The Tribune

THE Broadcasting Corporation of the Bahamas has come out firing in the defence of two of its journalists, who they claim were unfairly portrayed as political hirees on a Cable 12/Nassau Guardian newscast on February 25 of this year.

According to the executive news director of ZNS, Andrew Burrows, the story focused on the press conference held by leader of the opposition Dr Hubert Minnis, concerning the 2013 Mid Year Budget communication.

According to Mr Burrows, the NB-12 reporter repeated assertions made by Dr Minnis concerning government hiring following the 2012 general elections.

In the newscast, Dr Minnis said that the Christie administration went on a hiring spree, an act he says “wrong-sized many government corporations”.

During this segment, the accompanying video included footage of ZNS employee and co-anchor for The Bahamas Tonight, Kendeno Knowles, and reporter Karissma Robinson, also a ZNS employee.

While the Broadcasting Corporation of the Bahamas acknowledges additional hires were made in 2012 to accommodate the transition to full digital status and expanded programming initiatives, it said it is of “serious concern” when individual employees are misrepresented as being “political hirees”.

The editorial decision by Cable Bahamas’ news producers went far beyond journalistic responsibility and ethics, Mr Burrows added.

According to a statement issued on behalf of the corporation yesterday, ZNS said it took “grave exception to the misleading and harmful depiction” of its two employees.

“The result is the implication of political patronage in the case of the hires of Mr Knowles and Ms Robinson, which is incorrect and unfair.

“The Broadcasting Corporation of the Bahamas advertised widely its vacancies in the newsroom and received applications and resumes from a number of journalists.

“Mr Knowles and Ms Robinson were hired on the merit of their experience, education and expertise. Their individual politics is not the business of this corporation and was never a determining factor in their eventual hiring.

“As professional colleagues, the decision makers at Cable Bahamas/The Nassau Guardian should appreciate the dangers professionally and personally to reporters being identified along political lines. The report was unfair, inaccurate and misleading and we condemn it in the strongest terms,” the statement read.

Mr Burrows said that an official complaint will be filed with the Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority (URCA) as the infraction clearly violates the Code of Practice for Content Regulation under subsection 4.2 which pertains to ‘harmful and Offensive Material, Malicious or Scandalous Allegations’.

This subsection reads: “Where a licensee discovers that incorrect, untrue or misleading information has been broadcast, the licensee shall take steps immediately to broadcast a correction of the information, and shall broadcast an apology to any person about whom the incorrect or misleading information was broadcast. The licensee shall transmit the correction and apology at a time or times and in such a manner as is likely to reach as much as possible of the audience that would have seen or heard the original broadcast.”

Mr Burrows said: “These are our employees, who were marked as being political hirees, which isn’t something we are taking lightly. Given the history of our country we can’t allow for people who present the news to have their journalistic integrity attacked.

“Now that being said, this may all well be a misguided attempt at being ‘competitive’, but you expect a certain level of judgement from the editorial level. Someone decided to put the image of these individuals on TV and it is kind of hard to overlook that.”