Speaker restricts media

Last Friday media personnel in the Press Gallery of the House were given a two-page document titled “Guidelines governing broadcasting.” It applies to Parliament’s new cable channel “Parliament Television” which began broadcasting “live” debates of the House that day on Channel 11.

Yesterday Sinanan told Newsday that the restrictions would also apply to private media houses.

The document bans shots of Members of Parliament which do not “uphold and maintain the dignity of Parliament” including shots of Members “yawning or dozing” (unless near the MP who is speaking), plus “disorderly scenes.” It said,“The standard format for depicting the MP who is speaking should be head and shoulder shots.”

While the top of the document is entitled “guidelines,” the document concludes with a section entitled “Sanctions” which states, “Sanctions should be imposed for breaking the rules. These should include restriction on access to the Press Gallery and censure.”

Sinanan yesterday gave reasons for the extension of the restrictions from the public sphere to private media. “You can’t have one set of rules for Channel 11 (Parliament Channel) and different rules for the rest of the media.” He said it makes no sense to tell Channel 11 not to take a picture of an MP snoozing without that ban also applying to the media houses.

Newsday asked if he didn’t see a difference between public broadcasting and private media houses.

“When we sent that guideline out, it was aimed only at Channel 11, but to me it makes sense (to include the media).” He said the document had been issued by a parliamentary Joint Select Committee on Broadcasting chaired by Minister of Housing Dr Keith Rowley.

He said, “At the next meeting, I’ll be able to clarify that, but from a common-sense view it makes sense.”

Sinanan said the media are present in Parliament only at the invitation of Parliament.

“A body of opinion says to show the parliamentarians as they are, but others say it will demean the dignity of the House.” He claimed that other countries like the UK, Australia and India had in the past had similar guidelines ruling their broadcasting, and that over the years these had been relaxed.

“This is an evolving thing,” he said, speculating about how mature this country might be in order to handle broadcasts of rowdiness. “In the initial stages of this thing we need to set some guidelines. Over time, maybe it can be relaxed. But we don’t want to start off showing the guys asleep. You have to grow into this thing.”

Newsday asked whether the introduction of live broadcasting is ironically imposing a restriction on media houses which had long been operating freely.

Sinanan replied that long before the issue of live broadcasting arose, he had received complaints from Members of Parliament about media houses showing them sleeping. He concluded: “It is new and it will evolve, over a period of time as it develops and maybe becomes more relaxed. From time to time we’ll look at these things at the Broadcasting Committee to see how some of these restrictions can be relaxed. It’s not cast in concrete.”

The parliamentary website lists the Broadcasting Committee members as Dr Keith Rowley, Barry Sinanan, Senate President Dr Linda Baboolal, Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, Mary King, Wade Mark, Dr Roodal Moonilal, and Camille Robinson-Regis. The House resumes tomorrow and the Senate reconvenes next Tuesday.