‘Keep crime off front page’ – Fingall

Take crime off the front page, chairman of the National Sports Council Mac Fingall has urged, declaring that media houses are doing much harm to the country by putting crime in the spotlight.

“I personally have a problem with crime on the front page,” he told journalists at a news conference hosted by the council.

He claimed that some “newspapers in the world do not put crime on the front page as a policy,” suggesting that local media should follow suit.

He did not provide evidence to support his contention but argued that the media’s coverage of crime was helping to drive national fear of the problem.

He further suggested the practice had the potential to deter tourists from visiting the island and this would have a negative ripple effect in the country.

Fingall said: “When tourism falls down, the taxi driver can’t get a job, the maid got to get layoff and as a result then you can’t buy the paper, the paper got to lay off [people] too.

“But some people feel that is the way to sell a paper,  putting fear in people.

Fingall, the comedian, entertainer and retired physical education teacher who was once a Bermudian police officer, made a case for more of the nation’s positive young to be highlighted.

He said: “There are not 500 bad young people in Barbados but the way they are presented it looks like all bad.

“And that is what the press is doing when they continue to put crime on the front page. The press can change it.”