KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, Mar 1, CMC – Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves has written to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Trust seeking clarification on a story carried by a local website as the fall out continues from his alleged confrontation with two BBC journalists in Barbados last month.
In a letter to BBC Trust chairman, Lord Chris Patten, Prime Minister Gonsalves said he had become aware of the story by the website “I-Witness News” in which Matthew Chapman, producer of a BBC programme to be made about Harlequin Property, owners of Buccament Bay Resort, said he had written the prime minister.
“Please cause to be confirmed whether or not a letter to me dated February 26, 2013, purportedly from Matthew Chapman, a producer on the BBC’s Panorama programme, is in fact genuine,” Gonsalves wrote to Lord Patten, noting that his “first problem” was that the letter was unsigned.
“Secondly, although it is headlined in bold capital letter ‘STRICTLY PRIVATE AND CONTINENTAL’, I have seen a news item on a blog, I-Witness News emanating out of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, dated February 26, 2013, reporting Matthew Chapman as saying: ‘We will very shortly be sending a private letter to Mr. Gonsalves about our programme and it will be up to him to decide whether he wishes to share its’ contents with the nation’.
“Do I take it therefore that it is open for me to breach the ‘strict’ privacy and confidentiality of the unsigned letter purportedly sent by Mr. Chapman,” Gonsalves wrote attaching a copy of the website story.
In the letter, Prime Minister Gonsalves also complained that Chapman “went out of his way to belittle me” and asked “is that the way BBC journalists and/or producers behave these days?
“Can the public have confidence that their reportage or production be fair and balanced particularly since their unseemly vanities seemingly prompt them to become the centre-piece of their journalism rather than the real subject matter itself?”
Gonsalves said that he had “full answers to the questions posed by the purported letter which will surely allay the concerned of any probing journalist of reasonable temper, and which will be happily supply once the above assurances and clarification are given”.
Lord Patten had responded to an earlier letter sent by Gonsalves outlining the “rude” and Unprofessional” attitude of the two journalists,whom he said had accosted him in Barbados while on his way to attend a Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Inter-Sessional summit in Haiti.
In his reponse Lord Patten said that he would ensure that the complaint “is properly pursued through the BBC complaints process”.
The journalists said they had asked Prime Minister Gonsalves to respond to an allegation that investor Daves Ames had gone to his office with a bag of money and left without it.
“It is plainly wrong for Mr. Kenyon to peddle a wholly unfounded allegation against me and in the process sully my good name and that of my office. His allegation is false. Further, the unprofessional manner in which he accosted me is surely improper,” Gonsalves said in the letter to the BBC chair.