A row sparked last week after a television cameraman was prevented from filming a town hall meeting because organisers had their own video production company.

A cameraman for ZBM TV was stopped from recording a public meeting on the Island?s human rights laws featuring a panel of lawyers, politicians, church representatives and a psychology lecturer last Wednesday evening.

The Bermuda Broadcasting Company employee was told he could record only seven minutes of the event, which was held at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute.

Speaking to , Derek Hamlin, who is the acting president of the organising charity The Smile Foundation, said it was not an attempt to block media coverage but was to protect the group?s own intention of filming the meeting in its entirety through a pre-booked production company.

The Foundation intended to film the event and then sell the edited programme to one of the Island?s TV companies for future broadcast.

The battle of the cameras was settled on the night when the ZBM man was ordered to take down his equipment.

Mr. Hamlin explained: ?We had hired a production company to record the event for a potential future airing, so we could not have the notion of other media absorbing the full programme.?

He said the restriction was only directed at the TV media as newspaper media ?has a different impact on its readers? than an uncut broadcast.

In order that the Foundation?s attempt to have a complete programme to market was not affected by a duplicate version being aired by ZBM, it was decided to restrict outside TV media to a seven minute slot, which could be split between the beginning and the end of the meeting, said Mr. Hamlin.

?We are not against the news media covering the event and we want the TV companies to cover it as well. But we can?t let them get it for free when we have got a production company to record the event.?

Mr. Hamlin said he had been trying to contact Bermuda Broadcasting Company CEO Rick Richardson to explain what had happened and to offer to share the production costs of the filmed event in return for ZBM being given the rights to show the while programme.

?Once post production has been finished we will consult with the local TV companies to see if they want to show it,? he said.

?We don?t consider ourselves adversaries of the media but we couldn?t allow a filming apparatus to do what we have already paid a production company to do.?

ZBM?s Mr. Richardson confirmed he had received a message from Mr. Hamlin to discuss the filmed programme.