TVJ Chairman Steps Down, Pending Outcome Of Investigation

KINGSTON, Jamaica CMC – Embattled chairman of the of the board of Television Jamaica Ltd. (TVJ), Milton Samuda, last Friday, temporary stepped down from his position pending the outcome of an investigation into allegations that he had engaged in censorship when he restricted the questions to be asked of two Olympians last month.

In a statement, Milton, who is also Deputy Chairman of the RJR Communication Group, “expressed regret at the entire episode of activities on all sides” of the controversy.

Earlier this week, the executive director of the Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI), Alison Bethel expressed her “profound concern regarding allegations of an egregious attack on press freedom perpetrated by…Samuda.

“Mr. Samuda not only interfered last month with the questioning of two of the country’s star athletes accused of using banned performance-enhancing drugs, but he took into his possession the video recorders of two journalists in order to remove questions they had asked during the interview,” she said in a letter to the Chairman of the of the RJR Communications Group, Lester Spaulding.

The Trinidad-based Association of Caribbean MediaWorkers (ACM) had already described Samuda’s action as “obnoxious and a violation of press freedom as practised in modern democracies across the world.

The Press Association of Jamaica (PAJ) last weekend approved a resolution calling for the resignation of Samuda, noting that his “continued position on the board can only serve to compromise the position of journalists from that Group”.

But, Samuda, an attorney has always said he neither seized nor confiscated any recording of an interview conducted by the journalists with the two Olympic medallists who have tested positive for a banned substance and are awaiting the results of their B sample.

He said while “honestly acting in his capacity as attorney, there were aspects of those duties which caused questioning and doubt about his commitment to press freedom and of his role to protect the integrity and credibility of the RJR Communications Group”.

He said that, as he has told the PAJ, “having regard to what transpired if such a situation arose again he would act differently either by not allowing an interview, which was his initial position, or if an interview took place and was problematic to his client rather than request tapes from the journalists to remove un-agreed sections, he would instead have taken his concerns to their editors”.

Samuda said he has wrestled with several matters that emerged in this matter especially from the meeting with the PAJ, where there had been disagreement over the agreed terms for interviewing the athletes.

Samuda said he found it “difficult to understand why some members of the PAJ team in their meeting declared that the journalists should be dismissed for these actions…but the PAJ resolution and statements said no such thing”.

The statement by Samuda sought to outline his position on the whole affair noting that he found it “unreasonable” that the PAJ had conducted an investigation “of the matter and his actions in it but they had not spoken to him before reaching a conclusion”.

Samuda said that he has been challenged by other factors, among them, “some members of the PAJ raising the issue of payola and other journalistic activities, which he does not support nor condone either as a lawyer or as a director of a media company, yet in public statements the PAJ has said nothing about this”.

Samuda said he has since recused “from discussions of this matter at the RJR and TVJ Board meeting this week and to facilitate independent discussion and enquiry, he has agreed a leave of absence from the Boards until the RJR investigation and the final determinations are made”.