COMMENTARY: BY OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., June 26, 2019 — In my more than 55 years as a journalist, the Eyewitness News article on Mrs. Miriam Juanita Curling is by far to most despicable example of irresponsible journalism that I have ever seen. Can someone explain to me why Clint Watson and his “news team” at Eyewitness News decided that this story deserved to be so prominently reported in their online publication?
At the onset, let me say that I know the family of 80-year-old Miriam Juanita Curling very well, but my objection is not based on this fact. What I strenuously object to is I still don’t see the “news value” in reporting on a “fraud and theft” charge that supposedly was committed 10 years ago.
According to the article, Mrs. Curling, who is a lawyer, was accused of having “appropriated some $80,000 from her client, Rebecca Knowles.”
“However, while in police custody, a payment of $35,487.50 was made on behalf of Curling, which led Knowles to submit the motion to withdraw the charges,” according the Eyewitness News article.
It added, “According to Knowles’ counsel, both parties came to a swift and amicable agreement to pay half of the money yesterday and the remainder of the funds on or before July 9, 2019. Magistrate McKinney said the defendant would be released from police custody once the appropriate paperwork and processing has been completed.”
Given these facts, why was it necessary for Eyewitness News to publish a photograph of 80-year-old Mrs. Curling being led to court in handcuffs?
Clearly, this is tabloid yellow journalism at its worst, and I have lost a great deal respect for Clint Watson as a journalist and as a human being who professes to be a Christian.
Since it was launched as a news medium slightly more than a year ago — seemingly with unlimited funds from its owner, ISLAND LUCK gaming houses – Eyewitness News TV has become very popular because of its in-depth “Behind The Scenes” news reports, and its online publication has kept pace in the popularity race.
Obviously, Clint Watson, who supposedly is head of the news division at Eyewitness News, left his “sense of decency” at home when he went to work on the morning he decided to publish the article on Mrs. Curling. Nothing in his past career as a respected journalist at the Broadcasting Corporation of The Bahamas ZNS Radio and TV would have suggested that he was capable of such poor judgment, if indeed it was he who made that decision.
