Free, Fair and Wet

We had an outstanding A block in the 8 pm prime time news on SundayAug. 3. We led with President Gayoom's concluding speech to the SAARC meeting in Colombo, followed by a package and a vo/sot on the transportation and education platforms of the main opposition party, MDP. We also covered the leading independent candidate, Hassan Saeed, in the islands and the recognition of two more political parties bringing the total to ten. Hard to believe that only six months ago I was sitting at a table in a dark room with opposition leaders who didn't believe their events would ever be covered on TVM. I hope it is obvious by now that every party and candidate will get airtime when they make news. This week we are putting more systems in place to make sure the election coverage continues to be free and fair.
The block ended with a story about the unusually high waves hitting the beach side of Male. One of the new batch reporters, Hamza Rasheed, was doing a standup when he got drenched by a huge wave. A great, memorable moment and fortunately there was no damage to the equipment. And no damage to our star reporter, either. Here he is, all dried off.