The Manicou Report

Is this News or a Commercial?

Thursday, May 31st, 2007

Dear CNC3,

You and I really need to talk. I am becoming increasingly disillusioned when it comes to your newscasts. You all started out great and roped me in as a viewer during Trinidad and Tobago’s journey through the 2006 World Cup in Germany. I was really pleased by the quality of reports coming out of Germany especially as TV6, the rights holders of the broadcast in T&T, was doing a piss-poor job of covering the hoopla surrounding the Soca Warriors, which was the 2nd most important thing to me. When TV6 was contented with bringing us capsule reports from what I almost mistook for a drunk fan, you all dished out the money to send Roger Sant and a camera crew to Germany. I wanted to see it all, and Roger and his crew came pretty close to delivering it. That to me was an excellent decision and I haven’t looked at a TV6 newscast since.

I understand that you are still a young station, even though you do posses a crop of experienced journalist from current and former TV stations, as well as radio and the print media. I have learned to ignore it when Astil Renn (sp?) butchers the names of the people he’s reporting on. And while we’re on the topic, Astil Renn isn’t really a reporter is he? And if he is, he’s probably more of a print guy than a TV & Radio guy, right? Anyway, I’ve also forgiven you for letting Carla Foderingham go on to head the T&T film company - forgiven but not forgotten. I’ve even managed to ignore temporarily, the really terrible technical aspects of the CNC3 7pm news - the lost videos, the incorrect videos, the cringe-worthy pauses while master control tries to locate the correct video and the really bad CGI set.

But what I’m really disappointed me last night was a report last night on the ANSA McAl conglomerate. I think it’s great that ANSA McAl wants to put out a book. The thought of a massive conglomerate putting out a book is the sort of thing that makes me feel all warm inside and it makes me remember the days when I used to curl up at nights with a good yarn. So hey, the ANSA McAl book, excellent. However, in the 3-minute-plus report, I think you all forgot to mention that CNC3 was owned my ANSA Mcal. In fact, I wonder if that bit of information was left out on purpose.

In introducing the Focus on Business segment, Francesca Hawkins mentioned ANSA McAl’s interests with included “manufacturing, finance, the beverage industry, insurance and banking”, but somehow didn’t mention ANSA McAl’s media interests. That’s a little interesting isn’t it?

Now, I know that ANSA McAl is a mammoth-sized company. I’m aware that Francesca’s list was just a brief overview, but it’s a very obvious omission. Isn’t the failure to mention the relationship between the two companies a conflict of interest? Even the mighty CNN does not report on AOL Time Warner without mentioning at the end that they are owned by the latter. So how does CNC3 air this entire Focus on Business segment and not say, “By the way, blah, blah, blah”. That’s a little shady if you ask me. When the teaser for the story is, “ANSA McAl: A Success Story”, I have to wonder was that segment news, or an advertisement? Did your reporters find the story, or were they directed to cover it? Should I have to wonder if it’s news or an ad? Is the business news self-promotion or a swipe at another competing company? Is trying to decide worth the hassle?

ANSA McAl’s Media and Communications Sector Page

You see, little things like that make me distrust and subsequently rethink the source of my news. Silly little things like that make me very suspicious that what I’m looking at may not be news at all, but instead a broadcast for a captive and uninformed audience.

If you aired this segment after the news was concluded, I wouldn’t care one bit (and honestly, I probably wouldn’t watch either). But the decision to slide this “story” in between the weather report and the regional news is sly to say the least.You see it really is a precarious position when you oversee so much, and so far I can’t say that you are juggling it all too well. The late night news, especially for me, is something that is supposed to be honest and pure, and unfortunately, it is all too easy to taint it. A pinch of arsenic in a tank of water might as well be a pound. Either way, I’m going to avoid it. If you ask me, my perception is that CNC3 has tainted their newscast. I don’t know whether this is the first time if they’ve ever done this, or if it’s the first time I’ve ever seen or noticed, but I should let you know that that’s a bad, bad practice.

I can’t say whether or not I will ever watch again, but my eyes are opened know.

Mani

P.S. - I hear Sampson is back?

