MTV News and Political Programs Director: They will not silence or tame us
18 شباط 2021 10:40
MTV News and Political Programs Director Ghayath Yazbeck refused to consider that yesterday’s call “was in the context of the emerging attempt to silence the media. Instead, it was in the context of a series of relentless attempts that had previously started, through which the power system seeks to tame the media.”
Yazbeck said the following to "Nida Al Watan": "I want to believe that the objective of the meeting is to 'reduce tension and sectarian rhetoric' and that its title is innocent, but before we say that the media in Lebanon is resistant to restraint, control, and domestication, it is no longer desirable in the 21st century to place the media in a 'pot of pressure and cover it with the lid.'
We are in a time when the media has become the weakest link, meaning that the media is blamed for everything that happens on social media, knowing that it has a name as well as moral, legal and judicial attributes, and pays taxes and can be sued, because its address is known, while the social media is free from restrictions.
If we wish to hold a group liable, then the political authority is the first as it does not 'cover itself with a veil,' and if we want, before taking any position of any characteristic or group to which this media belongs, to transmit what politicians say and do, is in itself a daily insulting process. While we sometimes try to reduce the amount of mistakes that the authority commits, it is determined to continue making further mistakes and to be indifferent towards people's pain, as well as to accumulate acts of tyranny and not relying on what the Constitution says, institutions and entitlements, because the media is a mirror that reflects what is going on, and of course, it has an opinion on politics, and we are the media of opinion in Lebanon."
Ghayath assured that the session of the Telecommunications Committee "will not change the course of the media, and the political ceiling of MTV is the same. Our national opinions are known and we will not change them. If political power changes and starts to resemble the people, we will stand alongside it, but if it remains on the other side, and continues to exercise superiority over the people, while being indifferent to their pain, then we will be on the opposite side with the people, but no one will be able to silence or tame us, or force us to support the political power."