TT: The liberal media

This is no surprise. The media in the Caribbean are like the media across the world -- mostly unreflectively liberal. I would hazard a guess that before the reporter approaches the story, he knows how he's going to slant it, and if the facts don't fit, he'll make them fit ... somehow, even if he's got to editorialize.

United States Ambassador Roy Austin launched a scathing attack on the Trinidad and Tobago media last night.

Giving the feature address at the formal launch of the Commonwealth media exhibition at the University of the West Indies campus at St Augustine, he said the media, which always sought "to remind us of the expression," did not seem to want anyone else to give a different opinion.

Referring to a letter he sent to four media houses criticising the media's "anti-American views", he said he was surprised that none of them published his criticisms.

Asked Austin: "Should the media not be criticised? Can the media not be wrong?"

Some members of the audience sought to interrupt him by clapping and one even booed.

Word to Austin: the media think they're omnipotent and omniscient instead of powerless and bloody ignorant. Too much of the media is about thought control rather than presentation of the facts to encourage open debate. The media seem to think that their role is to tell the public what to think. Thank goodness for the internet; now, the average bloke can by pass the mainstream liberal media, fact-check the hell out of them, pontificate on their idiocy, and just plain ol' make the media seem like the fringe leftist nuts that they are.