Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­is­ter Symon De No­bri­ga is now con­cerned that com­ments made in “jest and off the record” are be­ing blown out of pro­por­tion.

De No­bri­ga was the sub­ject of a me­dia re­port on Mon­day which stat­ed that he con­firmed that State-owned Trinidad & To­ba­go Tele­vi­sion (TTT) was giv­en pref­er­en­tial ac­cess over main­stream me­dia.

Ac­cord­ing to a me­dia re­port on Mon­day, De No­bri­ga was at a repa­tri­a­tion ex­er­cise in which some 700 Venezue­lan na­tion­als were board­ing a ves­sel to re­turn home.

While rep­re­sen­ta­tives from TTT and the In­for­ma­tion Di­vi­sion were al­lowed to board the ves­sel for cov­er­age, two rep­re­sen­ta­tives of main­stream me­dia were barred.

De­spite the op­tics, De No­bri­ga de­nied yes­ter­day that the Gov­ern­ment was block­ing tra­di­tion­al me­dia while giv­ing TTT ex­tra­or­di­nary ac­cess.

“Yes, I am con­cerned that it is be­ing blown out of pro­por­tion be­cause the com­ments be­ing at­trib­uted to me were made in jest and in re­sponse to an equal­ly ca­su­al­ly posed ques­tion from (re­porter named). It was off cam­era and off the record,” he said.

De No­bri­ga has de­nied that the Gov­ern­ment was seek­ing to ban tra­di­tion­al me­dia and in­stead cit­ed COVID-19 pro­to­cols as the rea­son for the lim­it­ed me­dia ac­cess.

How­ev­er while two arms of the State me­dia were al­lowed to board the ves­sel, oth­er me­dia had to cov­er the event from the street.

“There was no in­struc­tion to ban me­dia. A sit­u­a­tion arose where TTT and In­for­ma­tion Di­vi­sion were in the process of cov­er­ing the repa­tri­a­tion ex­er­cise. As has been the prac­tice due to Health Pro­to­cols, it was the in­ten­tion to dis­sem­i­nate the footage to me­dia, up­on re­quest- that in­struc­tion was giv­en to the Di­rec­tor of Gov­ern­ment Com­mu­ni­ca­tions,” he said.

“There was nev­er any in­ten­tion to put any­one at a dis­ad­van­tage, or to bar any par­tic­u­lar me­dia house,” he said.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst and Con­sti­tu­tion­al ex­pert Dr Hamid Ghany weighed in on the is­sue and ques­tioned whether ban­ning me­dia was a Con­sti­tu­tion­al vi­o­la­tion. To that, De No­bri­ga said that “free­dom of the press is en­shrined in our con­sti­tu­tion, which I have tak­en a sworn oath to up­hold”.

“For the sake of clar­i­fi­ca­tion, let me state cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly and for the record once again, there is no pol­i­cy that pro­vides or af­fords the state-owned me­dia –– TTT or any arm of the In­for­ma­tion Di­vi­sion –– pre­ferred or ex­clu­sive ac­cess to events or ac­tiv­i­ty,” he said.

On Fri­day, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley re­ceived two brand new Cape Class Pa­trol Boats, the TTS Port of Spain and the TTS Scar­bor­ough) at Staubles Bay in Ch­aguara­mas.

Re­porters who at­tend­ed that com­mis­sion­ing al­so said that TTT was al­lowed to ac­com­pa­ny the Prime Min­is­ter on tour, they were rel­e­gat­ed to the up­per decks.

De No­bri­ga is deny­ing that this was be­cause of any Gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy.

“The Min­istry gave no di­rec­tions to that ef­fect. I know me­dia were on hand to con­duct in­ter­views on the jet­ty but to speak to any­thing else would be spec­u­la­tion,” he said.

Re­porters did say that the di­rec­tion came from the Coast Guard.

The ac­cu­sa­tion of po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence is not new. Back in 2011, un­der the for­mer Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment, for­mer for­eign af­fairs min­is­ter Dr Su­ruj Ram­bachan was forced to de­fend him­self against sim­i­lar con­cerns.

At the time TTT was still known as Caribbean News Me­dia Group (CN­MG) and jour­nal­ists al­leged that there was po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence in the re­port­ing of news. Ques­tions about the in­ter­fer­ence came af­ter Ram­bachan and host of CN­MG’s First Up morn­ing show, Fazeer Mo­hammed clashed. Mo­hammed was let go not long af­ter and while CN­MG cit­ed cost-cut­ting mea­sures, staff be­lieved it was be­cause of the heat­ed ex­change be­tween the Min­is­ter and the host.

Yes­ter­day, Ram­bachan re­spond­ed to texted ques­tions on Gov­ern­ment over­reach in­to the me­dia.

“The me­dia was nev­er as free as it was un­der the part­ner­ship. You are re­fer­ring to an in­ci­dent with Fazeer where I asked him a point­ed ques­tion as to his po­si­tion on women as lead­ers. I nev­er fired nor in­struct­ed any­one to ter­mi­nate any­one,” he said.

By 2015, then min­is­ter of com­mu­ni­ca­tion Max­ie Cuffie al­so had to de­fend against ac­cu­sa­tions from the Op­po­si­tion about po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence at CN­MG.

Cuffie, a for­mer jour­nal­ist, had de­nied all ac­cu­sa­tions.