The Cover Letter of the report submitted by the committee headed by Tony Fraser which investigated how contrasting information was presented by the former MATT Executive during the Guardian Incident October 11, 2013 Tony Fraser To: Mr. Curtis Williams President of the Media Association of Trinidad and Tobago Dear Mr. Williams, As directed by your terms of reference (TOR), the Committee submits the attached report for your attention. In keeping with the TOR the core of the report sets out a protocol which could be of assistance to your executive when it takes decisions on issuing news releases and other such responses. In this respect, while we appreciate that journalism is practiced in the main as part of a corporate world, we eschew the implementation of any policy which sacrifices or erodes the principles of the profession and best practice to reinforce such values as money, profit, audience and power to serve as measures of the quality of journalism. To compile the report, the Committee reflected on the TOR, had discussions with four members of the former executive: Suzanne Sheppard; Judy Raymond; Francesca Hawkins and Ira Mathur, who came willingly, spoke to us and answered questions about the processes adopted to issue releases during the period of conflict between the management of the Guardian and certain of its senior journalists and investigative reporters. We also examined the constitution of MATT and searched for best practices in the relevant areas of our assignment. We do not consider the recommendations made particularly original rather they amount to a structured but common sense approach to issuing releases. We expect the recommendations will stimulate discussions amongst your membership as you seek to put structures in place. We thank you for the confidence displayed in us as a team and we were all very happy to have performed the exercise as required. Tony Fraser Chairman of the Advisory Committee
Posted on: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 20:09:49 +0000
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