Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!
Sir Walter Scott
Kaymar Jordan, NATION Editor in Chief (l) Carol Martindale, former Sunday Sun Editor (r)
In the same way Editor in Chief of the NATION Kaymar Jordan believes she has the right to ration news to Barbadians, BU claims the right to continue to express disgust at the decision. It is obvious to most people that enough time has elapsed since the story broke that any responsible newspaper in possession of the facts would have sought to clarify the story for the public it serves. Journalistic integrity should never be traded for a bounce in sales.
BU has been criticised by some who believe we should be focussed on the bigger story which is the disquiet haunting the DLP camp concerning Prime Minister Stuarts leadership. Our response is, we will do so on Sunday when the NATION reveals it all. Then and only then will the public be relieved of the manufactured suspense and be able to engage in a coherent analysis of what transpired.
BU was born in April 2007 because we felt the media was being intimidated by the Arthur administration. A working Fourth Estate is critical to ensuring the crust which protects our democracy is safeguarded. It is serious business. The yellow journalism which is being foisted on Barbadians by the NATION is not acceptable and we need to tell them to stop it!
The Fontabelle 7 Day Eager 11 Sales Plan designed to boost sales must be seen as a media house operating contrary to the highest ethical standards of journalism. In the way it has reported the Eager 11 story the NATION has reneged on its responsibility to Barbadians to be honest and accurate in the delivery of news. Barbadians have become accustomed to mediocrity in the media we find it difficult to recognize it when it happens.
The mention of yellow journalism raises the memory of a couple years ago (August 24, 2009), Barbadians may recall the hullabaloo when the then Sunday Sun Editor Carol Martindale reported she was threatened by Hartley Henry who was the advisor to the late prime minister.
“The paper [NATION] said police were immediately summoned to the newspaper’s offices where a report about the telephone conversation was made to investigators from the Criminal Investigations Department.
“The Nation has sent an official complaint to Prime Minister David Thompson and has also lodged complaints with the Inter-American Press Association and the World Press Freedom Committee and copied these letters to the Barbados Association of Journalists (BAJ),” the newspaper said.”
If the NATION was a responsible media outfit would Barbadians have to wonder what was the outcome of the Martindale/Henry matter? Would BU be getting a message which suggest that the Nation has a draft copy of a letter? BU looks forward to the ‘letter’ with 11 signatures belonging to the faces of the MPs being paraded in the NATION to be published on Sunday. Any thing less and heads must roll.
Chris sinckler has now become DAMAGE GOODS and is a definite liabilty going into the elections. The DLP must not make the same mistake which the BLP has made having a controversial issue to sidetrack them on every turn.
“Sinckler clarifies that the letter was not signed by many other MPs who expressed an interest in meeting with the Prime Minister.”
My question would be “What exactly was the reason to meet with the PM and why could a few of you not go to the PM and say.
“Freundel we worried bout de some tings man. tings bout hey brown and 11 a we tink it real real serious. We got to do someting now. le we all get together and talk man.”
@Hants
Sinckler responds to that question in the interview.
He flatly states that’s not the way to do it.
@david
Not the way to do it, but he did suggests that there were some discussions that wanted to go further. The man was part and parcel because even now it seems he seeks discussion with the Nation before having it with the PM. Guilty by association and failure to disclose.
To the Nation newspaper: the journalistic creed – ” when in doubt, leave out” was not employed because you were not in doubt but were happy and eager to form part of the plot to sink the PM under the guise of having a “hot story”. You trusted a source more than the evidence in front of you. You did not “wait” as you were supposed to do especially when dealing with stories of such a sensitive nature with high political content and broad social implications. You did not consider the damage that would have been done to the country, the profession, the political process if you turned out to be wrong.
You protected and trusted your source; your source did not protect you. But Chris may have sounded his own death bell publicly (internally we assume it has been ringing ever since the information leaked) by being interviewed. Undoubtedly he was one of the chief architects and framers of this fracas. I can only compliment him for his courage in agreeing to an interview. As for the Editor in Chief – You did not set a fine example of leadership and ethic. it appears it was not deliberate yet you continued with a scheme of deception – optimistic that you would have salvaged yourself from the unexpected disaster that occurred.
You were pulled into what you thought was a very craftily woven plan to decimate the PM and you chose not to see beyond the immediate gratification of the “big story.” Well, big it is but for all the wrong reasons and will go down in history not for its positive valuation of the profession of journalism but a highly negative one. It only takes a supposedly tiny hole to sink an entire ship.