Posted in Corporate, Media | 7 Comments »

Happy IAD & Some Housekeeping

Wednesday, May 30th, 2007

• I am not abandoning my blog, I promise. And not only am I not abandoning it, I just renewed my domain name for 2 years (and with only a day to spare too). However, without question, I have been a very bad blogger recently. I haven’t been posting regularly and when I did post, I never responded to my backchat. I’ve even been very bad about answering my e-mails. The reason (and not an excuse) is that I have been tremendously busy and I will continue to be very busy over the next two weeks or so. So I apologise without reserve for my behavior over the past weeks and for the upcoming weeks. I will do my best to be a better blogger in the next two weeks or so.

• Yesterday I noticed that my hits were spiking yet again, even though they had been on the decline for about a week along with the interest in the Akon/Danah Alleyne story. Of course it made me wonder why the sudden interest again, what was it that I missed. So I checked my stats only to realize that it was the poor Trinis abroad who apparently missed the memo and got up Tuesday morning wondering why there was no Miss Trinidad and Tobago in the 2007 Miss Universe Competition. Poor souls. I tried to warn you all, but unfortunately my reach is limited.

  In any case, the organizers have promised us that we will have a representative for next year’s competition so we won’t be disappointed again. I believe they have already chosen a representative although I can’t now remember her name.

• I’ve been getting a lot of nasty, racist messages left on my blog and I am probably not the only one. Usually I just delete the offending message from my post and not make a big deal about it. The last message was left in my chat box that I usually keep in my left sidebar. I decided to take down the message box as it was the easiest thing to do at the time and plus I thought that in the free version of the CBox it was impossible to remove unwanted messages. After accessing my account through the website, I found that it was possible. I’ve since remove the message and I’ll replace the Cbox when next I see my template. From now on, please help me to ignore the troll. Don’t fight with it, don’t feed it and not lend it any creditability. If you see it before I do, I’ll appreciate it if you can let me know.
• Happy Indian Arrival Day to all Trinis far and near. My sympathies to those of you who still have to attend school and work even though you know that your brethren back home are attending various beach and river limes. For me it looks like a very curry-less day from here. I need to plan for these days better. I should have at least tried a recipe from the Indian cookbook my sister bought me a few months ago. I think I’m going to plan from now to make myself some groundnut soup for Emancipation day.
• It’s a shame that you can miss so many good stories when you take a vacation from blogging. Ive’s managed to miss about both Manning’s prophetess and Camille Robinson-Regis’s “max it out” New York credit card adventure where madam minister managed to use a government-issued credit card to purchase weave. What plunged the whole issue into even more stupidity was her weak apology that she “misunderstood” the terms of the contract which contained rule #7 where it said the card was “not for personal use”. Goodness gracious - never a dull moment.

Anyway Trinis, have a good day and I’ll get back to you hopefully before the week is out.

Posted in Blogging, Miscellaneous, Personal Story | 13 Comments »

Miss Universe 2007

Tuesday, May 15th, 2007

By the way, for those of you Miss Universe addicts who plan on catching a glimpse of the show on the 28th(?), don’t look out for a Miss Trinidad & Tobago. In case you haven’t heard, for the first time in 17 years we won’t be represented at the competition.

Apparently there was no money from either sponsors or from Government so no rep was chosen.

I remember I began watching the Miss World and Miss Universe competitions the year Giselle LaRonde won the title and I made it a point to watch the show every year since then (well maybe up till Miss T&T failed to progress). I watched especially as T&T almost always made it to the final 10. In fact I met so many people in the United States who knew about Trinidad because of our prowess in the beauty pageants.

It will probably be a lesser competition because we weren’t there, but I won’t know for sure because I won’t be watching. It won’t be the same without us.

Posted in Entertainment, Media | 24 Comments »

Mr. Valley and the Hansard

Tuesday, May 15th, 2007

Kenneth Valley. You know people, we have mango season, dry season, rainy season, carnival season and Christmas season, but it have no season for dotish. Dotish is one of those things that is all-year, all-season, all-weather and all-terrain. Exhibit A: Ken Valley. Some of you may be opposed to me calling the Leader of Government Business “dotish”, but after the Prime Minister refers to us as dotish, foolish, lazy and stupid, I’m sorry but the cup is in and the gloves are off.

