It is striking, to say the least, how the three daily newspapers are failing to describe to their readers - who count on them and often pay them - in clear eyed terms what is going on in the country and fail completely to remind their readers about what ought to be important to our democracy. Take, for example, what can loosely be described as the Brent Thomas affair.
The reported facts are that Mr. Thomas had been charged with dealing in arms and ammunition illegally. Now these are serious charges, especially given the high incidence of violent crime. However, there seems to have been no restriction on Mr. Thomas who was out on bail. Now, bail is a common law right based on the principle that unless and until a man is found guilty of a crime his freedom cannot or ought not to be restricted.
Mr. Thomas, however, was arrested in Barbados by a combination of Trinidadian and Barbadian police and brought back to Trinidad. The problem here is that there was no warrant of extradition and the Trinidadian police had obviously gone to great lengths to bring Mr. Thomas back. They had even commandeered a special plane owned by the State for this purpose.
This raises the rather obvious question as to who made this order to have Mr. Thomas arrested and brought back and why were the proper channels (such as obtaining an extradition warrant) not complied with? The erstwhile Commissioner of Police promised that there would be an investigation into what happened and why and that a report would be made in two weeks. This promise was made on the 17th May - more than three months ago! And yet, there hasn't been a single solitary peep out of the media! Nada! Nothing! Its as though it never happened and that page has passed. And meanwhile?
And yet it did happen! Why is this important? Because the facts - which are probably very uncomfortable- need to be spelled out and exposed. Who ordered this illegal action? Who got the Barbadian authorities to comply? Who in Barbados participated in this illegal act? Is any politician involved either here, or in Barbados, or both? If so, who? Why has no report ever been made? Why has the media seemingly dropped this matter? Why can't we (the general public) know what happened here.
Either the country's media lack the understanding of how serious this matter is or they lack the spine to investigate this properly, or both. Neither of these options is particularly comforting given the current state of this country's politics. Ignoring uncomfortable truths affect our democracy in all sorts of terrible ways. Put another way, the country is not being served very well by its media and our very democracy is at risk as a result. Unfortunately, there are many other examples of the newspapers not doing their job.
Perhaps the best way to describe the duties of a newspaper was written by a man called C.P. Scott who published the following in the Manchester Guardian on theb6th May, 19328:
"The newspaper is of necessity something of a monopoly and its first duty is to shun the temptations of monopoly. Its primary office is the gathering of news. At the peril of its soul it must see that the supply is not tainted. Neither in what it gives, nor in what it does not give, nor in the mode of presentation, must the unclouded face of truth suffer wrong. Comment is free but facts are sacred."
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