A media professional recently asked what I thought of the media in T&T. So, here goes.
I think it is vital that the T&T media landscape has independent media practitioners building sustainable brands and audiences, firstly. There’s Lasana Liburd’s Wired868.com, Mark Lyndersay’s blog site and, potentially—if any of his beta-version digital startup sites—get off the ground, Kerry Peters.
It’s interesting those three examples are men of, broadly speaking, African descent, since that’s a demographic which appears to be underrepresented in the contemporary mainstream media workforce.
Independent media sources provide plurality of opinion and style as well as freedom to operate in a different voice and context. They also allow readers an opportunity to participate in direct conversations with journalists and to build communities around news and comment: something the UK Guardian editor, Alan Rusbridger, has coined “open journalism.”
T&T is ripe with potential for open journalism. In the social news sphere Trinis have taken the ball and run with it.
Facebook in particular is a crystallisation of the conversations one might overhear in the sociological melting pot of T&T between the educated and uneducated, the black and Indian, the political and apolitical, rich and poor, North and South, dressed and undressed, coarse and refined, sane and insane, religious and godless. All of them are logging in, clamouring, opining, fighting, theorising, dumbing down and opening up.
It’s like a jungle out there sometimes... And it has provided a platform on which certain individuals have found willing audiences prepared to engage with them. Unfortunately those voices heard above the din are those who shout loudest, incite, provoke and attention-seek, which often results in toxic, tabloid-style, propagandist and narcissistic discourse masquerading as social comment.
At a recent meeting at the BBC discussing audience research I was asked whether I’d encountered any media research or insight whilst working in Trinidad. I told them the truth: I hadn’t encountered any whatsoever and that the news agenda was largely based on fixed assumptions of newsmakers. For example, that crime and politics is the thing people want to read about incessantly every single day.
If one took a survey of news consumers (not that hard to organise) one might be surprised by the results. Increasingly, amongst a rapidly diversifying international media, responding to the consumer voice is essential. Yes, crime and politics provide fuel for bacchanal but it’s also boring when it’s never-ending and leaves little space for other news.
When “feel good” stories or arts and heritage news features manage to pierce the crime-politics hegemony of the first ten pages, audiences get excited. Not all news is bad news!
As for comment and analysis, T&T is crying out for a show like BBC2’s Newsnight with expert guests, politicians and commentators analysing the day’s news at 10.30 pm on a weeknight.
Francesca Hawkins has recently attempted to fill the gap, with her Friday evening panel-based discussion show on CNC3 and this ought be developed further to really dissect what is happening in society on a non state-owned media platform.
All of this may sound like criticism, but there are actually massive positives about the media in T&T.
The rapport between reporters and photographers from rival media houses is something special. Turning up to an assignment and seeing someone you haven’t covered a story with for months is often a mini reunion of hugs and handshakes.
The size of the islands means people are closer to reporters and more familiar with them. This is a good thing and enables dialogue rather than one-way communication.
Newspapers, despite the criticisms, are still held in high esteem, still maintain circulation and still make a profit which, in the global economic climate, is almost unprecedented. Standards of journalism would improve further if owners reinvested some of the profits their editorial staff create back into the newsrooms, workplaces, resources and equipment.
I walked into the T&T Guardian just days before three reporters walked out in July 2013. The words of my new boss were still ringing in my ears: pay is low and the status of journalists in society is low.
The first of those statements is certainly true—and is problematic in terms of attracting the brightest and most ambitious minds into the profession—but the second statement is worth questioning.
The public loves to attack reporters but when they meet them face-to-face the respect is obvious. I had many such experiences with strangers but the one which stands out was when I was sitting in a taxi in Scarborough, Tobago, with the most miserable driver you’ll ever meet and noticing he was reading a copy of the Guardian, (a rare sight in Tobago where Newsday and Tobago News dominate) I made a remark about it. He responded with a grunt which translated as “mind your business” until I mentioned that I wrote for the paper, at which point a smile suddenly came over his face and he suddenly launched into an eloquent speech.
Needless to say we discussed the finer points of contemporary journalism all the way to my destination. He did most of the talking, naturally.