Dear Editor,
With regard to news items (SN Feb 10,11) on the police raid on the Trinidad Newsday office and the home of a news and investigative reporter, I applaud the media house and the journalist for not revealing his source for an article. Reporters in many countries have opted to go to jail than reveal their sources of information on sensitive matters that portray governments in a poor light. In this case, Andre Bagoo, an outstanding reporter, penned a report on TT’s Integrity Commission with information provided from a confidential source. The matter has led to the suspension of Deputy Integrity Commissioner Gladys Gafoor. The police quizzed Bagoo on his source and he refused to reveal name citing confidentially between a journalist and a source. No national security issue was at stake; the commission and the President were embarrassed by the revelation. The police decided to raid Bagoo’s home and the newspaper’s office where Bagoo works. That is wrong and must be condemned in the strongest words possible. It smacks of coerciveness and arrogance. The TT police have more important matters to investigate like the 40 murders for this year so far.
A reporter must not be intimidated into revealing his or her sources of information. The protection of a confidential source of information is a sacred trust held by real journalists, not wannabe journalists, who routinely embarrass sources by revealing their names to the public. The TT government is distancing itself from the police raid and I am sure that Bagoo will not be prosecuted. But it is not certain how the police got a warrant and who issued it to make the raid. The court in the US has sent out conflicting positions on revealing the identity of confidential sources in press matters. American judges have sent reporters to jail (as happened to a NY Times female reporter) for refusing to reveal their sources but also excused others for not revealing their sources. A reporter’s gathering of information is akin to a priest listening to a confession or a lawyer attending to a client.
Journalists are expected to safeguard the identify of their sources, for obvious reasons.
Information vital to the public good would not make its way into the public domain if well-placed sources were identified and possibly prosecuted and persecuted. A well known example is that of the American ‘Deep Throat‘ source in the famous Watergate scandal which brought down Richard Nixon as President. Towards the end of his life Mark Felt, former FBI Associate Director, publicly acknowledged he was ‘Deep Throat.‘
The raid on Newsday is a low blow to media practitioners and all media houses should rally around it.
Yours faithfully,
Vishnu Bisram
