When he announced plans for the new channel in April, Premier McKeeva Bush said it could “educate the people of the country properly”.
When a government says it wants to “educate the people… properly”, education is not the first word that comes to mind – but words like ‘indoctrination’ and ‘propaganda’ do. We seriously doubt public opinions are going to be swayed by the content of a government-controlled television channel in society where there are several independent media outlets. TASS worked in the old Soviet Union only because there was nothing else.
In addition, the government already has a media arm in Government Information Services – for which the public is paying – so we really don’t see why another government media avenue is needed.
Mr. Bush said Weststar would provide the channel free and that cable customers wouldn’t pay extra for the channel. Nothing is free in the media world and ultimately advertisers have to support the new channel. Advertising on a government-run television channel is very close to financially supporting the government, something that could create conflicts of interest down the road.
We were never supporters of the People’s Progressive Movement’s decision to televise their weekly press briefings when they were in power, either. We found that once the briefings were televised, they lost most of their usefulness because the politicians used the airtime more for grandstanding and politicking than they did for honest dissemination of information.
Those televised press briefings – like the new government channel – also raised the question of equal access to the opposition. We believe it’s wrong for only the party in power to get free access to public television, so if there must be a government television channel, there should be a opposition channel as well.
In the end, we’d rather see a situation where if politicians are going to appear on television, they should be paying for it themselves, just like Frank McField did with his Public Eye show.
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I agree fully. When Mr. Bush wants to educate the people properly, that should raise the hair on all back of all Caymanians necks. It’s time Mr. Bush and his cronies become unemployed!