Dear Editor,
I have been asked to reply to P Harris in a letter to your newspaper that accuses Capitol News of airing a 10-second video clip of children in a school during the recent police crackdown on peaceful protestors that the letter described as “not genuine” and a “fake.”
Allow me to assure him that we aired what our camera “recorded” at that school following the police action. The Commissioner of Police himself has since expressed regret for the students of the two schools being traumatized by the loud sounds of the gunfire. Mr Harris seems to have had a problem with the 10 second clip on a 30 minute newscast which showed some students in one of the classrooms stooping and some of them laughing while others screamed.
As I explained to him when I returned a call to him on the same night that the newscast was aired, children will be children and while some appeared scared, others found fun in having to stoop and take to the ground as ordered by their teachers. We aired exactly what our cameras caught taking place at the school. It was not staged for anyone.
What I find most interesting in Mr Harris’ letter is that he completely ignored the other video clips in the story, including the ones of students crying (with real and genuine tears) uncontrollably and teachers comforting other crying students.
He also ignored the complaint from not only one of the teachers but also from the Headteacher of the nursery school who openly criticized the police for scaring her “babies.”
Mr Harris ignored the fact that on Wednesday, the Stabroek News had a front page photo of the same school incident with a corresponding story on page 21. The Kaieteur News carried photos and a story on the same incident on page 7. The Guyana Chronicle carried a photo and story on the same incident on page 8 and the Guyana Times carried the same story and photo on page 13.
To describe any news clip carried on Capitol News highlighting the same incident as a fake (I think he meant staged) and not genuine is unfortunate.
What is genuine, true and correct is that the incident occurred and not only Capitol News but other media houses reported the story and the students and their teachers were affected.
Capitol News is not and has never been involved in the manufacturing of news and we do not intend to ever go down that road.
A road that we would like to go down is the one which will allow the TV station to be seen nationally and a version carried on radio. I think both Messrs McKay and Woolford are eagerly awaiting licences to do just that, and expand the reach of Capitol News and its other programming.
Yours faithfully,
Gordon Moseley
