In his budget presentation, Communications Minister Maxie Cuffie described state media house, CNMG, as a political tool of the PP. He is probably right. However, Mr Cuffie’s analysis inadvertently gave the impression that political interference in state media is an invention of recent history. History, however, isn’t forgiving of selective memory.
In the days of TTT, itinerant CEOs would wander the hallways naively trawling for, perhaps a friendly word or glance from terminally beleaguered staff.
Unapologetically irascible cameraman Bissoondath Rampersad, (Ram) always had a sardonic quip cocked and ready.
“So how things going Ram?” “Same ting, managers come, managers go, I still here.”
What my late friend probably meant was, for all the machinations of various administrations passing through the alimentary canal of the country and TTT, it was always the same story. The workers were the ones left to man the listing ship in the turbulent seas of consistent interference. In the ebb and flow of regime change, managers would either bend or break under political directives and influence peddling.
In one of his first interviews as Minister of Communications, Mr Cuffie signalled his distaste for the concept of the heavy hand of the state in a media organisation. These are welcome words which most right-thinking people expect would inform his government’s handling of the state media apparatus.
Idealism, whether feigned or sincere, rarely mirrors reality.
I once squirmed through an awkward meeting in TTT’s newsroom with an Education Minister under a PNM government.
He was there to make sure I reported the “true facts” of a protest outside of the Ministry’s offices. He should have prepared a script instead of fussing through his nudge nudge wink wink routine.
Any reporter of my generation at TTT would have their own stories about ministers’ unwelcome interventions. Some would call the newsroom to bark at us about the exclusion of specific remarks they made at a banal ribbon cutting or tap opening.
When the UNC came into office, attempts to control the newsroom intensified. That administration too, was convinced of embedded elements that were unsympathetic, even outwardly opposed to Panday’s government.
It seems every regime that stomped around in TTT felt aggrieved. There was always someone somewhere with a big nose trying to make the government look bad. Even more insidious and unpardonable, were those content to do nothing to make them look good.
It will be interesting to see how this incarnation of the PNM proposes to avoid repeating that ignominious history. Punters though, would probably feel comfortable with a heavy bet on the status quo.
In the parliamentary chamber Mr Cuffie elicited unconvincing gasps of disbelief with his accounts of profligacy at CNMG. Soaring costs were blamed, in large part, on a bloated wage bill.
Worse still, millions, he stated, were being consumed by an organisation that is barely a blip on the TV viewers’ radar. Mr Cuffie attributed dismal ratings performance to broad perceptions of the station as a mouthpiece of the government. By that link alone, CNMG’s audience share isn’t likely to improve.
CNMG wasn’t so much the phoenix that rose from the ashes of TTT, but more a half-made entity that flopped out of a coal pot. Neither fish nor fowl, by the time the company emerged from its tortured transformation, the market had changed. There were more media houses, all of them shilling the same ghastly news and foreign garbage.
Some had hoped CNMG, as a state entity, would pursue co-production arrangements that would encourage local producers to deliver TV programmes reflecting our diverse culture. Instead, the company appeared to pop right out of the private sector mould, outspending its private counterparts at their own game.
Given the focus on the haemorrhage of funds from CNMG, it would be interesting to know what portion of those losses can be hung on obligatory live coverage of events, and subsequent post-production costs for packaged fare.
Where other media houses balk at the considerable investments required of, say, carnival coverage, it is expected of CNMG.
Who else will beam images of the most OK show on earth into the living rooms of the house-bound? It is my understanding that, on top of it all, the state media house must pay for the rights to broadcast from major carnival venues.
The new board of CNMG and GISL has quite the task ahead. The Government will need to identify areas of overlap and streamline their operations.
If the Minister is true to his word, that government has no business in media, perhaps some of the more costly operations like news production could be pared down and transferred to GISL.
Such a programme could focus exclusively on the good works of the Government, the likes of which this administration found so abhorrent of the last.
Above all else, tough decisions on the mandate of CNMG and its mode of financing should be made. Will the broadcaster be repositioned to mirror the society, offering educative value?
Or will it continue to flounder as an indistinct identity with elusive profit as its principal objective?
