Pao­lo Ker­na­han

Last week’s col­umn fo­cused on gov­ern­ment in­ter­fer­ence in state me­dia. The temp­ta­tion has proved ir­re­sistible in the past, and un­der its present con­fig­u­ra­tion, his­to­ry is like­ly to re­peat it­self. Per­haps the over­rid­ing chal­lenge though is the amor­phous iden­ti­ty of CN­MG.

Its pre­de­ces­sor, TTT, had a well-es­tab­lished tra­di­tion of lo­cal pro­gram­ming which re­flect­ed the cul­ture and di­ver­si­ty of this coun­try. The qual­i­ty of that pro­gram­ming could be de­bat­ed ad in­fini­tum, but the pur­pose of the com­pa­ny was clear­ly de­fined, al­beit, in­com­pe­tent­ly ex­e­cut­ed in some ar­eas.

Re­flec­tions on TTT’s his­to­ry in our liv­ing rooms con­jure wist­ful mem­o­ries of Hazel Ward Red­man, Hol­ly Be­taudi­er, Ho­race James and many oth­ers. Those are the per­son­al­i­ties we re­mem­ber, not Go­pher and Cap­tain Stub­ing of The Love Boat.

That’s right! TTT did have its fair share of in­sipid for­eign pro­gram­ming. I re­mem­ber as a young lad, rac­ing home from church on a Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon to catch the tail end of Bay­watch. Come to think of it, rac­ing home to ogle those Bay­watch beau­ties and their…flota­tion de­vices didn’t bring me any clos­er to God; and I lived next door to a church.

What TTT did have, how­ev­er, was a mix of shows which re­flect­ed so­ci­ety.

It could be ar­gued that the sta­tion failed to keep pace with the times, cre­at­ing an open­ing hand­i­ly filled by com­pe­ti­tion.

For all its fail­ings, TTT rep­re­sent­ed an earnest­ness of self that, to date, has on­ly been ap­prox­i­mat­ed by Gayelle the Chan­nel.

Hanse­ly Ajod­ha, Stork St Hill, Shirley ‘Beu­lah’ King…they all por­trayed char­ac­ters we knew in­ti­mate­ly. In tele­vi­sion se­ries these ac­tors, and many oth­ers, brought to life the busy­body neigh­bour, the shop­keep­er, the vil­lager ram and the rum shop floosie.

As we be­gan to “de­vel­op,” in­creas­ing ex­po­sure to for­eign in­flu­ences bred in­se­cu­ri­ties and doubt. Sud­den­ly these beloved char­ac­ters and any­thing that was ours seemed parochial and em­bar­rass­ing.

The fer­vour with which we es­chewed our na­tion­al char­ac­ter has broad, mis­un­der­stood reper­cus­sions for all of so­ci­ety.

Tri­nis re­joice in wear­ing the clothes and at­ti­tudes of cul­tur­al im­pe­ri­al­ism. Yet, in a fierce­ly com­pet­i­tive glob­al en­vi­ron­ment, hav­ing noth­ing unique to of­fer is a very dan­ger­ous place to be.

State me­dia should be used as an an­chor of na­tion­al iden­ti­ty. Cit­i­zens should be able to turn to CN­MG as a re­source for his­tor­i­cal, cul­tur­al and gen­er­al­ly ed­i­fy­ing pro­gram­ming to fire their po­ten­tial.

If we are to have any hope of pro­duc­ing peo­ple who can bring their own bricks and mor­tar to this “na­tion build­ing” thing we keep talk­ing about, their minds must be adapt­ed to the chal­lenge.

Re­cent­ly I binge-watched a three-part ITV doc­u­men­tary se­ries on the Caribbean. These sto­ries, in­clud­ing an ex­plo­ration of our own coun­try were ex­pert­ly told by none oth­er than Sir Trevor Mc­Don­ald, a cit­i­zen of T&T lusti­ly em­braced by the British as one of their own.

That se­ries was both riv­et­ing and deeply sad­den­ing. Sad­den­ing be­cause I have to look to an­oth­er coun­try for in­spir­ing and in­for­ma­tive pro­gram­ming about my own cul­ture while im­port­ed, ut­ter­ly ridicu­lous wrasslin’, com­mands cen­tre stage on lo­cal tele­vi­sion.

As an aside, can you imag­ine Sir Trevor’s fate had he stayed here to lan­guish in the cul-de-sac of lo­cal me­dia? He wouldn’t be Sir Trevor at all, just “Aye Mack­ie, keep lashin’ dem! yuh hear!”

Is it any won­der that the Sir Trevors of this coun­try must es­cape its in­tel­lec­tu­al­ly crip­pling con­fines so that their tal­ents might flour­ish?

BBC pro­gram­ming (not to be con­fused with BBC world ser­vice on ca­ble tele­vi­sion) al­so has a wealth of his­tor­i­cal dra­mas, and doc­u­men­taries of every species in the tele­vi­sion land­scape. The pro­duc­tion val­ues, the writ­ing styles, the eru­di­tion and vi­va­cious­ness of their pre­sen­ters; all of it is care­ful­ly de­signed to cater to sen­si­bil­i­ties of mod­ern au­di­ences. The BBC ex­cels at tak­ing in­nate­ly mun­dane top­ics and gild­ing them with broad ap­peal.

The broad­cast­er al­so ap­pre­ci­ates that en­ter­tain­ment is an im­por­tant part of its man­date and this is com­bined seam­less­ly with its com­mit­ment to ed­u­ca­tion.

There are many mod­els for CN­MG to em­u­late. The di­ver­si­ty of our so­ci­ety, the depth of our his­to­ry, the wealth of our nat­ur­al her­itage…there is a fath­om­less well of sub­ject mat­ter which can feed qual­i­ty tele­vi­sion pro­gram­ming.

Young, im­pres­sion­able minds, if giv­en the ex­po­sure to that kind of TV, could de­vel­op in­ter­ests in the sci­ences, the arts, ar­chi­tec­ture…you name it. In­stead of per­pet­u­at­ing a glut of mar­ket­ing stooges, pe­tro­le­um en­gi­neers and lawyers, state me­dia can be used to ad­vance that next crop of fer­tile minds.

We need the in­no­va­tors, young men and women who can take in­spi­ra­tion from what is around them, and bind it to the lim­it­less pos­si­bil­i­ties of­fered by tech­nol­o­gy and a bor­der­less world.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­is­ter Max­ie Cuffie is re­cent­ly quot­ed as hav­ing said that a de­ci­sion will soon be made on the fate of both CN­MG and GISL.

Vac­u­ous for­eign pro­grammes and du­pli­cat­ed news hours are al­ready tak­en care of by pri­vate me­dia en­ti­ties.

CN­MG must stand apart as a provider of con­tent which can help this coun­try chart a course for achieve­ment in world in­tol­er­ant of medi­oc­rity and same­ness.