It wasn't long before we saw breaking news about the new constitution. The man in the pink shirt is Mohamed Nasheed, whose newly expanded title is Minister of Legal Reform, Information and the Arts. I guess that makes him the equivalent of the Attorney General, the White House press secretary and the National Endowment for the Arts all rolled into one. He's also the person who hired my team to come to Maldives and the top boss of both TVM and VOM.
We didn't meet the radio reporters, but sat behind Heena, one of the top reporters for TVM, and a young male reporter/editor named Rilwan whose function seemed to be to watch Heena ask a question and gather information for a report.
Nasheed announced that 87 new bills -- covering everything from freedom of expression to punishment for child molesters -- will be introduced to the legislature this month, with priority given to the "election package" aimed at assuring a "fair, free and transparent" vote later this year.
You would think that this 12:30 news conference would be the top story on the 2 pm news update. You would be wrong. The big story wasn't even mentioned and Heena told us she wasn't expected to have a report ready until the main newscast at 8 pm! We watched the 2 pm newscast with TV chief Ali Khalid and you could see the wheels turning in his head as we suggested what could have been done to get the breaking news on the air faster, plus promotion for the full report coming up later.
No comments:
Post a Comment