Barbadian newspaper accused of lacking "integrity"

An interesting short article in today's Saturday Sun. Former Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance, Clyde Mascoll, has declined to be interviewed by the Nation newspaper, saying that "no reporter had talked to him during the election campaign" and charged the paper with lacking integrity.

Now I find both the lack of reporter contact and the charge fascinating, but perhaps indicative of what some see as the parlous state of print journalism in Barbados. I have certainly seen very little by way of true investigative reporting in the year that I have lived here. But during an election campaign I would have expected that every candidate, especially a minister in what was known to be a key battle for a seat, to have been interviewed. I have seen reports in the press that they are limited and harassed if they "go after stories", and this has often been reported with a sense of acceptance. Some of the fellow bloggers in Barbados have made much sport out accusing the Nation of just being a mouthpiece of the outgoing BLP government (see Barbados Free Press blog post). The comment from and treatment of Mr. Mascoll may be difficult to interpret in the near term, given his ambiguous past a DLP-to-BLP cross-over.

I will be interested to see if this develops into at least a battle of words.