Programme Director at CNS Channel Six Savitree Sharma has offered an “unequivocal apology” to ERC Chairman Juan Edghill for the “embarrassment and damage to character” aired in a commentary by Anthony Vieira on May 4.
Sharma accepted responsibility, saying her staff made a mistake and in a statement issued yesterday she said that “to err is human.” She promised that all the necessary measure will be put in place to ensure tighter censorship of all future programmes.
Her statement explained that the television operator received a DVD with two commentaries by Vieira and was told not to show the particular commentary with the ERC. However, Sharma said the operator did not pay attention to the instruction and ended up airing the wrong commentary.
Edghill had complained to the Advisory Committee on Broadcasting (ACB) after the commentary aired, saying that certain statements allegedly made by Vieira were “inaccurate, unsubstantiated and misleading.”
In a letter to the Chairman of the ACB, Evan Persaud, Edghill said that the “misleading and inflammatory statements and unsubstantiated allegations” constituted a breach of the Guyana Post and Telegraph Act, Chapter 47:01, Regulation 23A.
In the letter, he said “there can be no excuse on the part of the licensee that they were unaware of the content ‘because it was a live programme,’ and Vieira in the said commentary indicated that he had written it two months before it was aired but had problems with its recording.
According to Edghill, “the fact that it was recorded then aired indicates that it was presumptuous, calculated and done with the intent to cause harm even though the licensee is aware of possible sanctions.”
CNS Channel 6 has been taken before the ACB on previous occasions; most notably when a caller on one of its programmes issued a threat against President Bharrat Jagdeo. The channel was eventually suspended from the air by the ACB for four months.
