How the PNM controls the Media...

In response to what he saw as the politicizing of popular culture to serve political agendas, lead singer of the iconic American rock band 'The Doors' Jim Morrison said 'whoever controls the media, controls the mind,' and it would seem that the People's National Movement have not only embraced that philosophy, they have adopted it full scale and continue to employ it to this day.

According to the Minister of Food Production Devant Maharaj in his then maiden budget contribution at the Senate in 2011, the PNM infiltrated the media, awarding scholarships to a select few such as Curtis Williams, former producer at state owned CNMG, Jerome Lewis and Odeka Oneil both of Citadel I95 (which was itself a beneficiary of special treatment under the PNM in the award of its license), a station owned by former Port of Spain PNM Mayor, Louis Lee Sing.

The Curtis Williams named above is also the current head of the Media Association of Trinidad & Tobago, and his counterpart in the Trinidad & Tobago Publishers & Broadcasters Association is both the son of the same (surprise, surprise) former PNM Mayor Louis Lee Sing mentioned above and husband of PNM Alderman Laurel Lezama Lee Sing, who is reported to have received hundreds of thousands of dollars under the same dubious and corrupt scholarship fund.

An article in one of the daily newspapers dated Saturday November 23rd 2013 states the following: (quote) “Attorney General Anand Ramlogan announced yesterday that Cabinet had agreed to refer the Forensic Report into the Community Development Scholarship Fund (2003-2007) to the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Commissioner of Police and the Integrity Commission. The Report, which was done by Price Waterhouse and laid in the Parliament yesterday, found many irregularities in the operation of the Fund. The Fund was established under the PNM government and was managed by the Ministry of Community Development. “Based on the findings of the Forensic Report, counsel has advised that there is sufficient evidence against the minister to warrant charges of misconduct/misbehaviour in public office and for conspiracy to defraud,” Ramlogan said (end quote).

And if you think questionable slush funds and scholarships are the only ways the PNM bought and paid for a complicit media you would be wrong. There are allegations that links senior and long standing journalists to the former government through the distribution of multi-million dollar state houses, government contracts and Ministerial consultancy briefs to the tune of untold hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars. At least one half of a byline duo operating out of one newsroom has received not one but two houses under the former PNM and is also the beneficiary of at least one Housing Development contract, a contract to do what no one is quite sure but which seems to suggest a rationale behind her almost rabid anti-People's Partnership bias. Another, a head of news no less  is alleged to receive regular payments that are estimated between ten and a hundred thousand dollars per month to keep her 'herd' compliant and willing.

According to the Minister of Works Dr. Surujattan Rambachan in his letter to the Editor of the Guardian entitled “Media duty to be fair and free from political bias,” he lists Irene Medina, Wendy Campbell, Maxie Cuffie, Earl Manmohan, Paige de Leon, Ucill Cambridge, Curtis Williams and Joannah Bharose all as journalists or former journalists who went to 'work' for the the PNM government in well paying positions.

Another well know investigative journalist turned political reporter linked to the PNM through former and current 'relatives' and who has been making life 'hell' for the People's Partnership is now herself embroiled in a scandal of her own involving allegations of journalistic strong arming and extortion, and the scandalous accusations finding their way into the public domain links high flying party financiers, SIA operatives, at least one former Attorney General, a former party legal advisor and a potential Senator as members of the sordid circle dedicated to party-centric objectives that all found their way into her writings.

I could go on but i think the point is made.

The Constitution of the Republic of Trinidad & Tobago, in recognition of the value of a strong media as the protector of democracy, lists freedom of the press among the rights enshrined. Perhaps therefore it may not be too outlandish a position to call for a Commission of Enquiry into the media to identify the scope and impact of this bought and paid for bias and the impact it has and may have had on the very democracy it is supposed to protect.

It is my view based on the above that the heads of both the Media and the Publishers and Broadcasters Associations need to step down immediately or be removed and both boards purged of those who have been named as beneficiaries under any administration so as to establish both organizations as impartial arbiters in the process. There must be an enquiry of some sort to ventilate the dank smell of corrupt bias now permeating the media, and a Journalistic Code of Ethics be adopted that governs the profession that includes among its articles the regulations for the open declaration of bias to protect the public's right to know from interference and trickery.