Election observers praise media access; want more visibility from EBC

Ke­jan Haynes

The Com­mon­wealth Ob­serv­er Group (COG) re­port on the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion de­scribed Trinidad and To­ba­go’s me­dia as vi­brant and large­ly in­de­pen­dent but raised con­cerns over the im­bal­ance in ac­cess to state me­dia and the vis­i­bil­i­ty of the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) dur­ing the elec­tion cy­cle.

The COG said while the me­dia played an im­por­tant role in in­form­ing the pub­lic and fa­cil­i­tat­ing elec­toral en­gage­ment, reg­u­la­to­ry and in­sti­tu­tion­al re­forms are need­ed to pro­mote bal­ance, trans­paren­cy, and ac­count­abil­i­ty in po­lit­i­cal com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

The re­port ob­served that me­dia out­lets in Trinidad and To­ba­go op­er­ate freely across tra­di­tion­al and dig­i­tal plat­forms and are gen­er­al­ly trust­ed by the pub­lic. Jour­nal­ists were found to have ac­cess to po­lit­i­cal fig­ures, and the COG said:

“The me­dia in Trinidad and To­ba­go is vi­brant and free across tra­di­tion­al and dig­i­tal plat­forms. The press is wide­ly re­spect­ed by the pub­lic, and jour­nal­ists can ac­cess the gov­ern­ment and oth­er po­lit­i­cal of­fi­cials.”

How­ev­er, the group ex­pressed con­cern about re­ports of dis­pro­por­tion­ate cov­er­age of the gov­ern­ing par­ty by state-run me­dia dur­ing the cam­paign pe­ri­od. It rec­om­mend­ed leg­isla­tive re­form to en­sure bal­anced ac­cess to pub­licly fund­ed me­dia, stat­ing:

“There should be leg­is­la­tion to pro­mote eq­ui­table ac­cess to the state me­dia for all po­lit­i­cal par­ties and in­de­pen­dent can­di­dates in terms of their cam­paigns, in­ter­views and ad­ver­tise­ments.”

In ad­di­tion to con­cerns about eq­ui­table ac­cess, the COG high­light­ed the ab­sence of a bind­ing code of con­duct for elec­tion cov­er­age. It en­cour­aged col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween me­dia out­lets and the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Au­thor­i­ty to de­vel­op pro­fes­sion­al guide­lines. The re­port said,

“The COG rec­om­mends wider con­sul­ta­tion be­tween the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion Au­thor­i­ty with the me­dia to in­tro­duce a code to guide pro­fes­sion­al, fair and eq­ui­table cov­er­age of elec­tions.”

It al­so not­ed that me­dia pro­fes­sion­als should con­sid­er re­viv­ing the Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go and de­vel­op a vol­un­tary me­dia code spe­cif­ic to elec­tion re­port­ing.

On the role of the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion, the COG said the EBC could do more to en­gage with the me­dia and the wider pub­lic dur­ing the elec­toral cy­cle. It sug­gest­ed that im­proved me­dia re­la­tions would help the Com­mis­sion in­crease its vis­i­bil­i­ty and strength­en pub­lic con­fi­dence.

“The EBC could im­prove its reach to the pub­lic by do­ing more me­dia en­gage­ments with the press. These can in­clude train­ing for me­dia pro­fes­sion­als, as well as reg­u­lar press brief­in­gs on its work through­out the elec­tion cy­cle.”

The COG al­so rec­om­mend­ed that the EBC take a more proac­tive and struc­tured ap­proach to en­gag­ing all elec­toral stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing the me­dia, po­lit­i­cal par­ties, civ­il so­ci­ety or­gan­i­sa­tions, and oth­er rel­e­vant in­sti­tu­tions.

Over­all, the re­port called for stronger in­sti­tu­tion­al arrange­ments to en­sure fair­ness in elec­tion-re­lat­ed cov­er­age and to en­hance pub­lic aware­ness about the elec­toral process. It rec­om­mend­ed that me­dia hous­es pri­ori­tise in­ter­nal and ex­ter­nal train­ing for jour­nal­ists to im­prove the qual­i­ty of elec­tion cov­er­age.

It al­so called on Par­lia­ment to con­sid­er leg­is­la­tion on cam­paign fi­nanc­ing, which in­cludes dis­clo­sure of funds used for po­lit­i­cal ad­ver­tis­ing and cam­paign spon­sor­ship.