St. Maarten Private Eye

Have some government body reviewing all newspapers and media before they get printed? What on earth would you do with radio stations in that case?

Let's get something straight here folks.

The Today newspaper is owned or at least partially owned by Richard Gibson, who just happens to be the former Minister of Constitutional Affairs in the Government of the Netherlands Antillies. He lost his job in January when the National Alliance won two of the three parliament seats, the Democratic Party had had two. The DP are running the local Island Government with 6 out of 11 seats and elections are coming up nest year where many predict they will be out on their ass.

You can got read the Elections or Contitutional Change threads to find out more.

Anyway, it is privately owned and employs about 10-15 people I would guess. It's circulation is about 5-7000 and a glance through any recent issue will show that advertisers are scarce.

Many people buy it only for the news that might not be in the Daily Herald or because it's only 50c, as is the DH, you give a $1 and you get both. I get it for the same reasons and in order to catch the crappy articles and editorials in order to point them out to people.

St. Maarten is not a healthy democracy by any means, because there is a culture of caution and even fear that prevents people from speaking up too loudly. Most of them haven't a fucking clue about this case or the publicity it is getting.

I'm going to write about this more in a new post tonight, but I want it to be known and understood that the Today newspaper is not representative of the people of the island.

Please wait for my new blog post later on tonight and I will try to explain better.

Flipper