The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

AFTER a new protocol was put in place for the media to interview ministers at Cabinet, a local civic group hopes the mechanism for building some structure allows for more long-term and substantial communication.

Last Tuesday, members of the media were denied direct access to Cabinet ministers as orange cones were erected outside the Office of the Prime Minister, which were guarded by Royal Bahamas Defence Force officers.

Press secretary Clint Watson said the move was in direct response to the logistical and security issues created by reporters and cameras gathering in an attempt to speak with senior government officials. Moving forward, Mr Watson said the media would be facilitated in the press room at OPM.

When contacted about the issue, the Organisation for Responsible Governance’s (ORG) Executive Director Matt Aubry said: “I think there has been a tendency in our past, we tend to get very reactive related to governance. We find out things after the fact and they become things that end up getting a lot of energy and attention, but there’s more immediate issues vs things that are kinda longer term. So I would hope that the mechanism of building in structure allows the communication for more long term and more substantial engagement to be available.”

However, he acknowledged public trust in government is eroding globally, leading to more scepticism. Hence the need for information to be made available.

“At the same time, what we know is that public trust in governments across the world is suffering. There’s lots of challenges that coming out of COVID have made citizens more sceptical, have made the balance in relationship between media and government more tenuous and so there needs to be this balance. There needs to be a back and forth,” he explained.

“There needs to be availability of information such as there’s no perception that something is not being provided as efficiently. At the same time, the time to respond appropriately, give full information and do so in a (lawful) and regarded way is going to be crucial and so this restoration of trust that I think needs to exist between all the sectors - government, civil society, private sector, media and the like - has to be fostered on all sides and I think we have to go into it with an understanding of we all have to balance and give just a bit more and I think that is critical.”

Asked about the issue on the sidelines of a passing out ceremony at the Royal Bahamas Defence Force base at Coral Harbour on Friday, Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis said he doesn’t view the change in protocol for press seeking Cabinet interviews as the media being shut out, rather it was an attempt to add structure and avoid to a “gotcha moment”.

He was quoted by ZNS as saying: “I don’t know that it was a shutout per se.

“Unfortunately, that was a security issue I think more than anything else and I’ve asked them to address it.

“You know it’s always very difficult to be focusing on going to a meeting, of a Cabinet meeting where weighty matters are being discussed to be interrupted on the way to answer questions that sometimes you don’t even know the answer to and we’re just trying to bring some structure so that whenever you speak to us that there will be an informed discussion as opposed to what I call a gotcha moment,” Mr Davis said.