The advent of modern technology has resulted in an "insidious threat" to the freedom of the press in T&T, says Senior Counsel Martin Daly. He was speaking at panel discussion yesterday held at the Central Bank auditorium, Port-of-Spain. It was hosted by the Hugh Wooding Law School and the topic was: Is there a real threat to freedom of the press in T&T?
"I see a more insidious threat, which is a result of technology...the fact is, it is now possible for people to engage in more personal attacks and campaigns completely anonymously and I regret to say with the aid of the print media who seem very undiscriminating in what they allow people to say in light of personal attacks in response to a news story," Daly said.
"It is clear to me that we now have a new difficultly and a new threat to freedom of the press, which is the ability to make anonymous, personal attacks will serve as a deterrent to free speech and in turn will serve as a deterrent to freedom of the press. It's become a very real problem in T&T."
Singling out the print media, Daly said one had to be pretty insensitive not to see a new trend in the print media, where the sources of front-page stories were "perfectly obvious" and it was also "perfectly obvious they were politically driven." "It doesn't appear that the media are trying to hide the sources any more...You see it in the media all the time, particularly on a Sunday:?'papers obtained by this newspaper,'" he said.
"Well, I could identify quite easily where the papers were obtained from, and I think this is a new threat. "And that too means that the persons trying to control the flow of information are being too easily seduced by the promise of papers, or the sight of documents generally, or the sight of things generally that is not available in an open fashion.
"I see that as a new threat to freedom of the press and I think it is politically driven.'" Also discussed were letters which were sent to the editor. Daly said he believed the position of the media was that the writer must present a bona-fide name and address, after which a decision would be taken on whether the letter would be published or not.
"I think it is pretty clear that is not being well premised, and I think that also represents a threat to freedom of the press, because it is shaping opinion, or it is giving additional weight to persons to shape opinion, under the cloak of anonymity. I am quite concerned about that as a current trend," he added.