The new TTT tele­vi­sion sta­tion must be the “gold stan­dard” of qual­i­ty in broad­cast­ing and lead the charge in pro­vid­ing fac­tu­al, ac­cu­rate in­for­ma­tion and com­bat­ing “fake news,” Prime Dr Kei­th Row­ley has in­di­cat­ed.

He did so yes­ter­day as he launched TTT Lim­it­ed—for­mer­ly CN­MG—at Mar­aval Road, Port-of-Spain.

“In clos­ing CN­MG, we’re open­ing the door to a brighter fu­ture,” Row­ley added.

Row­ley said TTT need­ed to ad­here to high stan­dards be­cause of the se­ri­ous­ness of the role the me­dia plays in cit­i­zens’ lives.

In a time when one has to ques­tion every­thing seen and mis­in­for­ma­tion, he said TTT has the role of build­ing a rep­u­ta­tion as a bas­tion for cor­rect in­for­ma­tion. If a ques­tion aris­es on some­thing that’s “trend­ing” and if it’s seen or heard on TTT, “... you’ll know it’s been checked.”

On TTT’s oth­er role as a pro­duc­tion house, Row­ley said it’s im­por­tant for the sta­tion to not just broad­cast news or pro­vide a plat­form for cre­ativ­i­ty but fa­cil­i­tate the cre­ation of lo­cal con­tent. He said with the neg­a­tiv­i­ty seen in the news, it was im­por­tant to pro­duce pro­grammes that el­e­vate, en­ter­tain and dri­ve peo­ple to a high­er qual­i­ty of life.

“Rather than be news car­ri­er, it’s more im­por­tant for this gen­er­a­tion of TTT to be a pro­gramme pro­duc­er of con­tent for T&T and ex­ter­nal­ly,” he said.

He pro­ject­ed jobs and projects which could bring rev­enue from such pro­duc­tions, which would, in turn, of­fer a plat­form for tal­ent­ed peo­ple.

Row­ley said the me­dia is an in­te­gral part of T&T’s qual­i­ty of life. He said he’d had two friends in the me­dia, one of whom he taught in school. He said he’d once dis­agreed on state-owned me­dia but over time changed that view. He cit­ed the US’ PBS and UK’s BBC as proof of a role for the state in me­dia.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­is­ter Stu­art Young said TTT will lead the charge of 100 per cent ac­cu­rate news to com­bat the pro­lif­er­a­tion of “fake news”, which he said was grow­ing and tak­ing over, es­pe­cial­ly on so­cial me­dia, and would be a go-to plat­form for in­for­ma­tion.