Gail Alexan­der

While Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­is­ter Ja­mal Mo­hammed apol­o­gised at yes­ter­day's post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing for send­ing an e-mail re­cent­ly to TV6 man­age­ment, Den­nis Mc­Comie, di­rec­tor of in­for­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tions at the Prime Min­is­ter's Of­fice, had an off-cam­era face-off with CNC3 re­porter Samp­son Nan­ton.

The sit­u­a­tion arose short­ly af­ter the post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing end­ed with Mo­hammed's apol­o­gy and af­ter he em­pha­sised that press free­dom was im­por­tant to the Gov­ern­ment. The sce­nar­ios took place at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (OPM), St Clair. Mc­Comie, a for­mer broad­cast­er at NBS Ra­dio 610, was ap­point­ed di­rec­tor of in­for­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion at the OPM on Sep­tem­ber 20. He is re­mem­bered as the broad­cast­er who kept Ra­dio 610 on air dur­ing the failed 1990 Mus­limeen coup.

Dur­ing the tailend of the brief­ing, Mo­hammed was asked about the e-mail. Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, Mo­hammed had sent an e-mail to Do­minic Kaliper­sad of TV6, say­ing it was in his per­son­al ca­pac­i­ty. He ac­cused the sta­tion and the Ex­press of be­ing in­volved with the Op­po­si­tion PNM to desta­bilise the PP Gov­ern­ment. Mo­hammed came un­der fire for his e-mail.

Asked about its ef­fect on gov­ern­ment re­la­tions with the me­dia, Mo­hammed said he did not share the view that Gov­ern­ment's re­la­tions with the me­dia were de­te­ri­o­rat­ing even more. He said: "I be­lieve the me­dia in T&T has the full sup­port and co-op­er­a­tion of the Gov­ern­ment. Press free­dom is a very im­por­tant as­pect of de­vel­op­ment in T&T. Your best friend in this Gov­ern­ment is the Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

"(On) my state­ment that was sent out to Mr Kaliper­sad, I apol­o­gise if I have hurt any­one or done any­thing to make any­one un­com­fort­able in any way. "But rest as­sured, press free­dom is a very, very im­por­tant part of the op­er­a­tions of Gov­ern­ment and I will like to leave it at that and we will do what we can to en­sure we have a free press in T&T.

"We may not agree with what you print or pub­lish but we will give our lives to en­sure that you have the free­dom to print and pub­lish what you will like to." On the view that a min­is­ter could not sep­a­rate his per­son­al and pub­lic life, Mo­hammed said he had re­alised that and had learned that les­son yes­ter­day. "If I have caused dis­com­fort to any­one, I humbly apol­o­gise," he added.

Mo­hammed de­clined to com­ment on the con­tents of the e-mail, adding: "Suf­fice to say Gov­ern­ment stands firm­ly be­hind the me­dia. Press free­dom is some­thing we val­ue a great deal in T&T and we will do what we can to en­sure we have a free press." Mo­hammed de­clined fur­ther ques­tions on the com­ments he made in the e-mail which ap­peared at odds with what he was say­ing yes­ter­day. The ses­sion end­ed im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter that.

Mc­Comie then came over to tele­vi­sion re­porters, say­ing he had to "or­gan­ise pro­to­col with you gen­tle­men" and every­one need­ed to un­der­stand the pro­to­col. He had an ex­change with Nan­ton about whether the ses­sion had al­ready been brought to an end and whether Nan­ton's ques­tions were rel­e­vant.

Mc­Comie said re­porters "kept tak­ing the mi­cro­phone again" and he hoped there was a record­ing of it, "as we re­al­ly want you all to be pro­fes­sion­al." Nan­ton protest­ed that he had been pos­ing pro­fes­sion­al ques­tions and there was noth­ing ir­rel­e­vant about what was be­ing asked. Mc­Comie said: "Thank you very much" and then left.

Min­utes af­ter, in the hall out­side the me­dia con­fer­ence room Mc­Comie al­so had words for ra­dio sta­tion op­er­a­tor Robert Amar. He re­peat­ed the same ad­vice to Amar, say­ing re­porters need­ed to abide by the pro­to­col which had been es­tab­lished for pos­ing ques­tions at the me­dia con­fer­ences but were not do­ing so.