The Tribune

A FEW days ago a Tribune reporter spotted on Facebook an announcement that “Fred Mitchell had issued instructions to lawyers to write a letter before action to The Tribune over a defamatory headline in the newspaper on Wednesday, 5th August, based on remarks made to that paper by Ft Charlotte MP Andre Rollins. The Tribune is likely to ignore it and legal proceedings are expected to be filed on Thursday, 13th August”.

In fact the article complained of was The Tribune’s front page lead on Thursday, August 6th– not 5th— and quoted Dr Rollins, with whom Minister Mitchell claims to have “once had a relationship of mentor and protégé”, as suggesting that Minister Mitchell was “an enemy of the state.”

Of course, The Tribune was doing what newspapers are created to do — reporting the news as accurately as possible. And the news that day had Minister Mitchell’s protégé, who had quit the PLP in disgust only days earlier, stating that his, obviously now former mentor, was “an enemy of the state.” Dr Rollins came to this conclusion because, he said, of Minister Mitchell’s recent negative comments about Baha Mar CEO Sarkis Izmirlian.

Dr Rollins believed that the Minister’s utterances should have Bahamians concerned “about the future of this country with respect to democracy and economic issues.”

“The emotionalism of senior politicians like Mr Mitchell in dealing with this matter is cause for all Bahamians to be seriously concerned about the future of our country, our democracy and our economy,” said Dr Rollins. “Any politician who tries to sucker the Bahamian people into thinking that this is a fight between Bahamians versus foreigners is himself an enemy of the state and no friend to the common Bahamian.”

Days passed, but The Tribune had no word from the Mitchell quarters about his intended suit until this week – Tuesday, August 12.

Mid-morning on Tuesday, a Baycourt Chambers envelope arrived at The Tribune with a letter written by lawyer Raynard S Rigby.

The letter, written on Minister Mitchell’s behalf, was dated August 7. Here it was arriving on August 11, with instructions that the offer of settlement was open until 12:15pm the next day – yesterday, August 12. Failing a response, his lawyers would “proceed to file an action in the Supreme Court for damages occasioned by the defamatory words.”

We presume an action has been filed because, as of this writing, our lawyers were yet to receive his complaint.

“We are also satisfied,” wrote lawyer Rigby, “that the words ‘enemy of the state’ are in their full context false and demeaning in their characterization of our client and do not amount to fair comment on the subject matter.”

The Rigby letter went on to claim that the words “as the feature headline had the natural effect and intention of leading to a (wrong and false‚ conclusion by ordinary Bahamians and readers of the newspaper) that our client is not worthy to hold the position as Minister of Foreign Affairs, a position which requires him to discharge duties and responsibilities on behalf of the State…”

As a result, said Mr Rigby, his client demanded a “full and complete withdrawal and public apology, in terms to be approved by us on our client’s behalf, be published in the next issue of your newspaper and in a similar prominent space to that occupied by the article (headline) complained of. We also demand that you indemnify our client in respect of the costs which he has incurred in this matter. We are instructed to demand damages be paid to our client in the sum of $500,000 occasioned by the libelous publication and its serious injury to our client’s reputation. We further demand that you provide us with an undertaking that you will not further publish this or any similar articles concerning our client.”

Mr Rigby then went on to observe: “As you are aware, the edition in which the defamatory words were published is a high sales day and as the newspaper is available online, the article will remain, and is likely to remain in the public domain forever.”

As Mr Rigby’s client knows, a newspaper reports the news whenever it happens, it does not create the news. And so for the news to have broken on a good circulation day had nothing to do with The Tribune’s staff who were doing their duty by recording the events of that day. And so, Dr Rollins with his comments on his mentor, made the headlines.

But 26 years ago, Mr Mitchell was a voice in the wilderness, crying to be let into the halls of decision making.

Addressing the College of the Bahamas’ students in July,1989 his message was quite different to that of Prime Minister Christie’s in March this year. Mr Christie, having arrived at the pinnacle of his dreams, could afford to say “to hell with them!” meaning the journalists. But, not so, Mr Mitchell. He was at the bottom of the ladder looking up. He had great ambitions, which have not diminished over the years.

And this is what he told the budding journalist of that year.

The Press, he said, “is the saviour of the poor man who has no other avenue for his voice to be heard.”

Opposition politicians and critics like himself could not have survived as well without papers like The Tribune and the Guardian.

“These newspapers,” said Mr Mitchell, “serve a vital function for our democracy, and we ought to do everything we can to promote their freedom to publish and be damned.”

And on October 26, 1990, then head of his own small political party — the People’s Democratic Party (PDF) he had more to say — particularly about The Tribune – in an address to the Kiwanis Club of over the Hill.

During his talk, repeating that the PDF had to depend upon the written press for its survival, it was important, he said, not whether they were reported, but whether they were reported correctly.

“We have no quarrel in this regard with The Tribune,” he said.

“There has not been an occasion when anyone in the PDF could properly complain that our views were not properly represented in The Tribune.

“Many black Bahamians who tend to be supporters of the PLP seem to have a problem with The Tribune. They think back to the days when Etienne Dupuch was its publisher.

“I was philosophically opposed to him as well.

“But when you look at it, Mr Dupuch is exactly the kind of person we are trying to encourage our young people to become.”

Mr Mitchell said he remembered as a boy during the heyday of the PLP in Opposition waiting for The Tribune to come out at night.

Even though The Tribune was opposed to the PLP, he said, it printed the news and did not make subjective judgments about whether it agreed with or supported the PLP.

“Even today,” said Mr Mitchell, “when members and supporters of the PLP get into trouble, they run to The Tribune, The Tribune is seen by many Bahamians as a last resort when nothing else seems to work or no one seems willing to help.”

And being on the inside, and inheriting the duty of continuing that policy, we can add that The Tribune has lost much business over the years because of its position that everyman has a right to be heard in our columns.

After all, it was its founder, Leon, who handed this paper over with instructions to each generation that he was handing it down in trust for the Bahamian people.

And so, as it was then for Mr Mitchell, it will be today for Dr Rollins.

And this is our final word on the subject.