No, PM, media not your business

THE PRIME Minister’s brushing aside of concerns about the Government’s attitude to the media – which is reflective of his administration’s approach to transparency and accountability more generally – reveals not only his misapprehension of the role of the Fourth Estate, but also his own role as a democratically-elected leader.

The PM should be concerned about reports that some of his Cabinet members, so late into a second term, still continue to block the numbers of specific reporters, bristle at the receipt of basic queries, and show no enthusiasm when it comes to putting better systems in place for disseminating information on matters they have been put in office to deal with.

Yet, Dr Rowley, when confronted with such realities on Thursday, simply said to reporters gathered at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s, “That is your story.”

Without providing any details to support his assertions, he added, “As prime minister of this country, I have had more exposure to the media than all other prime ministers put together.

“Much of the attempt to sensationalise is in the hope that information already in the public domain in your files is not reported on or raised,” he added, confusingly, before shutting down the discussion.

But not before stating, as if in a mere afterthought, “If there are people who don’t want to talk to the media in my government, all I will say to them is that you are in the wrong business.”

Yet if there are people in Dr Rowley’s government who don’t want to talk to the media, that is because they have been given licence by their leader.

The PM has a pattern. At the very same media conference, which he convened after blanking media queries the day before, he launched yet another of his many attacks on the press, this time relating to coverage of his overseas travel.

We heard of “misinformation, outright lies and malice,” “agendas which are not reasonable or truthful,” and attempts to “deceive the population.” Media practitioners, in this diatribe, were either unthinking proxies or wilful echo chambers.

Confronted by a reporter on all this, Dr Rowley claimed, “I am not holding you personally responsible.”

But what does the PM imagine the group of people collectively referred to as “the media” are? Robots?

His history of media-bashing rhetoric consistently endangers all who personally sacrifice to do this job.

For instance, Dr Rowley in 2022 launched an ad-hominem attack at a specific reporter, attempting to smear the professionalism of that journalist by using the forum of a state media conference to allege a vendetta against him.

No, Mr PM, if anyone has an agenda, it is not the media. We’re just minding our business.