Dear Editor,
A lot is being said of the order to shut down channel six for four months but here are some considerations that I have not seen anyone mention.
1. The prime reason for the severe sanction was not the broadcast of the offending comment but the station’s re-broadcast of the programme not once or twice but three times.
2. The station, especially the voice of the people programme is a political broadcast as the host always asks people who complain if they voted for the PPP/C and if they did they are told that they deserve their problem.
In the first instance the offending statement could not have been prevented even if the calls were screened as the caller could start out a conversation reasonably and quickly switch to threats.
Everyone can understand that no station can prevent this from happening. Even in the USA there are slippages on popular live talk shows. The point is they are not re-broadcast. As soon as they occur they are either beeped out or are edited out so that any re-broadcast is free of the offending language.
The second point is that Mr Sharma, as the leader of a political party hosting a programme on a station he owns, which berates other politicians, is clearly engaged in a conflict of interest. He should either give up his licence or give up his political career. As he keeps saying he should try to get it right.
The sad part of this is that Mr Sharma is not even aware of his dilemma. He is not a media practitioner. His qualifications are in refrigeration engineering as he so cleverly puts it. It is regrettable that television station licences were granted to individuals with no experience or background in media, but the result is a free for all which the entire country has to endure daily.
Everywhere in the world the media regulates itself, but here in Guyana that is impossible, because very few people in media know how to conduct themselves decently, much less police or regulate themselves. It is time for someone to adopt a code of ethics for the media and teach the owners and operators how to use it in the daily conduct of their business.
Maybe this task should be allocated to the ACB.
Yours faithfully,
Mervin Hackette
