Who will interpret broadcast code?

The Gayelle Channels’ Errol Fabien yesterday questioned the motive behind the new broadcast code, suggesting that it could be used to suppress anti-government sentiments. While Fabien agreed that there should be “a code that guides,” he noted that the current draft “feels like a censorship document. There is a strong lean towards it,” he said. He was also concerned that there was no specified body which would determine who or what is in contravention of the code. “Who decides what is offensive? Who determines what is glamourisation? Who sits in judgment? We need to know this,” he said.

He was speaking at the second Stakeholder Consultation on the Draft Broadcasting Code at the Ambassador Hotel, yesterday. Fabien warned, “I will not like to think that the authority (TATT) will be sitting in judgment, because of the potential for political interference. We don’t know who will be sitting on the authority in the future, or what affiliation they may have to the government.” He said such power could lead to censorship of anti-government programmes or broadcasters.

However, Telecommunications Authori-ty of Trinidad and Tobago (TATT) director Cagney Casimire assured media broadcasters that the proposed broadcasting code provided by TATT is just a consultative draft, and, at the end of all stakeholder and public consultations, will be “re-drafted” before it is submitted to Government to take to Parliament. He said there was need for such a code to provide “guidelines on how we (the broadcast industry) communicates with the public, and seek the public interest.”