ATTORNEY General Anand Ramlogan SC is emerging as a man of questionable veracity. How else can Media Watch explain the AG’s response to the search of Newsday’s offices and the home of reporter Andre Bagoo.
While we have to take the AG at his word that he did not know of the police plan to visit the media house, we do know for sure that the AG was did not have the facts when he appeared on CNC 3 last Friday and said there was no Government boycott of the Mirror newspapers and that the Government has not historically advertised in the Mirror.
Media Watch knows because the Mirror has its own advertising records which contradict the AG’s statements. The AG also told viewers of the television station that Port of Spain Mayor Louis Lee Sing was a shareholder in the Mirror. This is not true and has never been, and all the AG needed to do was to check the easily available official records, which would show this not to be the case. What he was cynically attempting to do was to paint our reporting with a political brush, as if that could excuse the abuse of state resources by the PP administration to punish media houses which do not supinely adopt official Government propaganda as hallowed truth.
The firing of Fazeer Mohammed from the State-owned Caribbean New Media Group was the first shot fired in their war on the media and since then there have been several other attempts to intimidate the media. Journalists and talk-show hosts have been forced out of Power 102, a radio station owned and controlled by persons friendly to the Government, for simply expressing contrary views.
Media Watch is keeping a close eye on the AG and the Government and will continue to be vigilant, knowing of their willingness to use the heavy arm of the State.
