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Fontabelle 7 Day Eager 11 Sales Plan

Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive! Sir Walter Scott 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…

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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.

139 responses to “Fontabelle 7 Day Eager 11 Sales Plan”

  1. true to form Avatar
    true to form

    Names not signatures what is the difference? Your name would not implicate you but a signature would?. Men of honour would not have to worry . But it is small puny men who have done things of which they are ashamed that would not try to back out and have their party hacks encourage them. Stand up like big emn and dare to be a Daniel Dare to stand and make your purpose known. If the Nation publiishes on Sunday it would have done its duty. The Nation does not have to publish when others want it to.Men are trembling and are worried . they deserve it and no amouit of drivel would make these party hacks determine that the Nation should publish before Sunday. You can have your field day on Sunday..I look forward to it. Think on these things

  2. Prodigal Son Avatar
    Prodigal Son

    enuff, said
    Here is a good example. The kingmaker declared that the late PM delivered a political speech on his deathbed the night he died; yet recently Mara gave a totally different account of those last hours. She said he was babbling!!! The Nation reported both stories and never once commented on the inconsistencies.Enuff, I agree with what you said below.

    enuff, I agree with what you said. When the kingmaker said this, I said to myself how could a man whose body has been ravaged by pancreatic cancer be able to sit up minutes before he died as the kingmaker and the doctor said. I have watched a friend painfully dying from cancer and weeks before she could not even hold her head up. When I read Mara’s interview, I said look how these Dems could lie even by trying to make DT into some super hero even at his last few moments!

  3. David Avatar
    David

    @Julie B

    Have you forgotten that David Ellis regarded as the country’s leading journalist was denied interviews repeatedly for no explained reason?

    Have you forgotten how Arthur’s office/GIS would summons journalists to Bay Street like dogs to press conferences less than an hour it was scheduled?

  4. Prodigal Son Avatar
    Prodigal Son

    Why is no one questioning Peter Wickham’s credibility on the supposed poll that triggered all this commotion? In June/July, he denied that the Dems commissioned the poll, are we not now hearing that the Dems did? Why is Peter not being pressured to reveal which constituencies he did this so call data gathering? Why did he not release the pie charts of the data as accustomed? Is it not strange that the poll data favours the two persons he supports? Or is it that he is not a journalist? Me thinks he purports himself to be one.

  5. David Avatar
    David

    @Prodigal Son

    You mean traditional media right?

    Peter needs to step back a little.

  6. enuff Avatar
    enuff

    @ David
    There are TWO stories indeed, and I am sure most here agree that the Nation should have printed the letter the same day the story was first published. Boycott? Protest on Fontabelle?
    However, the matter relating to leadership and ‘disunity’ within the DLP government/party has understandably taken precedence, hence the ‘political prism’. It would be naive to expect the semantical/unethical reporting by the Nation to be of greater import than a crisis within government. This is especially so given the ‘disunity’ in the Opposition so often supported here on BU, and the holier than thou attitude exhibited by the government and its operatives.
    I am however not surprise since I have long concluded that the DLP is all PR, dwells in Wonderland more so than in the real world and undoubtedly has a large supply of kool aid.

    Here is food for thought:
    The late David Thompson became leader of the Opposition after the removal of Mascoll via a ‘plot’; misled the public into believing that he had a document confirming a secret deal with the IMF; and also led the public into believing that OSA spent election donations for his own personal benefits because he had an illegally obtained copy of a deposited cheque YET he became Prime Minister of Barbados.

  7. David Avatar
    David

    @Porter

    Why would a political party want to air their ‘issues’ in public?

    It is why the BLP was criticized by some during the Arthur/Mottley fiasco.

    This is against a general election which looms.

  8. Prodigal Son Avatar
    Prodigal Son

    I wonder what was FS reaction to the chief plotter Chris Sinckler and Stephen Lashley today in the House. They must have been trembling in their boots.

    FS, keep them sweating, you hold all the aces!

  9. David Avatar
    David

    @enuff

    A point you need to consider is that both matters are very serious.

    One has implications for the stability of the country and the other, known as the Fourth Estate, plays a watch dog role in how news is reported to the people who invariably form positions as a result.

    Can you appreciate why we need to keep an eagle eye on the actions of the media as well?

  10. enuff Avatar
    enuff

    @ David
    I agree with you Sir, but you can’t ignore that, as is always the case, one issue will be given more weight than the other; or that we elected someone guilty of these same actions to the highest office in our land

  11. WordSong Avatar
    WordSong

    @Julie

    There are many people who can tell you about encounters with the Arthur administration in the media. It is now almost legacy that the Arthur administration historically interfered with media personnel in the execution of their duties. The then PM may have something to say about this himself.

