here at home, for example, the country’s first Prime Minister, the late Dr Eric Williams, burned a copy of the Trinidad Guardian in Woodford Square, both a response to articles which he clearly feared would have possibly helped shape public opinion unfavourable to him and his Party and an indirect attack on freedom of the Press. Years later, another (then) Prime Minister, Mr Basdeo Panday would also come under fire for his non too subtle attack on the Media at a political meeting in a battle for the shaping or reshaping of public opinion. Albert Gomes would be another example.

In Germany in 1874 and France seven years later the administrations of those two countries had enacted laws which purported to protect the Press against their individual government’s seeking to control the institution. But the world would bear witness to what would take place in Germany where Kaiser Wilhelm and later Adolf Hitler would make a mockery of those guarantees.

Freedom of the Press, however limited in scope should not be seen as freedom to represent the views of and promote an ideology, or class or group to the ex-clusion of all else, as would have been noted in the 19th and 20th centuries, not only in Europe, but in the United States and, in all too many cases, in colonies, including the Caribbean.

But these apart, we in the English speaking Caribbean should always be wary of any attempt at governmental meddling and/or control, subtle or otherwise. Unfortunately, there are sections of the Media, print and electronic, which, however inadvertently, appear to invite restrictions through an insensitive insistence on the feriting of what is generally accepted as good taste. In the process any restrictions, should and must be revisited, would affect the media across the board.

The guarding of even limited Press freedom is both the responsibility of an alert and enlightened public and the Press, the Media itself. But the Media must continue to be vigilant until the setting of the Sun as hard won victories can also be rolled back.