The members of the Media Association of Trinidad and Tobago have raised concerns about the general lack of access to the Ministry of Health press conferences on Covid-19.

The members voiced concern about the limited time and access at the press conferences and there were many among our membership, not limited to major media houses, who were not able to ask questions.

MATT president, Ira Mathur, raised these concerns with the Minister of Health and the CMO, who agreed subsequently to include questions from the general membership meeting at their press conferences and at their discretion.

MATT pursued this course of action both in acknowledgement of the more widespread practice of journalism and reporting, the importance of posing a range of questions to the Health Minister and the CMO and under its constitutional aims and objectives, Section 3 (h).

That clause of the MATT constitution guides the association:

To develop and foster relations with related bodies or authorities.
Other related objectives include
(a) To promote the development of media workers, journalists and Journalism.
(b) Encourage and foster the observance of its members’ high professional standards and establish and prescribe such standards.
(c) To promote the professional development of journalists.

MATT collated questions submitted by its membership for questions, identifying submissions by questioner and their affiliated media concern and submitted them to the Ministry of Health, who addressed them at the press conference.

The executive felt there was value in opening the door to freelance journalists, bloggers and other practitioners of the craft who are not part of mainstream or traditional media and have no access to Government press conferences on Covid-19.

MATT is seeking a wider representation in questions posed to the state-led panels in a continuously evolving response to the pandemic.

MATT believes that more questions framed from a broader perspective of journalistic perspectives only serves to improve the reporting possibilities and better guide public understanding.

The association also believes that these press conferences would benefit from opening up to a wider cross-section of live questioners, which might be achieved by trimming some of the speeches that pad out these presentations to their essential messages.

In addition to the five questions allowed to MATT on a Wednesday press conference ( with a Tuesday deadline), MATT also asked for more question time outside of e-mail and interview instances.

The Ministry of Health has subsequently requested that further questions (without limit but within reason) be emailed under the ambit of MATT to Candice Alcantara – Manager, Corporate Communications who has given the assurance the questions will be dealt with promptly.