MPs, or News Stringers?

The press is the fourth authority and it plays an influential role in shaping the public opinion. However, it must not take over the roles of the other authorities, which is what’s happening in our country these days. The Heights of Guanapo church case is plagued by an overlap in the roles of authorities that I believe is not in the interest of the country.

I always say that we lack constructive opposition. The existing opposition poses many allegations that are rarely backed by evidence, and this is probably why the opposition chose to fight the government on the pages of newspapers instead of the halls of justice.

Healthy opposition in advanced countries use many different tools to scrutinize governments and monitor their conduct. The media there is only one of the tools, but in T&T it is becoming the only tool. There are many more practical and legal frameworks for accountability, and on top of which are the constitution and the judiciary.

The church case is nothing but a press war. Even though virtually every single person in T&T has heard about the controversy, we don’t see the opposition seek due process to fix what went wrong, if any…why?

Another important question that the opposition should address is that if this case started five years ago, why did they choose to raise it now? Where were they five years ago?

It all makes me think that the goal behind this fuss is totally political and has nothing to do with protecting public interest or enforcing the law.

I wish that our press stops being a puppet in the hands of politicians, whether in the government or opposition. The press has already done more than its share in this case, and if this trend continues, maybe soon our journalists will become MPs, since they do all the work of the opposition. And maybe our MPs will become news stringers, since it looks like all they care about is feeding rumors to journalists!