MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT for St John, Mara Thompson, has refuted a report carried in the NATION on November 15 related to her stepping away from contesting the constituency again in the next general election.
It was on Tuesday, November 14, minutes after the bell had rung signalling the start of the day’s sitting of the House of Assembly, that our reporter Gercine Carter was standing in Parliament Yard when Thompson arrived.
As she alighted from her vehicle and made her way towards the entrance, Carter approached her and said: “Good morning, Mrs Thompson. Can I ask you a question?”
She responded: “You want to know if I am running for St John? No, I am not running for St John.”
Our reporter had not even asked the question before Thompson responded with the terse reply and hurriedly proceeded into the Parliament building.
“I was therefore surprised to see Mrs Thompson’s reaction to my report, as carried in Barbados Today on December 4, describing my report as ‘nonsense’,” Carter said.
Thompson was also quoted as saying: “What was put in the paper was definitely wrong.”
Carter, however, noted that “in more than30 years as a journalist, I have always sought to be meticulous and accurate in my reporting”.
EDITOR’S NOTE:
Gercine Carter is a seasoned journalist and one who is very cautious about what she writes. Having questioned her on her return to the office about the facts surrounding Mrs Thompson’s comments, I had no doubt about the factual nature of her report.
Furthermore, it comes across as more than unusual that there was no denial, no request for a correction and no rejection of what Carter wrote, the day after the article appeared or indeed up to the time of writing this response.
We stand by her report.
– ERIC SMITH,
Editor-in-Chief
