As the PNM in­ter­nal elec­tion cam­paign gains mo­men­tum, it seems it was on­ly a mat­ter of time be­fore mem­bers of the me­dia would be­come col­lat­er­al dam­age– or tar­gets of the vit­ri­ol of the bat­tle. To this end, Dr Kei­th Row­ley's at­tack on Ex­press colum­nist Lennox Grant, a for­mer ed­i­tor in chief of this news­pa­per, was com­plete­ly out of char­ac­ter for some­one who has had a lot to say about the way in which the Gov­ern­ment has en­gaged the me­dia.

Quite frankly, Dr Row­ley made a ma­jor mis­step in his per­son­al at­tack on Mr Grant. He got the ba­sics wrong by stat­ing that Mr Grant "was a politi­cian who once ran against the PNM and lost his de­posit. He nev­er men­tions that. He writes as a scribe who speaks from a dis­tant, im­par­tial po­si­tion but I know he ran against the PNM. He had po­lit­i­cal as­pi­ra­tions and lost." Mr Grant has nev­er run for elect­ed of­fice, so the fact that Dr Row­ley could make such an er­ro­neous state­ment is dis­turb­ing.

Who is do­ing his re­search and prepa­ra­tion for his pub­lic speech­es? One would hard­ly think that he is speak­ing off the cuff when he mounts a plat­form. Last year the T&T Guardian re­port­ed, on March 27, that Dr Row­ley said, in re­sponse to Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar's com­ment about rogue el­e­ments in the me­dia: "'When a gov­ern­ment had lost its way and all its at­tempts to de­ceive had failed, it turns around and be­gins to at­tack the me­dia,' he added.

http://www.guardian.co.tt/dig­i­tal/new-mem­bers