Media, Social Media and Trinidad and Tobago: A New Twist

November 17, 2009 by Taran Rampersad

Edmund Gall has been asking some good questions and making good observations regarding media and social media in Trinidad and Tobago - 'Can The Dinosaurs of T&T Media Accept Change?' and 'Can The Media Do No Wrong?'   are worth reading. I agree with his observations for the most part because his observations are based on facts. And while I didn't have comment for his articles, I do have some things I want to add into the mix.

With a torrent of threads within Social Media itself regarding the reporter who was recently banned from Trinidad and Tobago Parliament, it seems as good a time as any to point out a few things.

Oddly, when people are discussing the ban of the reporter, they forget that the Media Association of Trinidad and Tobago recently demanded an apology of Minister Kennedy Swaratsingh - and why. That situation, barely covered here, became an issue because members of Parliament were avoiding the media.

They also seem to forget that there was a big uproar by the media about the potential licensing of journalists within CARICOM. CARICOM's response was that it was not discussing the licensing of journalists. I expect that, as a member of the Media Association of Trinidad and Tobago, people were dismayed at my lack of stance on the topic while it was a topic.

Now I'll mix these together.

The Mix

The Newsday reporter got banned from Parliament is an issue full of twists and turns - and when stretched out I have to wonder why it is considered such a big deal when Parliament doesn't seem to feel obligated to inform the public (Reference the Minister Swaratsingh incident). While it is all the rage to criticize the Trinidad and Tobago government, and while the Trinidad and Tobago government most certainly deserves criticism, the common ground between the issues seems pretty apparent: Government doesn't feel the need to communicate with citizens. The dots are right there. Connect them.

So while Parliament exercised the right to revoke a privilege, I've been sitting here and wondering why it should be a privilege for the media - or even the average citizen - to ask questions of elected representatives. And I wonder why it should be a privilege to get answers from elected representatives. At the very core of it, something seems wrong. While everyone is playing with the rulebooks that were written sometime in the past, probably by people now dead, I can't help but wonder why those rules exist as they do presently. It seems to me that its remarkably stupid to talk about 'freedom of the press' when that press is conveniently ignored.

And the CARICOM journalist-licensing issue, which had the traditional media in uproar, also didn't seem to make much sense to me. Governments can already control journalists without licensing them; the traditional media outlets have their own allegiances and business interests which allows anyone with enough influence to control the journalists remotely. Failing that, journalists can simply be ignored - and if they break some rule or the other that is selectively enforced, they can ban the journalists from Parliament.

From what I've gathered, being banned from Parliament is simply doing nothing in a different place since members of Parliament avoid the media's tough questions. And that means that Parliament avoids questions posed by  Trinidad and Tobago's citizens.

And that's where Social Media can play a part. Anyone with an opinion can self-publish on the Internet. Get enough people discussing this in plain site on the Internet (not Facebook; Facebook is not the Internet) and make the issues more apparent. But, to date, this largely does not happen - much like the Beetham Incident.

Now - the question that Edmund Gall asks is whether traditional media in Trinidad and Tobago can adapt. I'll ask a different question: Can Trinidad and Tobago's society adapt to being more active in its own media? Don't come to me with Facebook - show me blogs, pictures on photo sharing sites, videos on video sharing sites, tweets and discussion boards. While the Media of Trinidad and Tobago hasn't adapted well to social media (a broad statement with exceptions), society almost certainly hasn't adapted to social media as a whole.

So while everyone's discussing all of these things quietly and demanding transparency - maybe its time that those discussions become more transparent instead of hidden on social networking sites.

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