Now, my boy Boysieringo warn meh, eh. He really try to tell meh I shouldn’t take on Ken Valley. He ask meh why I wasting space on my blog to talk about Ken Valley (his MP). Honestly I try to take the warning, but this time I just can’t help it.

Obviously, these people think that we are stupid. What else could have Leader of Government Business Ken Valley shout out across the floor that High Court Judge Amrika Tewarie-Reddy was a “UNC functionary” and and that the People’s National Movement regarded her as a “politician”?

Couva South MP Kelvin Ramnath retorted, “She’s a judge, have some respect. You worse than Umbala”.

Let’s not be hasty to dethrone Umbala just yet. George Umbala Joseph is in a class all his own and has quite a few good years yet ahead of him. And if anyone is to be named heir of Umbala’s throne, it should be Wade Mark.

When questioned about the incident, Mr. Valley said his remarks were not recorded in the Hansard (as banter isn’t usually recorded) and he can only comment on what was in the Hansard. “Check the Hansard,” he says.

Dad: Son, I found this 9mm pistol along with this crack cocaine under your mattress last night. Do you want to explain?

Son: You going into my room is an invasion of my privacy. (Sticking nose into the air and turning head to the side) I’m sorry but I won’t comment.

He did apologise some time after however, but took a shot at “strangers regardless of office” who criticise MPs without referring to the Hansard record and described the journalist who reported the crosstalk as a politically-motivated columnist who made his statement without recourse to Hansard.

“Mr Speaker, neither commentator cited the official Hansard record as his source of information.”

“Indeed, Mr Speaker, for strangers regardless of office, to criticize a Member of this Honourable House as occurred without recourse to the official report is unfortunate at the very least.”

Is anyone else a little tired of this “Hansard” talk?

Instead of Valley owning up to what he says and taking the flak like a man, he decides to hide behind a piece of political machinery called the “Hansard” Report.

Speaker of the House Barry Sinnan has stated that the media should not have reported the statement. From the Guardian:

House Speaker Barendra Sinanan says while there are no prohibitions against reporting crosstalk in the Parliament, with a topic as sensitive as the one involving Leader of Government Business Kenneth Valley, “one has to be careful.”

“I have seen crosstalk reported, but something as sensitive as this should not be reported,” the Speaker said during a telephone interview, yesterday.

What is amazing to me is the cavalier and frivolous manner in which something so serious was being thrown around. What Mr. Sinanan fails to realize is that this incident did not occur in Mr. Valley’s rum shop or his own living room, this was in the Parliament no less. Our Parliament, not Mr. Valley’s. So with what audacity does Mr. Sinanan say it should not have been reported?

What is especially worrying to me is how easily the judiciary is attacked nowadays. There are UNC and PNM judges. It will be interesting to find out Kelvin Ramnath’s views on the Chief Magistrate Sherman McNicolls who without a doubt may have opened himself up for criticism.

I believe that the judiciary is indeed under attack and the participants don’t really care as long as they get the political mileage out of it that they want. If only they could take a lesson from Pakistan where the politicizing of the Chief Justice issue in that country led to dozens of deaths over the weekend. But that not we man, that eh go happen here. Trinidad too nice for that. Well everything must start somewhere and who knows where Pakistan’s problem began? Some call it a creeping dictatorship, and I find it increasingly hard to disagree.

Posted in Justice, Media, PNM, Politics, UNC | 5 Comments »

World’s Dumbest Ideas #37

Friday, May 11th, 2007

Hey, you know what I think? We really should transfer this to DVD.

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Allyuh, I’m so sorry for not posting at all this week. That was really bad of me, but this week has been too short and stressful. I promise lots of good things in this coming week.

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

Verizon Drops Akon

Friday, May 4th, 2007

Fox News breaks the News

Just when you thought this Danah Alleyne thing was about to disappear here comes this breaking news that came over the TV on the Fox News Channel no less. Apparently sponsor Verizon has ended its partnership with Akon over the simulated sex scene on stage at the Concert in Zen last month. They have even backed out of sponsorship for his and Gwen Stefani’s Sweet Escape Tour.

