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The PLP government’s claim that it exists in a “hostile information environment” seems justified to me. Nowhere is this clearer than on the issue of its intention to launch a Government Information Television Channel.

Judging from reports in the daily Gazette, this step amounted to dictatorship and a trampling of freedom of the press.

The headline, “Government’s TV plan ‘first step to dictatorship,’” (RG Nov 8) was guaranteed to spark fear. An editorial (RG Nov 9) steered the Gazette’s readers to believe that information put out on a government channel would be tampered with, thus making it dangerous. The same editorial implied that the Gazette’s own information was “...truth...fair and accurate”.

The article following the above headline quoted Quinton Edness, a former UBP Government Minister, as saying the new channel was “a dangerous thing to do…the first step towards totalitarianism….”

Michael Dunkley, a current UBP Shadow Minister, was quoted as saying: “My history tells me that government stations only exist in Communist countries.” Trevor Moniz, another UBP Shadow Minister, branded the idea as “anti-democratic”.

These are serious accusations. They paint a picture of a despotic government shutting down all media outlets except its own and controlling through its lone TV channel all the information the public would have access to.

Judging from the comments I heard from some callers to the radio talk shows, people believed, or were being encouraged to believe, that we were in the clutches of an anti-democratic, totalitarian Communist dictatorship.

Yet, the legislation enabling a government in Bermuda to broadcast on a TV channel is not new. It was not put into place by the current PLP government but by the previous UBP government — the same government in which Quinton Edness was a Cabinet Minister, the same UBP in which Michael Dunkley and Trevor Moniz are now Shadow Ministers.

That legislation is the Cable Television Service Regulations 1987, under section 59 of the Telecommunication Act 1986. The relevant section reads: Channels for Government use: 11 (1) The Minister may require a licensee to provide, free of charge, two channels on the System for use by Government in such manner as the Minister shall by writing direct, one of which shall be capable of being used without a frequency converter. This legislation was put into place in 1987, eleven years before the PLP became the government.

So if the UBP put the enabling legislation into place when it was in power, how is it that the PLP is suddenly labelled anti-democratic, totalitarian and Communist when it proposes to launch what the UBP enabled?

All the hype was not true. All the distortions by the daily were not true. All the demonization of the PLP government that was tolerated, if not fostered, by talk show hosts was misguided. And even if these media now complete or correct the picture, damage has been done. For several days the incomplete and distorted reporting has sown seeds of further distrust, distrust that does not simply evaporate.

How ironic that the government’s attempt to get its messages out without omissions or distortions is itself mangled by omissions and distortions. No wonder the government is frustrated. The move to launch a TV channel is justified, although it would have been better if the Premier’s announcement hadn’t sounded like a threat. And the Gazette, if it is indeed honest and fair and so on, can blame itself in part that the government felt compelled to take this step.

Whether a dedicated TV channel will solve the PLP government’s communication problems remains to be seen. The tendency of some PLP messengers to pad the message may not make the TV offerings any more credible. The government’s informational fate, however, would be more in its own hands. This could be a mixed blessing.[[In-content Ad]]

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