Tribune Still Unsold Into Late Evening

A cashier at a East Bay Street store held up one of scores of Tribune copies left unsold late into Wednesday evening. The morning daily is suffering with sluggish street sales after calls to boycott the newspaper were made by former Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchombe.

Nassau Bah: Reports are that the morning daily newspaper street sales have dropped drastically, as street vendors are said to have hundreds of unsold copies of morning newspapers. One street vendor told our reporters that the Tribune have not only reduced their printed copies, but have refused to accept scores of newspapers unsold by vendors.

“Unlike the other papers, all we could do when we have more then half of the newspapers left over, is throw them in the garbage, or give them to a car or window cleaner… after a day sale is gone, they are no more good to us,” the vendor noted.

In a desperate attempt to save the dying newspaper business in The Bahamas, the morning dailies are said to have formed a Joint Operational Agreement (JOA) in order to restructure the newspaper business, however the now ‘INTOLERABLE BIAS DYING DAILIES’ are finding it hard to stay in business.

The Tribune have come under heavy criticism lately where former Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchombe has called for a nation-wide boycott of the morning daily. The former minister also questions the JOA arrangement, calling for the morning paper to ‘come clean’ with the public.

Publisher of the Tribune and appointed chairwoman and publisher of the ‘joint operation agreement’ was quoted in a press statement on September 26th stating that, “Each newspaper will maintain its separate identity with competitive newsrooms and distinct editorial policies.”

However, The Nassau Guardian last week fired its editor and word has it that staff from its rival newspaper (The Tribune) have been assigned to the operations in Oakes Feild.

The Christian Council’s spokesman Pastor Lyall Bethel in a dispute with the Tribune last week, criticized the morning daily for not being a fair and balanced newspaper. “Over the past few years, we have observed The Tribune’s inexplicable BIAS…,” pastor Bethel noted as he gave examples of the newspaper’s unethical and bias practices.