The Minister of Foreign Affairs, who, while in opposition and now in government, has used the local media to his best advantage with outstanding success, has now dealt that same Bahamian press a dirty, ungrateful hand.
In branding The Tribune a liar in its report of what happened in Haiti, Fred Mitchell was carefully putting himself and his political future on the firing line, for he was calling into question not only the integrity of The Tribune but also the Broadcasting Corporation of the Bahamas. It was he who, during the reign of the prime minister Pindling and the PLP, in his capacity in the newsroom at ZNS in the 1980’s, helped to train young journalists there in the dubious art of carrying out surgery on the news to favour the POLP.
When the Free National Movement came into office in 1992, for the first time ZNS news staff were left alone to do their professional work without political interference.
It appears that ZNS reporter Shenique Miller stepped out of line when, from Haiti, she reported that demonstrators had rattled the gates of the Bahamas Embassy in that country, and shouted anti-CARICOM slogans.
That was truth corroborated by Reuters News Agency, but it seems it did not go down well with Minister Mitchell, especially after The Tribune picked up the ZNS story and published it under a front page banner headline.
Not only did the minister immediately brand The Tribune a liar, and reports have it, severely abraded the ZNS newsroom, but somehow it seemed he was able to influence the Nassau Guardian to play along with his cover-up attempt.
Interestingly, it appeared that overnight the Bahamas Ambassador to Haiti was prevailed upon to write an account of what ‘actually’ happened. The account by the Ambassador differed sharply with what had been reported by Shenique Miller, which sparked The Tribune’s story and with which the internationally reputable Reuters News Agency concurred.
What Fred Mitchell did in this instance was highly reminiscent of the old PLP tactics, which used the public broadcasting facilities to alter the news to their political advantage while ZNS professionals stood helplessly by.
The fact is that the Haitian demonstrators descended upon the Bahamas embassy in Port-au-Prince, rattled the gates and shouted for CARICOM to stop interfering in Haiti’s affairs.
Source: The Scribe from The Punch
