Dear Editor,
Both The Nassau Guardian and The Tribune have served the Bahamian people admirably for well over a century. It would not be hyperbole to assert that their contributions to our developing democracy have been of mammoth proportions.
Needless to say, without The Nassau Guardian and The Tribune, the growth of democracy in The Bahamas would have been stunted. The Bahamas would have been a retarded state.
The Guardian has been published since 1844; The Tribune since 1903 - 129 years and 70 years respectively before this country's independence in 1973. One can probably extrapolate that both dailies and their subsidiaries employ scores or even hundreds of Bahamians. Hence their importance to the economy is equally as vital as their importance to democracy and the freedom of speech.
Unfortunately, The Tribune recently announced that it would no longer be publishing The Big T on Saturdays. This announcement has been met with jubilation from a weekly Internet publication that is heavily slanted towards the PLP. The publisher gloatingly predicted that it is only a matter of time before The Tribune closes its doors for good.
Some weeks ago, Prime Minister Perry Christie suggested that the next election will be about crime, not the economy. And then last week the Department of Statistics said that 31,540 Bahamians are jobless. Obviously, there is a disconnect between the government and the reality on the ground.
Be that as it may, in the event the PLP publisher gets his sordid wish of seeing The Tribune and The Nassau Guardian fail, it would probably mean hundreds of more Bahamians on the jobless line.
On the one hand, these people are painting a rosy picture of a robust economy, and of creating hundreds of jobs for Bahamians; yet on the other hand, they are openly rooting for two historic newspaper establishments with hundreds in their employment to go belly-up. How would the failure of two business establishments along with the loss of hundreds of jobs help the PLP?
This once again reinforces the suggestion that these people care more about their political party than the Bahamian people they claim to selflessly serve. One can only wonder how the PLPs who are employed at The Tribune and The Guardian would respond or react to their political ally's sordid wish for their employers' economic demise.

- Kevin Evans

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