    On another note, there is a cohort of persons around the incumbent party who are like kith and kin – a little dynasty of friends and relations that goes back decades. Surely that went out with the Chinese eons ago. Is this what we have sunk to in Barbados?

    Freundal Stuart is a good man even if he is reticent. He is of his generation – dense when he speaks and somewhat stiff. Nevertheless, His integrity does not escape Barbadians while the lack of it in many of his subordinates does. They have cooked their own goose. Slap tar, walk the streets and hear what Bajans are really saying about the state of politics in Barbados, the short-sightedness and lack of vision of these people in whom we entrusted the management of Barbados.

    There are many Bajans (- who we like to call ordinary- Ordinary they are not in the least ) that understand that FS may appear slow and indecisive but his heart is in the right place. They are not so certain about the crop of politicians that are now stricken by revelations about their divisive behaviour. Undoubtedly, they have to work real hard to save themselves and reinstate trust in the DLP. No amount of “expert opinion from the well love Prof. Neville Duncan will save them from their fate. The mistakes they have made and are making have decided for them.

    The opposition does well to keep silent. But even that is an old strategy that needs discarding. They are behaving just like the Nation newspaper – trying to see what mileage can be had from muffling themselves while the sheep wraps the rope around its neck at the stake until it chokes itself.

    Barbados deserves a lot more. Both opposition, the incumbent party and the media are doing democracy a huge disservice. We need a modern country not only technologically and infrastructurally. Time for a new politics. You educated the people. Now you don’t want us to think?

  12. David Avatar
    David

    @enuff

    That is fine, it is why the BU household has placed importance on this issue for the moment.

    A check of our archives will throw out how passionate we all are about a working Fourth Estate.

    Of course commenters are free to bring whatever perspectives they want to bear.

    The next blog to be posted is a case in point.

  13. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    David if this is true, it shows how your words can be twisted to present a different result.

    http://www.nationnews.com/letters/view/i-did-not-hold-myself-out-to-help/

  14. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    All a newspaper is required to do is report news FACTUALLY.

    Engaging in journalistic skulduggery is not what we expect from the Nationnews.

    Forget the politics.

    The first article I read convinced me that 11 ministers signed a letter that was asking the PM to resign.
    If I misunderstood it then I wasted my time at Kolij.

  15. Sargeant Avatar
    Sargeant

    That letter from Greaves confirms that it seems that the Nation is interested in making inflammatory headlines and the truth be dammed. I wonder who will take the time to read the letter, will someone apologise to him for twisting his words?

    Once again the truth becomes a casualty of what we call a newspaper.

  16. David Avatar
    David

    On a lighter note there has been no comment on the selection by the Nation of Minister Sinckler’s most unflattering picture in the 11.

  17. ac Avatar
    ac

    the Nation newspaper and its Editor in an effort to confuse and aggravate a highly charged and emotional issue has resorted to “Subliminal Spin: to confuse the readership .Buyer BEWARE” This is going to be the Battle of the heart and minds of the people and will resort to any tactic necessary to do so,Be Wary of anything which the Nation prints about this subjectfrom now until Sunday You are going to be confused as the nation in its haste to cover it’s a.ss change course from the original. story. SUNDAY HEADLINE SHOULD BE called”THE GIANT LEAP:”.

  18. enuff Avatar
    enuff

    @ Hants
    Get real!! Newspapers are key power brokers in politics–WORLDWIDE. They even endorse parties during elections.

  19. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    Sargeant what is worse is that if true, Tony Best now looks as if he participated in the shulduggery.

    I always thought that he was one of the “good” journalists.

    I look forward to his rebuttal.

    BU’s citizen journalists are looking like bastions of integrity compared to the “professionals”.

  20. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    Sargeant Canadian news is interesting these days.

    Ontario on credit watch.

    Federal government will force Airlines to advertise the entire true price of a ticket.

    Justin cussin in parliament.

    Anyhow back to the real action in Utopia! sorry uh mean Barbados.

  21. island guy Avatar
    island guy

    well it seems as though barbados today scope the nation and have a copy of the letter .Storm in a tea cup .

  22. BAFBFP Avatar
    BAFBFP

    Just in just in

    Prime Minister Stuart has decided to step aside … The problem now is who will lead and no one is backing the Young upstart from the Garrison Secondary, he just ain’t Ivy League …! 🙂

  23. Brief Avatar
    Brief

    I anticipate that the Nation will print pictures of those present at a meeting – a pull out like what happens with a catalogue.

    The responsibility of the Nation is to its shareholders not its citizens. When the BLP met to over throw Mia this was not the procedure and not one of the five MPs was asked a question.

