MATT: Public needs more info from daily government briefings

The Media Association (MATT) has called on Government to increase public information sessions and expand the pool of government representatives presenting to the public.

The association wrote to Communications Minister Donna Cox, who chairs the daily virtual press briefings hosted by the Ministry of Health.

It said there were areas where information on policies and actions in key areas were unaddressed.

MATT highlighted issues affecting journalists’ coverage of the public health press conferences and made recommendations it said were aimed at bringing clarity to the national audience.

It told Cox, “While ministers of education, labour and national security have been in attendance on occasion, information on the policies and actions in other key areas of governance remains largely void. These areas include, inter alia, energy, trade, agriculture and fisheries, works, women and children, public utilities.”

MATT also recommended that briefings should be separated for sectors of society, with sector-specific queries, so representatives of those sectors can address their questions directly to relevant government representatives.

“Given the wide range of subjects on which the public is calling for information and the numerous segments of the population to serve – including the differently abled, the elderly and those without access to the internet – MATT recommends that the information sessions increase”

Additionally, the association called for specific covid19 health updates for full-time journalists and freelancers whose main professional activity is journalism, and separate sessions for bloggers and non-media personnel.

MATT also called for sessions with MPs and regular Q&A sessions with the public.

“The congestion of persons, questions and information at this single, one-hour daily news briefing is fast diminishing the capacity of the briefing’s focus to transmit critical covid19 health information to a public that is hunkered down in their homes, anxious for information to guide their families’ daily lives and futures.”

The letter said since the introduction of the virtual news briefings, MATT’s members had encountered several issues that interfere with their duty to “transmit clear, comprehensible information to an anxious public.”

These included muting of microphones, non-selection of journalists, and accreditation.

MATT said with accreditation criteria remaining unclear, the media pool had grown densely populated, adding to the problems it identified.

“The recent appearance of recognised, politically partisan activists at the forum and the request by others for accreditation,” it said, “make clarity about accreditation criteria imperative. The introduction of politically-aligned Facebook and radio commentators brings a higher level of politicisation to a briefing that should remain a space where clear, factual information about the pandemic is proffered, interrogated and transmitted to the public.”

It said the briefing had also come to include political responses to opposition voices, the “correcting” of opinions expressed in newspaper editorials and a Q&A with the public. It suggested instead "greater use of news releases for counter-arguments, rebuttals, political

fisticuffs etc."