THE May report by the Guyana Elections Commission‘s (GECOM) Media Monitoring Unit (MMU) has concluded that the content of the programme “Wake Up Guyana” hosted by Basil Bradshaw and broadcast on HBTV Channel 9, on Monday, May 11, 2015 (Elections Day), was in contravention of the principles of the Media Code of Conduct.“The Media Monitoring Unit wishes to publicly register its dismay and disquiet in [this] relation to…the Unit found that the programme contravened many aspects of the 2015 Media Code of Conduct (MCC), but more specifically the rule circumscribing the media’s coverage of political parties’ activities prior to, and on Voting Day,” said Lavern Pinto, the Unit’s Manager.
According to her, the Code was pellucid in stating that, “…no coverage of any activity by the political parties shall take place for a period to begin 24 hours prior to the opening of polling stations on the day of polling. This ban will continue to the close of polling stations.”
It was also noted by the Unit that the host made uninformed comments about rumoured incidents, which he never sought to verify before going public with the information. For example, Bradshaw said that he heard that at GoedFortuin, West Bank Demerara, “…somebody is distributing ID cards…” and, “…there is a problem on the East Coast of Demerara…some ballots are not being stamped… some ballots have six (6) digits at the top and five (5) at the bottom…
“The Unit takes the position that the public announcement of the above statements by the host of the programme on the very day of the elections, without first validating their accuracy, was tantamount to deliberately trying to ignite raw emotions in a way that could have led to the derailment of the elections through the eruption of public disorder. That this did not happen, the Unit feels, is testimony to the exercise of commonsense and prudence by our citizenry, in the face of such callous incitement,” Pinto said.
Airing of footage of A Partnership for National Unity and the Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) Rally held at Square of the Revolution, on Saturday, May 9, 2015, was also cited as a major breach of the Code.
Further, the Unit found that the host’s selection and playing of two (2) tunes with political content highly critical of the PPP/C, was “distasteful” and a subtle form of electioneering.
“It was, without doubt, the type of behaviour that confounds the universally hallowed rules governing media conduct on an election day. Moreover, there can be no excuse for the egregious parts of the programme that were allowed to be broadcast unedited, since it was the responsibility of the principal(s) of the Channel to inform their clients of the strictures of the MCC pertaining to programming prior to, during, and after elections day,” Pinto declared.
Five other television channels – 2, 6, 11, 67 and 69 – were also cited for breaching the Media Code of Conduct by airing politically related content during the 24-hour time frame, within which they were not supposed to do so.
Additionally, the Unit reported that among the daily newspapers, radio stations and television programmes, negative and positive coverage of the political contenders varied, with some sections providing more coverage for one particular party that the other and vice versa.
There were not notably objectionable observations made by MMU, other than Bradshaw’s breach of the Code of Conduct.
The MMU’s May report is the final report relative to the 2015 elections period. However, the MMU is expected to produce another report that addresses post-elections coverage by media entities.
The media houses under review include: Television – Safe Ch. 2,CNS Ch. 6, WRHM Ch. 7, HBTV Channel 9, NCN Channel 11, TVG Channel 28, MTV Channel 65, HGP Channel 67, NTN Channel 69; Radio – NTN 89.1FM, I-Radio 90.1 LOVE FM, WCR 93.1 FM, and NCN Radio 102.5 FM; and newspapers – Guyana Chronicle, Guyana Times, Stabroek News, and Kaieteur News.