Vexed Bermoothes

In his statement regarding the controversial Media Council Bill on Friday, Dr. Brown claimed:

“The media council, as proposed by this Government, achieves that and, as international media organisations have determined, does not even come close to threatening the freedom of the press.”

MP John Barritt called him out on that claim gaining the following backpedal response from Dr. Brown:

“My interpretation was that all of those organisations who initially seemed to be fearful, after they read it carefully, I’m sure they realised that there was no threat to freedom of speech. They haven’t told me so but that’s an assumption on my part.”

Seriously.  You can call it by many names, but at the end of the day, in my humble opinion, bullshit is still bullshit.

The Royal Gazette helpfully points out:

Overseas organisations to have criticised the bill include the US-based Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the International Press Institute, the British Press Complaints Commission, the Association of Caribbean Media Workers, the Centre for Law and Democracy in Canada and the CPU Media Trust.