In a statement issued to the Fox News Channel, Verizon announced “This week the partnership ended. We have music services on our cellphone service and we were promoting him as one of the artists. The other part of the sponsorship was the Gwen Stefani tour, of which he was an opening act. We are no longer sponsoring the tour.”

Fox News shows stills, but not video of the act.Well this is huge news and it’s no wonder now that Universal Music was so busy sending YouTube Cease & Desist e-mails. I think Fox News referring to it as a simulated rape may be a stretch, but it’s Fox News so keep that in mind.

Whatever it is, it’s probably not the last we’re going to hear about this.

P.S. - I feel it’s important for me to say here that I never watch Fox News Channel. The guys on Power 102FM broke the news here.

Posted in Corporate, Entertainment, Media | 12 Comments »

Trinidad at a Glance 6

Thursday, May 3rd, 2007

Here’s the next installment of Trinidad at a Glance - the sixth.

In season:

I think the Sapodilla’s are all gone now and most of the citrus are all gone now. There are a lot of Mangoes however. I haven’t seen a Julie as yet, but it can’t be too far off. Tonka bean is also in season. When last allyuh had a tonka bean?

Weather:

Heat for so, lots of sun. Supposedly this has been one of the driest dry seasons to date.

Hot topic:

No water. This dry dry season has brought dry taps for a lot of Trinbagonians. Wasa has begun scheduling water supplies and delivering truck-borne water supplies to those in need. Today looks a little overcast though, so maybe we’ll get some rain.

Car Series:

PCD.

In the Air:

Mother’s Day. I still need to find a gift.

Sports:

The WICB has named the squad for the upcoming tour of England.

Journalist Sunil Ramdeen at WinTV Launch

New TV Station:

WinTV. No, not a division of Microsoft, but another Trinbagonian TV station based somewhere in Central Trinidad. It’s being marketed as the first International tv station based right here in Trinidad and it promises at least 50-60% local programming.

Posted in Miscellaneous | 15 Comments »

West Indies Team for England

Thursday, May 3rd, 2007

Two days ago the West Indies squad for the tour of England was announced. The squad includes: Ramnaresh Sarwan (Captain), Dwayne Bravo, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Corey Collymore, Fidel Edwards, Daren Ganga, Christopher Gayle, Sylvester Joseph, Runako Morton, Daren Powell, Denesh Ramdin, Ravi Rampaul, Devon Smith, Darren Sammy, Jerome Taylor.

Glad to see Ganga in the squad again although it would have been hard to exclude him after being named top West Indies batsman of 2006. He was also named Vide Captain. I’m also happy to see bowler Ravi Rampaul back in after returning from injury. I was hoping that they’d give Keiron Pollard another chance, but since he failed to shine at the Cricket World Cup, his exclusion doesn’t surprise me. I wish the WICB would stop doing that thing where they throw a youngster into the mix when prospects seem dim hoping that he would be a star boy only to find out that he’s not a miracle worker whereupon they never select him again.

Posted in Cricket, Sports | No Comments »

Why Hazel, Why???

Tuesday, May 1st, 2007

Protesting Student at Febeau Government Primary

This came over CNC3’s newscast last night. It’s not so much the fact that this little girl is protesting that bothers me, in fact I’d rather have students protest than have them eat pigeon droppings with their lunches. It’s the sign that gets to me.

You have to wonder what a parent is thinking when she pushes such a placard into the hands of her daughter without giving a second thought to the propriety of a child referring to the Minister of Education by her first name.

Sadly, I guess this is where we are as a society isn’t it?

A school protest is such a commonplace occurrence now, that it’s hard for me to think back to a week when there wasn’t one, but surely it hasn’t become so commonplace now that parents toss respect out the window just as effortlessly as this, has it?

But in a country where parents beat and cuss teachers, this is the kind of thing that will just slip quietly under the radar.

Posted in Education, Social Issues | 9 Comments »