[www.inewsguyana.com] – Manager of the Guyana Elections Commission’s Media Monitoring Unit (MMU), Lavern Pinto said the unit monitors media content and not personalities.
This statement comes on the heels of the objections made by the People’s Progressive Party and the Government to the MMU, which labeled Former President, Bharrat Jagdeo’s statement at Babu John as “racially divisive”.
Jagdeo had said, “The opposition consistently shout about the racism of the PPP but they practice racism. The opposition beat drums at six in the morning and say let us throw out those coolie people.”
In its second report covering the week leading to nomination day, the MMU sought to make it clear to all and sundry that they monitor media content in keeping with their mandate and not personalities.
In its report, signed by Pinto, the MMU stated that “there isn’t a scintilla of interest on our part in relation to what politicians say or do on the hustings. Our concern and responsibility kicks-in when what is said or done on the campaign trail is disseminated through the media. Here is where we look to see whether media houses stay within the reporting and editorial guidelines that they themselves pledged to uphold during this elections period”.
The MMU said “it is unfortunate that the comments and general observations in the first report rubbed some media houses the wrong way, since, in their estimations, the violations of the Media Code of Conduct (MCC) that we cited them for, were trivial”.
And in responding to this, the Unit stated that two things are in order here: first, is that “these media houses agreed with us that they violated the Code, and secondly, we were at pains to point out to those who inquired, that the publishing of information that is deliberately inaccurate, unsubstantiated, racially inciting/divisive, and/or inflammatory, could never be passed off as a trivial aberrations”.
“We wish to let it be known that the Unit applies an invariably stringent yardstick, premised on the MCC, to all information coming out of the media that can either negatively affect the public’s confidence in the integrity and decorum of the electoral processes, or, otherwise, has implications for the peace and stability of the country, as we enter the homestretch lap to Elections Day, 2015”, the report stated.
The MMU said in light of the fact that it did not escape their attention that their first Report was mischievously taken out of context and used as ammunitions’ depot from which ammunition was selectively taken by sections of the print and broadcast media, to launch salvos against their competitors, while some members of the public used it as a launch-pad to attack politicians.
The Unit wishes to let it be known that it was never in the collective thoughts of members of staff that the Report would have been used the way it was to score political points, or to embarrass those seeking political office.
The Manager expressed the hope that from henceforth the MMU Reports are seen and taken as they are meant to, and that is, as periodic assessments of the performance of the media for conformity to the professional and ethical standards set forth in the MCC, in their coverage of elections-related issues.
Meanwhile, the ruling PPP/C is demanding that the MMU reports be subjected to oversight from GECOM, before it is published.