Had the Nation “waited” and not publish a story that was “clearly not yet ready”, the people of Barbados might be eating Sunday Lunch today without a slant to their conversation about the deteriorating standards of journalism, the travails of Sinckler as he seeks to rescue himself or hang himself, nor what systems of governance need to be put in place so the public is not treated with the arrogance and contempt that it has been.
THE NATION OWES THE PUBLIC AN APOLOGY.
@ac
You took issue with me when I said that I saw the text messages that were being sent out by Sinckler and when I boldly called him a LIAR. Have you come around to agreeing with me that HE IS A LIAR? For to deny on the TV news that he knew nothing of what was going on and then to give the kind of interview confirming that he was AT THE HEART OF WHAT WAS GOING ON can only make him out to be a LIAR.
DO YOU AGREE?
While Barbados battles its own demons the world continues on its rollercoaster.
Fitch downgrades seven leading banks December 16, 2011
BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, Citigroup and Barclays are among the banks affected by the rating agency’s concern over their higher funding costs
Moody’s downgrades Belgium December 16, 2011
Selected risk assets rally as investors take heart from US economic data, but wariness over the eurozone crisis remains
I would like to repeat. Continuing to flog the Nation is of little or no merit at this time. To continue to do so seems to point to an agenda of trying to hide the real story and the important issues.
The real story is that Chris Sinckler appears by his own admission to have been part of an effort to get Freundal Stuart to see reason. The timing, the place and the intimate offhand disclosures of what must surely be sensitive private discussions, suggests that Chris has crossed his Rubicon and that we can expect some further action soon from either him or FS or both.
What can FS reasonably do now, given the Nation’s bombshell interview reported on this morning? Should he kick Chris off the front benches? Should he call elections? Should he punish the other ringleaders whom he surely knows by now? Should he step down but ensure that Chris does not become PM in stepping down? In fact was this the point of all this intrigue? Who leaked the information to the Nation? Could it have been, counterintuitively, Chris himself? Could it have been an FS loyalist or could it have been a rival of Chris’ for the PM position?
Discuss that.
Concentrating on trying to get the Nation to say sorry to the Barbados Nation won’t bear fruit since Chris has provided all that the Nation needs as an explanation for its slight journalistic mistake and the DLP parliamentarians can’t reasonably sue for that mistake unless they individually want to spread more dirty linen in the public arena at a time when elections could be in the offing.
Its a dead horse, the Nation’s articles this morning killed it. Move on.
@Checkit-out
You last comment is surprising.
Are we not discussing Chis and the issues surrounding his interview?
Several blog on the fronpage of BU tells the story.
There is even the view that there is a larger plot to this story to unravel.
Like you let BU repeat, it will and should not be at the expense of giveing the NATION a pass.
@Cassius
I don’t remember taking issue with you . I however did question your role in all of this and since you were close to the happenings i did ask for you to give more details. however which you didn’t. i also remember you denying knowing of a letter but did admitted to knowing of text messages sent by CHRIS in regards to a meeting. i hope that now Chris has more than less implicated himself with knowing about the letter you would indulge BU with the text messages through correspondence that you have. If you read my previous post you would see i have no sympathy for Chris Sinckler and that i have mentioned before .
The Nation took an explosive news story and embellished to suggest that they had more than they actually had; they then misled and manipulated the public in promising to provide full details of the letter including the “signatures” and lastly they substituted opinion for news which is a cardinal sin in journalism.
Memo to the Nation, verify, verify, verify!
The Nation rushed the brush. I’m still waiting for a letter with at least one signature on it as well as a denial from the named MPs that they had “concerns about the their leadership of the country”
Someone done gone and tossed poor little Bim into a mess. Absolute silence from the business class, the economists, the opposition, government’s usual critics and of course CBC and the advocate. Not a good sign heading into what will be a difficult year in all aspects of our operations..
Here is a really folish question for the BU family.
Why would Sinckler agree to do an interview with the Nation?
Don’t give the response please that the Nation has the widest circulation because then one could ask why is the government in bed with the Advocate.
Who read the NATION editorial today?
Any thoughts?
http://www.nationnews.com/articles/view/editorial-ever-watchful-ever-true
What artifice, this is the heights of chutzpah for the Nation to be patting itself on the back for their handling of this story.