    The Government should discontinue contracts with the Nation for the next year. No doubt that the DLP will win next elections. PM Stuart is not treacherous and you do not hear that he can be bribed nor does he practice terrorizing antics to lead.

    PM Stuart may not be the type of person some of us want as a leader because of a leadership style that is not bombastic, ridiculing, asinine. I support the man’s integrity, honesty and ability to lead as a craftsman of our fate. He does not jump at everything (this appears to offend some) but those of us with integrity appreciate his patience, longsuffering, tolerance and timing in response.

    The hogwash media does not get all of his replies to his ministers – had that happened – I believe that the MP’s would have been smeared by poor journalism a long, long time ago.

    How come no mention was made of the function at Ilaro Court and the PM’s comments to those present and absent.

  24. Brief Avatar
    Brief

    Read Barbados Today

  25. David Avatar
    David

    Is it not ironic that it is a member of the rouge Fifth Estate demanding the NATION adheres to the high standards required of the profession?

  26. Watchman Avatar
    Watchman

    BU,
    Please read the letter displayed tonight in Barbados Today’s online newspaper.
    Your comments please. If this IS the letter, the NATION is in serious trouble.

  27. David Avatar
    David

    one really has to read and understand what they read.

    in the 1st printed story, the Nation talked about the 11 and how the 11 signed this letter. from the time the Nation started to show faces, they started talking about the letter was written “on the behalf of”

    some of us including some of the 11 got hot in the pants and run off making claims. i have also not seen where the Nation has said they will print the letter with the signatures. they have however said, they will keep running the story to Sunday.

    of course i could die wrong as my wife would tell you i always am.

  28. BAFBFP Avatar
    BAFBFP

    For the hard in hearing, the Nation is in business to sell papers, that’s it, full stop. One Caribbean Media is NOT a Barbadian company.

  29. ac Avatar
    ac

    BAF
    IS your above comment intended to be BReaking News ,

  30. BAFBFP Avatar
    BAFBFP

    No ac, but experience has shown me that those who are short on memory or normally hard in hearing. For those types, old news is always BReaking News … 🙂

  31. My Two Cents Avatar
    My Two Cents

    The letter as published by Barbados Today is not pleasant and not the way a group of Parliamentarians should address the PM (primus inter pares). You can’t spin it any other way.
    If a bunch of senior managers wrote that letter to the CEO, he would know where he stands and he would know what to do. A bunch of sharks are after his arse. He can ignore them, placate them, but he can’t fire them because they’re all he’s got. But they are actively undermining him, demanding meetings and openly questioning his leadership.
    Really idiotic from Sinckler, Lashley et al given that the majority of the public knows that the PM is a good man, trying to do his best for the country in difficult circumstances.

  32. ac Avatar
    ac

    @BAF Ha!

  33. Posh Avatar
    Posh

    I am neither for nor against the Nation, I read it because its written and I get what I want out of it. But not for a minute do I believe everything or nearly anything they write. And most of their articles seem targeted towards the dimwits of society, take for example the recent article on the airport, as if no one knew that baggage handlers smuggle drugs at GAIA and every other airport in the world. You think they would believe they have another exclusive if I told them that passenger agents, cleaners, pilots, air hostess’ are also involved? Just about any staff member at the airport?

  34. David Avatar
    David

    In less than 24 hours Barbados will read the response by the NATION which we expect will deflate the manufactured suspense about a ‘letter’. If the build up is to go by it should be a Sunday Sun like we have never read before. Here is your last opportunity to estimate how quickly newspaper stands will be clear tomorrow.

    A warning to the NATION and Kaymar, Fifth Estate is watching.

  35. smooth chocolate Avatar
    smooth chocolate

    just suppose it’s a draft letter or no letter at all? the Nation newspaper knows that bajans just talk, huff real long, puff real hard and sit back in their arm chairs claiming they did their work. at the end of the day, not one thing will be done by bajans, u will continue buying the paper. i will wait to see if this is the end of the Nation. It should be, if the letter is nothing but a fallacious attempt by Owen Arthur to pump up the BLP.

  36. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    Whether they wanted to oust the PM. Whether they want him to resign.
    The fact is that they at least recognise that Barbados is in serious trouble and they need to do something about it NOW.

    There will be an election in a year from now and as a political party they need to start preparations now.

    Hopefully one of them will be the fall guy,take one for the team so the rest can prepare for battle.

    And if any of you think both parties don’t have spies and operatives in each others parties you have to be living in Greenland.
    Politics is war.

  37. Brief Avatar
    Brief

    This is the Nation’s first story on the matter:

    “SUN, DECEMBER 11, 2011 – 12:22 PM

    ELEVEN GOVERNMENT MEMBERS of parliament (MPs) – including seven senior Cabinet ministers – yesterday affixed their signatures to a formal letter and immediately dispatched it to Prime Minister Freundel Stuart requesting an “urgent” audience.”

