The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune. 

I hope you would permit me to comment in your newspaper on a very interesting letter that I had read at least three or four times on Bahamas Press. The letter was written by the radical anti-Ingrahamite and former Nassau Guardian editor Oswald Brown.

The gist of Brown's well written letter is that Tribune editor and publisher Eileen Carron does not publish any of his contributions that he emails to her newspaper's email address. In his letter, Brown claimed to have emailed letters to that address over the past year or so without any success. The former Guardian editor is convinced that Carron is being biased towards him.

Brown mentioned The Tribune wasting no time in publishing the contributions of rabid FNM supporter Sharon Turner. Her letters are published every other day in The Tribune, The Nassau Guardian and The Bahamas Journal newspapers. Seems that Turner has taken over the letters-to-the-editor section of every newspaper in The Bahamas. Nowadays it is becoming increasingly difficult to get a word in the newspapers edgewise. I too feel Brown's frustration. But at least The Freeport News and Bahamas Press publishes virtually everything he writes. Both of those newspapers have stopped publishing my contributions.

I had erred in a letter to The Freeport News with regards to the power company and the Port. Since then, they abruptly stopped publishing me without so much as an explanation. I had even written a lengthy retraction, but it never saw the light of day. Apparently, forgiveness is a precious commodity at that newspaper. And so I can empathise with the retired journalist. But I still take issue with his latest letter. With regards to his bold claim that Carron has not published one letter or commentary that he has emailed to her in the past year or so, that is patently false.

 A letter that Brown had written entitled Why not a white Bahamian? was published in the December 7, 2011 edition of The Tribune. That was only 11 months ago. Yet Brown said that Carron hasn't published anything of his in over a year or so. In case he has forgotten the contents of his Tribune letter, Brown praised PLP Elizabeth MP Ryan Pinder for his address in Parliament during the debate on the resolution to approve the boundary changes that had reduced the number of seats to 38 in the House of Assembly, and said that he (Pinder) was a rising star in the PLP. And so Brown was wrong in this regard.

But I think one can argue that Brown went beyond the pale of decency in the choice of words he chose to use in characterising Carron. He said in his Bahamas Press letter that Carron is ''known to be probably the most avid senior citizen groupie of Hubert Ingraham's.'' He also wrote that she is ''too old to be one of Ingraham's groupies based on his seemingly irresistible masculine appeal.'' What does Brown mean by irresistible masculine appeal? And when he used the derogatory word ''groupie'', what exactly was he implying about Carron?

While the word groupie means an enthusiastic follower or supporter, the word is also defined as a person, especially a young woman, who regularly follows a pop music group or other celebrity in the hope of meeting them. It is also a word used to describe a person who seeks emotional and sexual intimacy with a celebrity. I will give Brown the benefit of the doubt and wager that he only meant that Carron is an enthusiastic supporter of Ingraham. Still, I think he showed poor judgment by using that word, because either way you put it, it still has very negative connotations. As a veteran journalist who obviously masters the English language, Brown has a plethora of words at his disposal. So why use an offensive one in order to get his point across? I think he showed very poor judgment. As a man who has been in journalism since the sixties, Brown should know better. Perhaps he should write a retraction and email it to The Tribune. Maybe then Carron would publish it.

 KEVIN EVANS

Freeport,

Grand Bahama,

November 8, 2012.