I was on CITN-Cayman27 television’s show “Daybreak’ yesterday (10) as it was their 20^th anniversary and I was asked what was the single most significant moment in my fifteen years there that I thought had made the most impact on the Cayman islands.

I said the riot at the prison in 1999 but as iNews Cayman has already done an article on that I won’t elaborate further. If you want to know more and haven’t read the piece it appeared on August 27 under the heading “HMP Northward prison riot, October 1999. Colin Wilson remembers….” (link: http://www.ieyenews.com/2012/08/hmp-northward-prison-riot-october-1999-colin-wilson-remembers/)

The reason I gave was because it meant governments could not continue to give out press releases that were blatant lies, even if they thought they were doing it for what they perceived as the right reasons. What they forgot was “the marl road” and rumours are often worse than the truth. And this certainly applied to this case.

Live television in Cayman changed everything. Seeing is believing. You can print and you can speak but when you see it with your own eyes you know it is the truth.

And can anyone forget the 9/11 New York Twin Towers attack? Both the Television Centre’s channels Cayman 27 and Island 24 showed the terrible scenes as it happened. Seeing really was believing, because what happened was a nightmare that was unbelievable unless we had seen it with our own eyes.

This brings me to my next point but still governments wish is to control the news television shows and this was the next step in their control game. In the 9/11 television coverage, even though at first we were only showing the BBC World News feed people were ringing in because they wanted the American CNN broadcast. The perception was because it was happening in the USA CNN would have the most up to date information. Wrong. Government could do nothing about what was being shown but when it came to information they controlled WHEN the official information would be given to the media. They, however, could not control BBC World, or hadn’t thought about it. BBC World was not readily available in the USA then, unlike it is now. The information BBC was broadcasting was at least 30 minutes before the US stations announced it.

Governments soon realised they could reshape who we are as members of a family, community and country. And what better way than to have their own broadcast television station.

Even the BBC is censored. It is owned by the British Government who had a big say in whom the BBC Governors were and they appointed the Director General. In 2007 this was replaced by the BBC Trust. However, it is almost just a name change as Appointments to the BBC Trust are made by Queen in Council, on the recommendation of government ministers. And government collect the annual license fee as there is no advertising on the BBC channels operating in the UK.

There are many countries in the world that only have government stations. Our Premier, Hon. McKeeva Bush, has announced there will be a government television station here even in these times of austerity. One can only guess at the thinking behind it, especially with an election coming up.

Whilst in America there is no official government broadcast channel it is the big business financiers who control all the networks and have ties to the government and this has been painfully obvious over the last four years. Just look how the presidential election campaign has been slanted in favour of the Democrats. If it wasn’t for Romney’s multi-millions (stashed away in the nefarious/notorious Cayman Islands with a party yacht flying the Cayman flag) he would have been blown away.

I was appalled nearly four years ago when Sarah Palin came on the scene and for two days threatened the Obama campaign and the three networks ABC (especially), NBC and CBS did a hatchet job that made her look like an idiot. And they even employed a Palin look-a-like to say stupid things on a late night comedy show that was aired on prime time news. The majority of the American public still today believes Palin said them! That is the awful and negative power of television.

There are so many places now that have televisions. Almost everywhere. The sports bar, restaurants, airport waiting areas, breakfast areas in motels, the back of your airline seat, waiting rooms, banks, etc., etc.. Even our computers have it. Is it necessary?

We watch it, promote it, use it as a babysitter, enjoy it as background noise, use it to “cool out” after work, kill time with it, and use it to keep ourselves company, even when we actually have real life company. I suppose television doesn’t answer back. I expect Apple will announce they have perfected that and it will be called “iSpeakback”.

You see how television can be the most dangerous influence on our lives. It can be manipulated because seeing is believing.