Opposition leader, Robert Corbin yesterday protested the removal of his party’s camera from a section of the Parliament Chamber saying that state television continues to muscle its way to selective coverage in the House.
Prior to the start of the budget debate, Corbin lodged a complaint with Speaker of the House Ralph Ramkarran. He said that his party’s camera was ousted from a spot in Parliament which was identified to be the location for a National Communications Network (NCN) camera.
Corbin said the camera was to be positioned to capture a front view of the proceedings, but that objections were later raised. “Now we have a situation where the national media are obviously discriminating in a manner which clearly shows their intent to carry out the practice that they’ve done over a number of years,” he added.
Ramkarran then informed Corbin that he would ask the Clerk of the National Assembly to look into equitable coverage in the House. But shortly after this, Ramkarran said that the claims by the Opposition Leader were checked out and a case of discrimination could not be made out.
Ramkarran said members of the media are obligated to report the proceedings in the House in an unbiased manner, and that failure to do this is in contempt of Parliament.
Since he is not in a position to monitor every local media house, he asked members to bring specific cases to his attention, adding that the matters would be dealt with. However, he cautioned that small issues should not be included in complaints.
AFC MP Raphael Trotman also briefly commented on the issue saying that NCN coverage of the debates does not include the presentations of every opposition speaker.
NCN’s coverage of the national budget debates have come under scrutiny before with members of the opposition previously alleging discrimination on the part of the TV station.
