Why any Barbadian Government gets away doing idiocy every time: a Divided Media group, instead of ensuring each has support when one member is attacked – the reality is every newspaper/ tv/ radio/ online for itself; look at at one story and it\s ensuing coverage which demonstrates the schism, here’s the Nation Publishing version…

HE HASN’T called for the cutting of teams just yet, but Steve Stoute has not defended all the returns from the Commonwealth Games either.

Stoute gave the assessment during (an) announcement of Barbados‘ team for the Youth Olympic Games, targeting the country’s Commonwealth cyclists specifically as a major disappointment. This was the Daily Nation, now what did the Barbados Advocate say?

Representatives from Athletics and Swimming are the only ones who have met the stringent standards set for the upcoming Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing, China.

Lester Vaughan student Rivaldo Leacock will be one of our main medal contenders at the Games. He will be competing in the 400 metre hurdles, an event in which he is currently ranked fifth in the world, according to the IAAF website. Leacock recorded a personal best of 51.37 seconds earlier this year over the 84 cm hurdles at the CARIFTA Games, and has a best of 51.70 seconds over the hurdles set at the men’s height.

Sada Williams is down to compete in both the 200 metres and 400 metres. She is heading into the Youth Olympics with IAAF Youth rankings of sixth in the 200 metres and fifth in the 400 metres. Williams recorded her personal bests of 23.43 seconds over the 200 metres and 53.39 seconds over the 400 metres at the CARIFTA Games earlier this year. Unfortunately, her form in recent weeks has not been near those times.

The flag bearer will be Tristan Evelyn who will compete in the 100 metres. She recorded a personal best 11.52 seconds at the CAC Juniors. Also completing the athletics team will be Michael Nicholls in the 110 metre hurdles and Ramarco Thompson in the 200 metres.

Almost seems like two different events, but wait, there’s more – here’s a third version, mine? They left out how the Chinese Ambassador Wan Ke is looking at an exchange of skills – martial arts and gymnastics from China while Barbados and the Caribbean can share their cricketing capabilities, especially since China has just recently started a cricket team…

Nevertheless, before it is lost, let’s look at my original point… One event, three stories. It shows a disparity between reporters here, if they’re not stealing my photos as file images in another venue then we have a polite repetition of events at one newspaper, while another paper has a view how Bajan teams may be reduced if performance continues to lag. Here at this Web Magazine we saw all of the above plus what seems to be a Government official abusing his privilege to speak at length without offering any true content of worth?

I remember in the late 90s when St Lucia was under the UWP and their PM wished to create a White Paper on how media should behave and what content is expected from them. Big Mistake, Huge! Every media entity down to the drivers, etc. REFUSED to cover any Government event for 2 weeks, any other story was handled, a fire, robbery etc. But so long as one Minister appeared or even an Opposition member? They ALL ignored it… Eventually the Castries leader tabled the paper on Media Behaviour sine die.

Will Barbadians ever be so cohesive again? More importantly, when will the media do like the #ISHALLWALK from Parliament to Bay Street? If they do not, Government will continue to try and muzzle them. sadly, it can succeed if the status quo remains as is…