The Globe and Mail changed its headline because unfaired Bajans visited the Globe website and gave them a piece of whatfor!

BUT the Globe’s subtitle still reads “Elaine Sibson thought she landed her dream job only to realize it wasn’t the paradise she expected” which sure sounds like it’s still our fault that Elaine was lonely on our beautiful island.

Misleading Print Edition headlines not changed

Too bad that changing the web version didn’t help the print edition. On Monday over 320,000 newspapers were distributed across Canada and the USA bearing the Business Section headline “Dark Days in Barbados”.

Elaine Sibson is not the villain here

If you read the article fully, Elaine has some nice things to say about Barbados, and she probably told Gordon Pitts, the reporter, much more than Pitts revealed in the story. Despite the “culture shock” and her inability to deal with Bajan staff and an office where “things were like they were 15 years ago”, it seems that Elaine’s loneliness for friends and family caused her return to Canada.

You’d never know that by a quick read of the headlines though. “Dark Days in Barbados” and “wasn’t the paradise she expected.”

The Globe & Mail headline seems clear that Barbados was the problem, not Elaine Sibson’s inability to adapt and thrive in a new country and society.

No, we don’t do things the way they are done in Halifax or New York City. We do things the way that suits us. Sure, we’re still working at making a better society in Barbados. We’d like to see some changes and God knows we at BFP criticise the political and business elites and our broken Parliament and civil service – but that is because of our love for our country and our children.

Elaine Sibson never walked the rugged East Coast in the morning with the spray flying in her face, the sun rising on the promise of a glorious new day and her lover’s arm around her. I’m sorry she only saw Barbados through her self-imposed isolation in her condo but I hope she has some good memories of her time on beautiful Barbados.

Elaine is probably a nice lady who enjoys life on her home ground surrounded by family and longtime friends. Nothing wrong with that. She’ll probably do very well in her new job on the Board of Directors for Nova Scotia Power Inc.

No Excuse!

Elaine’s loneliness doesn’t excuse Gordon Pitts and The Globe and Mail though. Whether by design or poor journalism they have created a very negative and misleading article on Barbados – based upon Ms. Sibson’s loneliness and her apparent reluctance to supervise an employee who spent a day and a half to do a 30 minute job. (Kind of makes you wonder about who they are employing at PricewaterhouseCoopers Barbados office, doesn’t it? The “binder girl” in the Globe & Mail story would get the sack where I work!)

We think that the Globe and Mail owes an apology to the people of Barbados - and we hope they come through next Monday in their paper edition so that the same people who read about how bad we Bajans are can appreciate how misleading the current story is.

But if that doesn’t happen, we at Barbados Free Press know how to work the online search engines. Right now if you Google “Elaine Sibson”, our story is ahead of the Globe and Mail story in the Google results. Yup… from now until eternity (or when Google dies), folks who search for that Globe and Mail story on Elaine Sibson are going to have an opportunity to read the Barbados Free Press version too.

Something for Gordon Pitts and the Globe and Mail to remember next time they do an unjustified hit piece on Barbados.

Barbados first digital newspaper is online. It called Business Today and by the looks of it, it reminds me of the digital issue of Charisma magazine online – the first I have seen of its kind.

The electronic, soft copy version of regular online newspapers, the digital newspaper is headed by Roy Morris, a former veteran journalist of the Nation Publishing Company, who many may recall was charge with rape on August 14 th 2007 for having unlawful sexual intercourse with a 16-year-old female, as Nation News Associate Managing Editor.The last we read on that was a mandatory appearance to the nearest police station three times weekly with the case adjourned until Nov 1st and again adjourned and adjourned until…………….

According to a January 14th CBC article “it’s a venture he has been working on for more than two years. He says there is a demand for a new imaginative approach to news gathering and dissemination in Barbados and he has designed systems to achieve that ……….that a number of former Nation Publishing Company employees have come together and have been able to attract persons who understand the importance of quality journalism in a developing country like Barbados.”

Hey, folks there’s a cost to this. A subscription is offer afterwards after your first ‘peek’ for your continual  free copy of Barbados Today. Of course, it would be for a limited time only!