Restraint on lensemen covering Assembly
GOANEWS DESK, PANAJI | 12 July 2012 14:23 IST
With Rajendra Alrekar taking over as the new Speaker, restraints have been imposed on lensemen covering the Assembly session.
Video journalists of different TV channels have been prohibited from shooting the Assembly proceedings.
Instead, they would be now ‘supplied’ the live feed, recorded on Assembly cameras, in the Legislature Secretariat press room.
The speaker has also directed the TV channels, who have been showing the Assembly proceedings live, to take the feed only from the Assembly cameras.
The local TV channels were earlier installing their own video cameras in the galleries since the Assembly has low resolution web-cam type cameras.
Though TV channels immediately agreed to take the live feed of the Assembly to telecast it live, the first day of the session witnessed poor quality of audio-visuals supplied from the Assembly cameras.
On the other hand, the speaker has also restricted entry of photo journalists of print media only during the Question Hour.
Arlekar had earlier prohibited the photo journalists completely, stating that photographs of Assembly proceedings would be supplied by the Director of Information and Publicity.
The speaker, before taking the decision, also had a meeting with the TV channels in order to convey his decision to ‘supply’ the live feed to all the TV channels.
“I want to channelize it the way it is done in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha”, said Arlekar.
Pratapsing Rane, the former speaker, however had allowed the TV channels to take the feed through their own cameras and air it for the public.
Prudent was the first channel to start the historic live telecast on 18 August 2008, which couple of other channels later followed.
After journalists protested against this, the speaker at a meeting held with them today morning assured them to review the new system by Monday.
The Assembly would sit for two days this week – today and tomorrow.
