Broadcasting authority to beef up monitoring of airwaves during elections
The Guyana National Broadcasting Authority (GNBA) is to engage foreign assistance towards establishing a mechanism to monitor the country’s airways during the coming general and regional elections scheduled for March 2, 2020.
Speaking to the media yesterday at the Authority’s Lamaha Street office, Chairman of GNBA’s Board of Directors, Leslie Sobers, said the initiative is aimed at augmenting the Authority’s capability to ensure that broadcasters comply with the requirements of the Broadcasting Act during that time.
The Broadcasting Act, among other things, requires programmes dealing with controversial public policy or matters of political or industrial controversy to meet standards of fairness and balance, and requires reporting of news to be objective, wideranging, and well informed in reporting matters of political controversy.
Sobers suggested that during elections, there is need for added monitoring to ensure that those and other provisions of the Act are complied with.
Sobers shared that so far, the Authority has been in conversations or negotiations with firms from the United States of America, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Jamaica, and Europe. No firm has been selected so far.
Sobers did not explain why the Authority has opted to engage international, as opposed to local consultants to carry out this initiative, but this decision may be influenced by the technology which he mentioned is likely to be used as part of the monitoring process.
The Chairman said that once the consultant is selected, and the mechanism established, the Authority will be able to feed key words into a machine, which will automatically detect, and report the use of the terms so that employees can check to see how, and in what context the terms were used.
Importantly, where the Authority is satisfied that there has been a breach of any provision of the Act, it is vested with wide, though not unfettered, discretion by section 28 (4) to make any order it deems appropriate, including fines, suspension, and even rescission of licences.
Furthermore, section 44 of the Act provides that where any person contravenes a provision of the Act to which no penalty is specifically ascribed, the person commits an offence, and is liable on summary conviction to a fine of $200,000 and imprisonment for 6 months.
This section suggests that the Authority has the power to, itself, prosecute persons for breach of relevant provisions of the Act. When questioned about this provision yesterday afternoon, Sobers said that the fact that the section stands alone, not referring to, or being referred to by any other section, he is not entirely sure, and intends to solicit legal opinions on the subject.
He did say, however, that if the section does permit the Authority to prosecute persons who contravene the Act, this will be another tool in the Authority’s arsenal to compel compliance.
Partnerships
Sobers also said that the GNBA will be seeking to cooperate with other State agencies, including the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC), the soon-to-be-established Media Monitoring Unit of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).