The country’s daily newspapers have moved “down market” by publishing “perverse” and “twisted” interpretations of the facts according to Foreign Affairs and Public Service Minister Fred Mitchell.
Giving his contribution to this year’s budget debate, Minister Mitchell during parliament’s evening session on Monday made a point to address what he considers a “major problem in the dissemination of information in this country.”
Mr Mitchell said that in his view the Bahamian newspapers have a significant problem with simply reporting “what was said and done without editorialising it.”
“This is only an issue for press that considers itself papers of record, not the trashy papers that simply sit down and manufacture information for the entertainment of its readers.
“I believe that these papers have moved down-market, trying to compete with the trashy papers for lurid headlines and with salacious material in an effort to attract readers frightened off by the trashy papers,” he said.
He explained that his party once before in the past thought it necessary to create its own information machinery “because the message of the party was simply not getting out.”
“If has become so bad in my view that one sees the most perverse and twisted interpretation of facts, so that this party and this government has to find a better way to get its message to its supporters,” he said.
More specifically, Mr Mitchell accused certain factions of the press of deliberately twisting information “to promote an agenda, to perpetuate a great falsehood that there is some problem between the United States and ourselves.”
As an example the minister named the news stories and editorials published last week in all the dailies regarding US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld’s suggestion to remove the army helicopters from the anti-drug smuggling initiative OPBAT and re-deploy them in the fight against terrorism.
Mr Mitchell said that despite US Ambassador John Rood’s assurances that there have been no talks to withdraw the helicopters from the OPBAT programme, the editorials remained the same, indicating “that there was some secret message from the United States to the Bahamas.”
“What is happening is a hindrance to the orderly development of public policy and it ought to be cor-rected,” he said.
By KARIN HERIG Tribune Staff Reporter
