SBC NOW OPENLY SUPPORTING SPPF

The top guns of the Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) has been galvanised to promote the presidential bid of James Michel and they have no qualms in making their partisan actions very obvious to the public and the world at large.

SBC’s most senior journalist, Antoine Onezime – most recently promoted to the post of head of news and current affairs after returning from overseas training - not only follows Michel to all his public appearances with a camera crew, but also edits and presents any news item on Michel. In addition, Onezime is also tasked with editing and presenting some opposition activities, such as the DP Conference at the Mahe Beach Hotel on 28th June, where he deliberately manipulated the event by keeping out most of the speech of DP leader Chow while inserting comments by another DP member, recorded days after the event, who wanted to criticize the conduct of the meeting.

At the instruction of SBC Managing Director, Ibrahim Afif, Onezime can take over the editing and presentation of any news item that he sees fit, to leave out or include any images or portions of speeches that could be good or detrimental to the opposition. At the same time, images are manipulated to give a more favourable impression of Michel than the reality. This was very evident at Michel’s rally on La Digue where, according to independent observers, less than one hundred people attended. The television images presented by SBC, however, were restricted to close-ups devoid of any horizon so that the extent of the gathering is difficult to ascertain by the viewers.

The SBC management bias showed itself in its most stark reality during the presentation of the nomination papers by the candidates. It was, naturally, Onezime who was on hand ready with a pertinent question for Michel– what is the candidate’s plan for the Seychelles. Other candidates are allocated more junior journalists who are given specific questions to ask that are not so patronising or even friendly in tone. This happened during the signing ceremony of the agreement between the leaders of SNP and DP on the eve of the nomination.

During a rare open question and answer session, the SBC journalist was almost ready with a pertinent question to the DP leader – what about the division in the DP? But neither the question nor the answer was aired when the news item was broadcast, because the reply was not so favourable to the election campaign of James Michel in the eyes of SBC management.

July 14, 2006