The Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (MATT) says it will not drop its guard when it comes to threats against press free­dom and the safe­ty of jour­nal­ists.

And the As­so­ci­a­tion in­tends to ho­n­our those “stal­wart jour­nal­ists” and “old sol­diers” whom it says “have held the pow­er­ful to ac­count” dur­ing the course of their ca­reers and, by do­ing so, helped de­fend and main­tain a strong democ­ra­cy in this coun­try.

In an of­fi­cial state­ment is­sued ahead of World Press Free­dom Day, which is be­ing ob­served to­mor­row, Tues­day 3 May 2022, MATT Pres­i­dent Ira Math­ur points to re­cent rev­e­la­tions con­cern­ing the use of spy­ware by the Gov­ern­ment and al­le­ga­tions that jour­nal­ists were among those be­ing spied up­on.

She notes: “…with­out checks and bal­ances, sur­veil­lance can be a sharp in­stru­ment that rips through cit­i­zens' de­mo­c­ra­t­ic rights to pri­va­cy and threat­ens the rights, free­dom and safe­ty of jour­nal­ists.”

The MATT pres­i­dent al­so points to cer­tain pieces of leg­is­la­tion which must be amend­ed if the prac­tice of jour­nal­ism is to be ho­n­oured and pro­tect­ed, most no­tably the Cy­ber­crime Bill 2017, the Whistle­blow­er Pro­tec­tion Act, the Da­ta Pro­tec­tion Act 2011, the Broad­cast Code and now the Sex­u­al Of­fences (Amend­ment 3) bill 2021

The fol­low­ing is the full text of the MATT state­ment…

STATE­MENT FROM THE ME­DIA AS­SO­CI­A­TION OF T&T (MATT)
ON THE OC­CA­SION OF WORLD PRESS FREE­DOM DAY MAY 03, 2022

In 1993, two years af­ter African jour­nal­ists pro­duced the land­mark Wind­hoek De­c­la­ra­tion on me­dia plu­ral­ism and in­de­pen­dence, the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly World pro­claimed May 03 as Press Free­dom Day.

Thanks to our col­leagues in the African con­ti­nent, May 3rd acts as a re­minder to gov­ern­ments glob­al­ly to re­spect press free­dom as a core de­mo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ple: a day for peo­ple of na­tions to sup­port me­dia which are tar­gets for re­straint or abo­li­tion of press free­dom; a day to re­mem­ber jour­nal­ists who con­tin­u­al­ly risk their lives and health and those who have died in the pur­suit of a sto­ry.

Ac­cord­ing to the UN cul­tur­al agency UN­ESCO, which works to pro­tect me­dia work­ers, in 2020 alone, 62 jour­nal­ists were killed just for do­ing their jobs (quite apart from pan­dem­ic and Ukraine war zone deaths).

Be­tween 2006 and 2020, over 1,200 me­dia work­ers lost their lives the same way. In nine out of ten cas­es, the killers go un­pun­ished.

Last month, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley stren­u­ous­ly de­nied var­i­ous ac­cu­sa­tions by pub­lic fig­ures that the State is spy­ing on jour­nal­ists, judges, and par­lia­men­tar­i­ans.

MATT wel­comed this news as we are aware that with­out checks and bal­ances, sur­veil­lance can be a sharp in­stru­ment that rips through cit­i­zens' de­mo­c­ra­t­ic rights to pri­va­cy and threat­ens the rights, free­dom and safe­ty of jour­nal­ists.

Spy­ware, mis­used, would be cor­ro­sive to the Fourth Es­tate and, as a re­sult, to democ­ra­cy.

When MATT was found­ed in 1987, 35 years ago, its bedrock was to act as a de­fend­er of press free­dom and the Fourth Es­tate as en­shrined in T&T's con­sti­tu­tion.

All past ex­ec­u­tives have al­ways un­der­stood that the democ­ra­cy of Trinidad and To­ba­go de­pends on strong me­dia.

In 2021, T&T's World Press Free­dom In­dex as com­piled by Re­porters With­out Bor­ders) shot up five places to 31st out of 180 coun­tries amid a pan­dem­ic.

We are aware that leg­is­la­tion, in­clud­ing the Cy­ber­crime Bill 2017, the Whistle­blow­er Pro­tec­tion Act, the Da­ta Pro­tec­tion Act 2011, the Broad­cast Code and now the Sex­u­al Of­fences (Amend­ment 3) Bill 2021, could have a chill­ing ef­fect on press free­dom and free ex­pres­sion on­line if adopt­ed with­out amend­ments that ho­n­our the prac­tice of jour­nal­ism.

MATT re­mains vig­i­lant re­gard­ing acts and omis­sions that could jeop­ar­dise the free and fair prac­tice of jour­nal­ism and the safe­ty of jour­nal­ists on be­half of the Fourth Es­tate.

A study con­duct­ed last year by the In­ter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists on glob­al jour­nal­ism in the COVID-19 era polled 1,300 front­line jour­nal­ists in 77 coun­tries and found the fol­low­ing:

●          Near­ly every free­lance jour­nal­ist has lost rev­enue or work op­por­tu­ni­ties

●          More than half of all jour­nal­ists are suf­fer­ing from stress and anx­i­ety

●          More than a quar­ter lack es­sen­tial equip­ment to work safe­ly from home, while one in four lack any pro­tec­tive equip­ment to work in the field.

●          Dozens of jour­nal­ists have been ar­rest­ed, faced law­suits, or as­sault­ed.

●          More than a third of jour­nal­ists have shift­ed their fo­cus to cov­er­ing Covid-19 re­lat­ed sto­ries.

To­day, May 03, we mourn all the jour­nal­ists who have lost their lives on the front line and re­mem­ber jour­nal­ists, our “old sol­diers”, who have been al­lowed to sim­ply fade away.

In this con­text, the MATT will ho­n­our stal­wart jour­nal­ists and me­dia work­ers past and present, those who are no longer with us and those who are with us over the com­ing weeks and months.

We will re­lease pro­files of jour­nal­ists this en­tire month on our web­site and across our so­cial mul­ti­me­dia as an act of grat­i­tude for their ser­vice in build­ing and re­flect­ing the iden­ti­ty of a young mul­ti­cul­tur­al na­tion, for be­ing the voice of the voice­less, and most im­por­tant­ly, for care­ful­ly guard­ing our role as The Fourth Es­tate.

They have held the pow­er­ful to ac­count, and by do­ing so, fear­less­ly de­fend­ed the right of all cit­i­zens who re­ly on de­mo­c­ra­t­ic, trans­par­ent, and fair in­sti­tu­tions.

To­day, the cur­rent MATT ex­ec­u­tive re­dou­bles its pledge to be eter­nal­ly vig­i­lant by thank­ing our stal­warts.

In the words of Andy John­son, a vet­er­an jour­nal­ist and found­ing mem­ber of MATT:

“There can be no democ­ra­cy with­out the func­tion­ing free press.”

“In the ab­sence of democ­ra­cy, peo­ple have no right to free­dom. The re­sult is tyran­ny and au­toc­ra­cy, which are anath­e­ma to life any­where in this age.”

_____

A state­ment by Ira Math­ur, Pres­i­dent of MATT, on be­half of the as­so­ci­a­tion’s ex­ec­u­tive: Kan­dace Jack­son, VP; Mark Lyn­der­say, Trea­sur­er; Nicole Ro­many, Sec­re­tary; Clay­ton Clarke, As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary; Robert Tay­lor and James Saun­ders, Floor Mem­bers.