Fact-checking Young

STUART YOUNG, 49, is not yet prime minister but already he is lecturing the media.

Speaking at a PNM event on January 15, Mr Young told reporters, “At no point in time in the last ten years and even before that, can the media honestly and truly say that anyone in any position on the PNM – especially here at Balisier House, led by our prime minister and political leader – has ever provided misinformation to the media.”

Notice the multifaceted nature of this astonishing assertion.

Embedded within it are key qualifiers like “on,” “honestly” and “truly.” Doing a lot of work, too, is the idea of “misinformation” – falsities done innocently or maliciously – being supplied specifically “to the media,” as opposed to matters disclosed at events covered by reporters.

The sentence reminds us of what lawyers and politicians do: both are versed in exploiting the technicalities of language to imply without saying; to connote while leaving room for plausible denial the day after.

Mr Young’s call for fact-checking is ironic.

Did the PNM chairman, a former minister of communications, truly mean to say nobody in the current administration has ever communicated false information?

Is he unaware that one of his Cabinet colleagues in December 2024 had to convene a press conference to correct errors in cost overrun figures given one day prior?

Does he not recall another minister, in October 2023, saying claims of a ransomware attack on TSTT were “not true” when, in fact, they were?

And how would Mr Young envision fact-checking when a reporter’s question is blocked by a Cabinet minister on social media? This has happened before.

Mr Young, the Minister of Energy, has been associated with government’s failure to disclose key details of deals, meetings, and accident report findings and seems to have a warped view and a low bar in terms of what is required of a government when it comes to media relations.

He boasts of tailoring the state of emergency regulations to respect press freedom, but those rules still contain a vague provision banning any endeavour that might “influence public opinion in a manner likely to be prejudicial to public safety and order.”

Mr Young’s current boss, too, Dr Rowley, has often lambasted media houses, excoriated specific reporters and recently rained fire and brimstone on this newspaper for a headline.

Before both, Patrick Manning visited radio stations unannounced.

Still, notwithstanding that nobody outside the PNM knows the facts as they pertain to when Mr Young will occupy Whitehall, we welcome his pledge earlier this week to be “transparent and accountable.”

We challenge him not only to talk the talk, but walk the walk.

We urge him to become a shining example by always volunteering to those he serves, the whole truth.

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