Chester Sam­bra­no

Lead Ed­i­tor, News­gath­er­ing

chester.sam­bra­no@cnc3.co.tt

The Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TATT) has writ­ten to broad­cast­ers ad­vis­ing them to re­frain from play­ing mu­sic with vi­o­lent lyrics that can neg­a­tive­ly im­pact young peo­ple and chil­dren.

TATT re­mind­ed broad­cast­ers that it is em­pow­ered un­der the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Act to reg­u­late the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions and broad­cast­ing sec­tors and is re­spon­si­ble for en­sur­ing the con­tent broad­cast on ra­dio and tele­vi­sion sta­tions is ap­pro­pri­ate for the coun­try.

It said in re­cent times it had no­ticed a pro­lif­er­a­tion of con­tent, no­tably songs with lyrics that pro­mote vi­o­lence and vi­o­lent be­hav­iour, in­clud­ing but not lim­it­ed to mur­der, rape, gang vi­o­lence, il­lic­it drugs and in­ap­pro­pri­ate sex­u­al be­hav­iour.

“The Au­thor­i­ty ad­vis­es that con­tent of this na­ture can have a neg­a­tive im­pact on per­sons, par­tic­u­lar­ly chil­dren and young per­sons and im­pres­sion­able or vul­ner­a­ble per­sons in so­ci­ety. The Au­thor­i­ty there­fore ad­vis­es you to re­frain from the broad­cast of any such con­tent which glo­ri­fies or pro­motes vi­o­lence, en­cour­ages vi­o­lent be­hav­iour and/or glo­ri­fies or pro­motes the use of guns or oth­er weapons and glo­ri­fies or pro­motes in­ap­pro­pri­ate sex be­hav­iour and/or the use of il­lic­it drugs,” TATT said.

TATT al­so told broad­cast­ers to take all nec­es­sary steps to pro­tect chil­dren from con­tent that in­cludes of­fen­sive lan­guage, sex­u­al themes and oth­er un­suit­able ma­te­r­i­al.

“Please treat this mat­ter with the due care and at­ten­tion that is re­quired in the cir­cum­stances,” it said.

In re­sponse, T&T Pub­lish­ers and Broad­cast­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTP­BA) pres­i­dent Dou­glas Wil­son said his or­gan­i­sa­tion and its mem­bers stand for self-reg­u­la­tion and re­spon­si­ble broad­cast­ing and op­er­ate by a code of con­duct.

“That’s what we sub­scribe to,” he said.

Wil­son added that broad­cast­ers al­so op­er­ate with­in the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Act.

“We recog­nise there is free­dom of ex­pres­sion as me­dia hous­es, prac­tis­ing broad­cast­ing me­dia and print me­dia. How­ev­er, we must be and will be re­spon­si­ble in how we dis­charge our du­ty to the pub­lic, so it’s not about cen­sor­ship be­ing the an­swer and I would like to steer every­one away from that,” he said.

Wil­son added, how­ev­er, that when it comes to crime and vi­o­lence, mu­sic is on­ly part of the nar­ra­tive.

“We have to start look­ing as a so­ci­ety at the qual­i­ty of our lead­er­ship, homes and par­ent­ing. We have to look at the en­tire sys­tem of jus­tice which has failed the coun­try,” he said.

Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed’s Ra­dio Com­mer­cial Man­ag­er To­va Sat­nar­ine-White al­so weighed in. She said mu­sic has and will al­ways be a form of ex­pres­sion.

“When in­di­vid­u­als sing or writ­ers pro­duce ma­te­r­i­al, they are do­ing so based on their lifestyle, their re­al­i­ty and/or what they be­lieve their au­di­ence wants to hear. Our pro­gram­ming com­mit­tees se­lect mu­sic, based on genre, tar­get au­di­ence, pop­u­lar­i­ty and au­di­ence feed­back. The broad­cast code has set the cri­te­ria for mu­sic in T&T and we sup­port all artistes with­in these guide­lines,” she ex­plained.

The is­sue of vi­o­lent lyrics has been in fo­cus in re­cent times af­ter two Trini­bad artistes were re­cent­ly charged with be­ing mem­bers of a gang.

At the open­ing of the 46th Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing last week, Guyana Pres­i­dent Mo­hamed Ir­faan Ali called for artistes in the re­gion to fo­cus on pos­i­tiv­i­ty in their mu­sic and briefly ref­er­enced a de­ci­sion to bar cer­tain artistes from per­form­ing in his coun­try. Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley lat­er said that ban­ning Trini­bad mu­sic might not be ben­e­fi­cial but there is a need for artistes to clean up the lyrics.