    Let us not forget this. I ask again, is there another letter with signatures. Kaymar published Estwick, Jones and Thompson as saying ‘Not Me’ to signing a letter for an ‘urgent audience’ with the PM.

    The truth on signatures must come from this newspaper for that is all the people and Government of Barbados want to see.

    And by the way, was the original letter intercepted by the Kaymar or the Nation as Barbados Today reported that the letter never reached the PM? Is there steel (correctly spelt) in dey? Also Barbados Today states that it is a two-page letter.

  38. David Avatar
    David

    The Nation has posted a link that Chris Sinckler will be giveing a big interview tomorrow. Is this Prime Minister flexing his muscle?

    http://www.nationnews.com/articles/view/sinckler-clears-air-on-letter/

  39. Checkit-Out Avatar
    Checkit-Out

    Wow!!

    Kaymar Jordan, the BU bete noir, has an exclusive interview with Chris Sinckler tomorrow in the Nation News paper.

    Now, who would have thought that possible, given the stage that this matter is at and the need for the Ministers to stick together in excoriating the Nation paper? Especially after a few of them supposedly upstaged the Nation by making their own leak to Barbados Today yesterday.

    Why would Chris Sinckler be unobtrusively letting the Nation off the hook?

    To me, It looks as if the cat is still amongst the pigeons.

    This matter isn’t over yet.

  40. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    @ Checkit-Out,

    I too am surprised by this. I didn’t expect PM Freundel Stuart to pull this move.

    With elections on the horizon the Nationnews may be given a pass.

  41. Observing Avatar
    Observing

    This interview reeks to high hell. Has the die been cast?

  42. David Avatar
    David

    @Observing

    So many ways Sinckler’s interview can be interpreted but you are correct, it reeks!

    This interview is coming after a week of the Sunday the NATION promises to blast this matter to high heavens.

  43. Observing Avatar
    Observing

    @David

    And it comes days after Sinckler saying “I know nothing about it apart from what I read in the press” along with the fact that all other MPs (so far) have blasted the Nation for how they treated the issue. To be in the center of what you claim not to know about, and then sit at the dinner table with the “enemy of a newspaper” (to make it worse it’s the editor that isn’t backing down) says much more than any printed letter or rumour could ever say.

    Did I mention that this interview is supposed to be the SAME DAY in the SAME paper that the Nation is supposed to “clear the air.” Oops, then again Chris maybe Kaymar’s bombshell.

    I’ll say again, for party/political stability, somebody (bodies) needs to go. How is insignificant but the sooner the better.

  44. Sargeant Avatar
    Sargeant

    @ David

    Why jump to conclusions about the interview? The Nation may have got ahead of the story about the letter and is busy back pedaling.

    Surely you can wait a few hours

  45. ac Avatar
    ac

    Now Kaymar trying to pull thev wool over people’s eyes again but that not going to work. The EDITOR and the Editing that is the real concern.It is going to be hard to belive anthing that Kaymar had a hand in. More controversy if you asked me

  46. David Avatar
    David

    @Sargeant

    If Sinckler wants to clear the air so badly he has the CBC (Truth Burton would agree) and the Advocate. After his denial during the week and the NATION pummeling of the Eager 11 it really does stink.

  47. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    Too bad the little ones can’t vote.

    http://www.nationnews.com/articles/view/pm-spreads-christmas-cheer/

  48. Sargeant Avatar
    Sargeant

    @David

    True, but the Nation is still the largest mass circulation paper in the country. Thanks to its beginnings it is still the newspaper of choice of a large percentage of the Bajan public. People in Barbados generally speak of subjects in “today’s paper” not what was in the news on CBC last night. Sinckler is wise to use them and put a positive spin on the sequence of events and blunt any negative portrayal that emerges. The Nation for its part may also be trying to make amends for its coverage.

    An interview on CBC requires the audience to reserve a particular time slot to watch the interview while you can put the newspaper aside and read at your leisure. Despite the rise of social media and all kinds of communication over the past few years people still have an intimate attachment to newspapers. I can get all me news I want via the internet but I still subscribe to a daily newspaper.

    The medium is the message ( Marshall McLuhan)

  49. Brief Avatar
    Brief

    I wonder if the PM gave permission for the MOF to clear the air on an internal affair that was maliciously made public. Why would the Nation get the first interview and not CBC the government creature for broadcasting? MP going to private media first – this smells like smoke. I await the fire from Kaymar. She has certainly made a name for herself.

  50. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    How many Bajans are going to interrupt Christmas preparations to read the Newspaper?

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