It is very tempting to write and report
a news story that no other media house has. Especially, when you are
a small media house struggling to make a living from advertising on a
small island in the Caribbean.

The more hits you get on your website,
the more chance you have of attracting that often elusive dollar.

However, you are not going to attract
that dollar if you don't report the facts that can be verified and
not the marl road gossip that has no foundation whatsoever and can
ruin someone's life.

I have been in the media business now
for twenty-six years and I wish I had started forty years earlier! I
love it.

From my time at CITN/Cayman27/ TV to
iNews Cayman, one thing I learnt. You MUST report facts. Gossip is
not facts, no matter how salacious and titivating it is.

Over the years I have watched with
dismay the reporting with the words, “our sources”, “some say”,
“it has been said”, “it may happen”, etc. in the stories from
even media houses that for years took pride in reporting the facts.

The late Desmond Seales and I got into
loggerheads when he offered me a job, before he found out I was one
of the bidders for a television/cable license, and wanted me to “lie”
and write imaginary headlines because my name was good because of the
person I had married. Joan WATLER. “Just her name will get what you
say some credence. I told him if it is not true, for how long? “Long
enough”, he said, “to make some money”.

When he found out, after I turned him
down flat, that I was one of his media rivals, he cursed me out
publicly in a restaurant.

However, Desmond was talented, and he
knew that big, juicy, headlines meant readership but he was careful
what he wrote that it had some substance, even if the source was
dubious.

Now, even that has gone out of the
window.

Today, we received a Press Release from
the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) responding
to a story published by one of our small media houses. The media
house made allegations alleging impropriety on the part of the ODPP
and in particular a Senior Crown Counsel.

You can read the PR on our website at:
http://www.ieyenews.com/wordpress/cayman-odpp-responds-to-cayman-marl-road-article/

The same web site also got into
problems last year over another story against a former MLA and had to
make an apology.otherwise they would have been involved in
litigation.

The reason I am writing this Editorial is in the hope they go back to reporting facts and not marl road gossip. It also reflects negatively on all of us in the media business here who only place in print or online what is factual. That is the large majority of us.