Anonymous answers Marassa on Telemax (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

Please Post Anonymously


Marassa's question about why Telemax was left
untouched intrigued me. So I decided to call a few
friends in Haiti and pose the question to them.

They were all pretty unified in their answer: In the
two months prior to February 29th Telemax had gained a
rare reputation in Haiti for balanced news coverage.
Apparently the owner, who I was assured was not Mr.
Tabarre, had hired an American documentary filmmaker
as acting station manager. In the short time he was
there he would do things like play 2-6 minute montages
of opposition and Lavalas demonstrations alike. A lot
of people were startled to see what they called the
"even-handed" presentation that replaced what everyone
had seen as a pro-government station. Whenever a
Lavalas group or government representative was on you
would see a rebuttal or response by the opposition.
This was conversely the case as well. Someone who
worked with this filmmaker in the newsroom said he had
only three rules:

1. No one was allowed to use the news to make
unsubstantiated allegations
2. No one could use the news to announce "political
events" in advance
3. For every interview of a political nature by one
party in the fray, the other interested parties had to
be sought out to give a response to create a dialogue.


This version is backed-up by the outcome of the
kidnapping in early February of a Telemax journalist
and cameraman in Ou Kay. They were taken hostage by
uniformed former military. According to the kidnapped
journalist, after being mishandled for several hours
by their captors, a "commander" showed up and asked
them again what station they worked for. He replied
Telemax and the response of the commander was to say,
"I saw some of the stuff you guys have had in the news
last month. It was fair." He had them released but
decided to keep all the camera gear as a tax.

So this might help in some small way to help explain
why Telemax was left untouched. It doesn't explain why
Telemax has suspended all of its news programming
indefinitely. But that one may be easier to understand
in the current climate.