The Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (MATT) has writ­ten a let­ter to Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Don­na Cox, about the vir­tu­al press brief­in­gs where an up­date is giv­en on COVID-19. In re­cent times, re­porters have ex­pressed con­cern about ac­cess to the brief­in­gs as well as the par­tic­i­pa­tion of non-jour­nal­ists in the vir­tu­al brief­in­gs.

Here is the let­ter in full be­low:

MATT's let­ter to Min­is­ter Cox

Along with me­dia hous­es world-wide and across the re­gion, re­porters work­ing on the front­line in Trinidad and To­ba­go are fac­ing chal­lenges cov­er­ing the cat­a­stroph­ic

COVID-19 health emer­gency. So­cial dis­tanc­ing, stay-at-home or­ders and health threats are new ob­sta­cles that jour­nal­ists now nav­i­gate to se­cure in­for­ma­tion in the

pub­lic in­ter­est.

Se­cure hu­man health, as ar­tic­u­lat­ed by the Unit­ed Na­tions (March 19, 2020) de­pends not on­ly on read­i­ly ac­ces­si­ble health care.

It al­so de­pends on clear, ac­cu­rate in­for­ma­tion about the na­ture of the threats and the means by which in­di­vid­u­als can pro­tect them­selves, their fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties.

Against this back­ground, the gov­ern­ment’s dai­ly press brief­in­gs are a vi­tal chan­nel through which health in­for­ma­tion is dis­sem­i­nat­ed.

We ful­ly sup­port the ef­forts of pub­lic health pro­fes­sion­als and gov­ern­ments to de­vel­op and im­ple­ment strate­gies to pro­tect hu­man health and life. In fact, un­der hu­man rights law Gov­ern­ments every­where are ob­lig­at­ed to pro­vide re­li­able in­for­ma­tion on these mat­ters in ac­ces­si­ble for­mats to all (UN).

Prob­lems

Since the in­tro­duc­tion of the vir­tu­al news brief­in­gs, our mem­bers have en­coun­tered sev­er­al is­sues that in­ter­fere with their du­ty to trans­mit clear, com­pre­hen­si­ble

in­for­ma­tion to an anx­ious pub­lic.

These in­clude:

1. Mut­ing of mi­cro­phones. This (a) pre­vents fol­low-up ques­tions and re­quests for clar­i­fi­ca­tion (b) al­lows speak­ers to leave ques­tions unan­swered (c) al­lows

speak­ers to de­flect ques­tions (d) al­lows speak­ers to be repet­i­tive and long­wind­ed in an al­ready com­pressed time-frame (e) al­lows speak­ers to take ques­tions di­rect­ed at oth­ers

2. Non-se­lec­tion of jour­nal­ists. (a) Some jour­nal­ists have com­plained they wait­ed sev­er­al days to be se­lect­ed to pose ques­tions (b) Jour­nal­ists are un­cer­tain if they will be se­lect­ed at all and when

3. Ac­cred­i­ta­tion cri­te­ria. The cri­te­ria for in­clud­ing jour­nal­ists in the for­mal news me­dia pool re­mains un­clear. The pool has grown dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed, adding to

the prob­lems iden­ti­fied above. The re­cent ap­pear­ance of recog­nised, po­lit­i­cal­ly par­ti­san ac­tivists at the fo­rum and the re­quest by oth­ers for ac­cred­i­ta­tion make clar­i­ty about ac­cred­i­ta­tion cri­te­ria im­per­a­tive. The in­tro­duc­tion of po­lit­i­cal­ly-aligned Face­book and ra­dio com­men­ta­tors brings a high­er lev­el of politi­ci­sa­tion to a brief­ing that should re­main a space where clear, fac­tu­al in­for­ma­tion about the pan­dem­ic is prof­fered, in­ter­ro­gat­ed and trans­mit­ted to the pub­lic.

MATT ob­serves that, in ad­di­tion to health up­dates, the brief­ing has be­come the key chan­nel for in­for­ma­tion on oth­er ar­eas of gov­ern­ment, es­pe­cial­ly as Par­lia­ment is

cur­rent­ly on a “pan­dem­ic break” and oth­er nor­mal av­enues for pub­lic en­quiries on gov­er­nance are not avail­able.

The brief­ing, we note, have al­so come to in­clude (a) po­lit­i­cal re­spons­es to op­po­si­tion voic­es (b) the “cor­rect­ing” of opin­ions ex­pressed in news­pa­per ed­i­to­ri­als (c) a Q&A

with the pub­lic.

The con­ges­tion of per­sons, ques­tions and in­for­ma­tion at this sin­gle, one-hour dai­ly news brief­ing is fast di­min­ish­ing the ca­pac­i­ty of the brief­ing’s fo­cus to trans­mit

crit­i­cal COVID-19 health in­for­ma­tion to a pub­lic that is hun­kered down in their homes, anx­ious for in­for­ma­tion to guide their fam­i­lies’ dai­ly lives and fu­tures.

Rec­om­men­da­tions

MATT sub­mits the fol­low­ing rec­om­men­da­tions that we an­tic­i­pate will help sat­is­fy the pub­lic need for rel­e­vant in­for­ma­tion while eas­ing the con­ges­tion of ques­tions

and per­sons at the news brief­ing.

1. While Min­is­ters of Ed­u­ca­tion, Labour and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty have been in at­ten­dance on oc­ca­sion, in­for­ma­tion on the poli­cies and ac­tions in oth­er key

ar­eas of gov­er­nance re­mains large­ly void. These ar­eas in­clude, in­ter alia, en­er­gy, trade, agri­cul­ture and fish­eries, works, women and chil­dren, pub­lic util­i­ties.

Giv­en the wide range of sub­jects on which the pub­lic is call­ing for in­for­ma­tion and the nu­mer­ous seg­ments of the pop­u­la­tion to serve—in­clud­ing the dif­fer­ent­ly abled,

the el­der­ly and those with­out ac­cess to the in­ter­net—MATT rec­om­mends that the in­for­ma­tion ses­sions in­crease to in­clude:

(a) Spe­cif­ic COVID-19 health up­dates for full-time jour­nal­ists and those free­lancers whose main pro­fes­sion­al ac­tiv­i­ty is jour­nal­ism. This brief­ing should be 90 min­utes long.

(b) Sep­a­rate ses­sions for blog­gers and as­sort­ed on­line non-news me­dia per­son­nel

(c) Ses­sions with Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment

(d) Reg­u­lar Q&A ses­sions with the pub­lic

2. Sec­tors of the so­ci­ety with sec­tor-spe­cif­ic queries, e.g. labour, agri­cul­ture, en­er­gy, fi­nance etc. can be ac­com­mo­dat­ed in sep­a­rate ses­sions where rep­re­sen­ta­tives of those sec­tors can ad­dress their ques­tions di­rect­ly to rel­e­vant Gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

3. Greater use of news re­leas­es for counter-ar­gu­ments, re­but­tals, po­lit­i­cal fisticuffs etc.

MATT re­mains avail­able to as­sist in the free flow of ad­e­quate in­for­ma­tion to the pub­lic dur­ing this COVID-19 na­tion­al health emer­gency.