The Editorial writer probably belongs to a generation that is foreign to the one I grew up in, those of us from that generation would know that “Self praise ain’t no praise”
if only she had put in force what she wrote in the editoral ,They wouldn’t be cause for distrust. and calls for integrity and fair balance reporting by the Nation However reporting the story as a Plot was twisting the truth of the story. Up until present the story still maintains itself as a LETTER however shrouded with speculation because it was indeed reported as a Plot.,She must be reminded that FACTS and TRUTH compliment each other one without the other is only heresay.
@ac
You lost the plot in the plot because your pleading to ignorance is as deliberate the attempt by the Eager 11 to destabilise the Government of Barbados from within the very internal structures of the executive. Keep denying, the average Barbadian, on both sides and the middle of political parties, can see exactly that there was (and I maintain is) a plot to remove by coercion and/or by graft the PM.
@george Brathwait
I left a message for for you on “THE merry Xmas Thread” go retreieve it before the Nation get a hold of it and it becomes a plot of biblical porportions. BTW what we see is what we want to see and that is the problem with the nation reporting of the story. It is not up to them to insinuate or inject what they perceived as is but to stick to the facts of the story and as the Editor plainly states in her last p-aragraph of her editorial”LET THE CHIPS FALL WHERE THEY MAY. An advice which she should have taken herself.
@Check It Out. Incredible. I don’t believe you – where is your sense of honour, truth and justice? I agree entirely with “ac” “If only she had put in force what she wrote in the editoral ,They wouldn’t be cause for distrust. and calls for integrity and fair balance reporting by the Nation However reporting the story as a Plot was twisting the truth of the story. Up until present the story still maintains itself as a LETTER however shrouded with speculation because it was indeed reported as a Plot.,She must be reminded that FACTS and TRUTH compliment each other one without the other is only heresay.”
George Brathwaite and Sargeant are also on the right track where the Nation is concerned – essentially the point being made is that the Nation erred and beguiled the public. Surely that is something to be upset and concerned about. The Editor in Chief has set the clock back a few decades and now has the nerve to pretend she was right all along. NO YOU WERE NOT RIGHT> HAVE THE DECENCY TO APOLOGISE. WE SHOULD NOT REST UNTIL YOU DO. But you and the board will not, will you? You would rather not lose face to the public. What a sorry, sad lot.
No reputable newspaper would keep KAYMAR. She has the same problem Chris Sinckler has They are both liars. He lied about not Knowing . She lied about the content of the letter. itis only a matter of time before she falls under the pressure of those asking for her removal and it would be in the best interset of the Nation and its readership that she removed . Distrust is a trait with which no one wants to be associated and Kaymar crossed that line and so did Chris Sinckler . THey both evenly matched and apparantly cut from the same cloth.
@ac. Excellent analogy worth repeating:
“No reputable newspaper would keep KAYMAR. She has the same problem Chris Sinckler has They are both liars. He lied about not Knowing . She lied about the content of the letter. itis only a matter of time before she falls under the pressure of those asking for her removal and it would be in the best interset of the Nation and its readership that she removed . Distrust is a trait with which no one wants to be associated and Kaymar crossed that line and so did Chris Sinckler . THey both evenly matched and apparantly cut from the same cloth.”
@WordSong
Your last comment accords with those of BU’s.
It has been posted as a separate topic.
@ George brathwaite
In reference to your comment posted on dec 18 @ 6.45pm. yes george i can read and no way in the letter is there mention of a conspiracy or an alleged “PLot” . This slant on the story was given by the NATION newspaper and Editor. Until a letter is published to confirm such allegations i would maintain must stance justifiably so . if however such a confirmation arises i would alter without an apology my opinion. e Nation must not take the TRUST of the public for Granted.
George Brathwaite:
I believe you when you say that there is ‘concern’ about the leadership based on the polls and concerns by BU family. Did you say that? Not because the BLP think they should be in power and are better able to manage, lead and run the country but only the ‘leadership style.’
Should PM Stuart be removed by a democratic process all is well.
Should the DLP MP’s decide to conspire to remove him (the PM) – they can prepare to spend a possible 20 years in opposition with Kellman alone ’cause Hammy will cross. Only God knows what Mara will do – clearly she is still not interested in being a politician.
The same Wickham in 2008 told them that their victory was very small and they need to work to secure becoming the choice of the people. Now he wants the DLP to remove PM based on a poll he orchestrated in my opinion because of his love for Chris. He did the same for MIa and OSA still removed her.
DLP members do not have a problem with Freundel Stuart as President of the Party and the Parliamentarians do not have a problem with him being PM. There is a grievance and disquiet – those who have concerns will move or be moved at this time.
And George, shed some light to the BU family, is all the disquiet being poked from within? Of course you can.