-NCN says in response to Norton’s claims

NOTING that Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton has been deliberately peddling misinformation, the state-owned National Communication Network (NCN), on Friday, said that it gave coverage to every Opposition Member of Parliament during the recently concluded budget debates.

In a press release, NCN said it has taken note of a press statement from the Office of the Leader of the Opposition purporting falsehoods concerning coverage of the 2023 budget debates by NCN.

It said that this type of “deliberate misinformation peddling” by Norton and the wider Opposition camp with regards to coverage of the Opposition, is nothing new, and in fact has become an entrenched pattern.

“In its most recent statement, Mr. Norton’s office claims that coverage was not provided to Opposition Members of Parliament during the debates for Budget 2023.

On the contrary, the record shows that the budget presentations of all 31 members of the Opposition, who spoke during the recently concluded debates, were broadcasted ‘unedited’, with a total airtime of about 949 minutes or 15.8 hours.

In addition to the broadcast of those presentations, 26 stories specific to Budget 2023 and which featured members of the Opposition, were prominent in the news during that period,” NCN said.

Its statement emphasised that it has and continues to provide coverage for press conferences hosted by the Leader of the Opposition.

“It should be noted that, on several occasions across normal news cycles, NCN was prevented from providing coverage to activities involving the Leader of the Opposition and APNU + AFC,” the release said before highlighting some of those instances.

According to NCN, on November 6, 2022, two of its cameramen who were on official duty, were attacked and intimidated in Mocha by a prominent member of Norton’s team.

In May of the same year in Linden, the NCN team covering a walk-about by the Opposition Leader at Amelia’s Ward was attacked by members of Norton’s delegation.

Further, NCN said that during the National Toshaos Conference in July, 2022, a camera-operator who arrived to give coverage to the Opposition’s reception for toshaos at Woolford Avenue, was turned away by Norton.

In another instance, a reporter was verbally attacked when a questioned was posed to the Leader of the Opposition during one of his press conferences.

“These scenarios expose what can only be seen as a calculated strategy by the Leader of the Opposition and the APNU + AFC camps, to intimidate the state media, undermine its credibility, and create an environment of hostility towards its operatives who are legitimate members of the Fourth Estate,” NCN said.