“Davis: Press Protocols avoid ‘Gotcha Moment” – The Tribune

Excerpt from this article; “PRIME Minister Philip ‘Brave Davis said yesterday 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 a ‘gotcha moment’.

Last Tuesday, the press was denied direct access to Cabinet ministers as they arrived for the weekly Cabinet meeting at the Office of the Prime Minister.  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 the OPM.

Asked about it on the sidelines of a passing out ceremony at the Royal Bahamas Defense Force base at Coral Harbour on Friday, Mr. Davis was quoted by ZNS as saying: ’I don’t know that it was a shut out per say.’

‘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 suggested his administration’s weekly press briefings provided sufficient time for reporters to field burning questions.”

There is a quote by Pluto where he suggests what one must do to live an honorable life; “The man who is conscious of no wrong doing is filled with cheerfulness and with comfort of old age” It would appear that the prime minister does not seem to be to ‘cheerful’ as he feels that the press is attempting to catch him or one of his Cabinet colleagues in a “gotcha” moment; because if he were “conscious of no wrong doing”, then what should he fear or what would it really matter?

In the above except, it goes from Press Secretary, Clint Watson, going trying to rationalize the “caging” of the media by first suggesting that it’s due to “security issues”, to Prime Minister Davis then intimating that it distracts his Cabinet ministers from what they have PREPARED to discuss at the Cabinet meetings.  The latter I am more inclined to believe because it would appear that this New Day government cannot walk and chew gum at the same time.

The weekly press briefings are fine but coupled with the barricading of the press and this seems to be nothing more than a way to control the information coming out of Cabinet as it passes though the press.  It seems nothing more than an elaborate attempt to control and even manipulate the Fourth Estate; because you really cannot buy, I mean hire them all, now can you? 

Only the ones that seem quite willing to give up their “souls” by going against what they once believed in; if they really believed in anything at all.

The Progressive Liberal Party fails for one reason; it is their nature.

END