Senseless censors

As I was waiting to pass through security at the Miami airport on Monday, I read the electronic sign saying that it was forbidden to board an aircraft carrying weapons: a warning that has always struck me as absurd, since anyone with a gun or bomb is not going to be deterred by regulations. But now there was an addition to the usual warning: “It is forbidden to talk about weapons.”

This brought stupidity to the surreal, and I’m pretty sure if anyone was arrested for that particular offence the US Supreme Court would find the rule unconstitutional. The sign also made me think of what Thomas Jefferson, one of America’s founding fathers, wrote: “A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither.” I was in Florida when Saddam was captured and, after skipping through the networks, switched to a movie: the bias of even seasoned anchormen like Dan Rather was egregious. And I decided that the low world ranking of the media-heavy United States in a recent survey of press freedom was well-deserved: 31 out of 166 countries. In that same survey by Reporters Without Borders, Trinidad and Tobago was ranked fifth.

Mind you, I am not entirely confident about the methodology, which apparently consisted of asking journalists and other public persons about their perception of how free the media in their country were. But, if the ranking is accurate, then in my admittedly biased opinion more credit goes to the “gutter journalism” of the TNT Mirror, especially the hilariously vulgar columns of Ramjohn Ali, than to the “respectable dailies.” It is, however, pertinent that the boards of the Newsday and the Express are wise enough not to interfere with the editorial departments, and that the editors in these newspapers, for the most part, jealously guard their independence. Significantly, this custom is not true of the Guardian and that paper, despite its product being comparable to the other dailies, has for the past six years constantly trailed a dismal third in the MFO polls. Yet even the Guardian favours the comic writing of BC Pires, while Newsday has gone even further and allowed my satirical columns. However, the freedom the Trinidadian media have is largely that of opinion, rather than hard news. Investigative reporting is still stymied by colonial laws, and the Freedom of Information Act was drafted in such a way that any really embarrassing request for information can be denied merely on a Minister’s say-so. The attitude of politicians was recently exemplified by Energy Minister Eric Williams, backed up by Keith Rowley, who when asked in Parliament by Ganga Singh if a secret deal being negotiated by the National Gas Company was consistent with transparency and accountability, simply responded, “Yes.”

Our politicians still do everything they can to stymie democratic practice. The Manning regime does not think it has any obligation to be upfront with the public, whether the issue is moving Parliament from the Red House or policies to provide special assistance to Afro-Trinidadian males or kidnappings. As for the UNC, their Equal Opportunities Act was nothing but a smokescreen to limit free speech. That Act is now being tested in court, and it seems to me only obvious that its infamous Clause Seven must be declared unconstitutional. But, given the recent judgment of Justice of Appeal Roger Hamel-Smith and past judgments on media matters by several other judges, I realise that what is an obvious principle to me is not so obvious to the society’s power-holders. As a journalist, I have long noted the tendency of certain prominent people to sue the media for libel at the drop of an insult. What is more, I have also noted that these same persons usually have something to hide: whether it is corrupt activities, unprofessional conduct, or just an obnoxious character. What makes our hold on freedom of speech more tenuous than the Reporters Without Borders ranking would suggest is that the judiciary here seems fundamentally opposed to the principle of press freedom.

For Hamel-Smith to suggest that news photographers should have sought the permission of attorney Clyde Crevelle before taking his picture in a public place — well, that statement is so asinine that it does not merit discussion. What is worth considering, though, is the attitude which lay behind Hamel-Smith’s judgment. Consider first the wording: “While it may be the function of the press to report news…” May be? What other function does Hamel-Smith think the media have? He then went on to say that photographers “should respect the wishes of those who prefer not to have their photographs taken and refrain from stalking them for that purpose.” Apart from the fact that nobody was stalking Crevelle — he was an attorney whose previously ignorant behaviour in court had already made him newsworthy — it seems that if Hamel-Smith was a newspaper editor, the public would to this day have no idea what Dole Chadee looked like. My own feeling is that Hamel-Smith only took this slant because Crevelle is an officer of the court — I doubt he would have bothered if photographer Brian Ng Fatt had been spat on by, say, a mere drug dealer.

It is quite unlikely that even the most conservative US Supreme Court judge would make a statement remotely similar to Hamel-Smith’s. This is why, even if Trinidad and Tobago’s media have a higher ranking than the US media, our freedom of speech requires more vigilance. If you listen closely to our leaders, in politics and the judiciary and business and religion, it is obvious that they view freedom of expression as a privilege, not a right. There are many reasons for this, but I think it boils down to what the British philosopher Bertrand Russell once wrote about the ruling class of his society: “It is impossible to be respectable without also being wicked.”

E-mail: kbaldeosingh@hotmail.com
Website:www.caribscape.com/baldeosingh