Grovelling 'clarification' from Jamaican newspaper after columnist questions Digicel's choice of CEO

[PaddyJoe]

Digicel reshuffled their management in the Caribean last week by appointing a new CEO in Jamaica and moving the previous incumbent, Mark Linehan, to a position as Regional CEO with responsibility for Grenada, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines.
So far, so innocuous.
However, Mark Wignall of the Jamaica Observer in a piece headed "If Red Stripe can do it, why can't Digicel?" stopped to wonder why there has never been a native Jamaican in charge of Digicel.

Digicel is at the heart of almost every Jamaican, and although it calls itself a Jamaican company, I have yet to see a Jamaican CEO in the forefront of things. Why is this so?
Surely, it cannot be that there is a shortage of highly qualified Jamaicans. Let us get cocky here. This is our 50th year of political Independence and we have just creamed off at the Olympics!
Some say that the main reason that Jamaica has not achieved economic "independence" is that our politics has created an economic environment that drives the best minds and the most trained and creative and innovative of us towards other shores like the USA, Canada, and Britain.
The Irish Digicel bosses always like to repeat what may, or may not be, a fallacy — that the Irish are like Jamaicans.
Well, the Jamaicans like the Irish, it seems, and we have cottoned on to Digicel. But is Digicel saying to us that since 2001, not one single Jamaican has been found fit enough to be considered CEO?
That, I do not believe. Not in year 50 of Jamaica.

http://m.jamaicaobserver.com/mobile/...icel-_12300760

Reasonable question, you might think.
However, the following day(Friday 17 August) an unusual clarification appeared in the newspaper:

The Jamaica Observer wishes to state that it has no reason to question Digicel's choice of a CEO. As far as we are concerned, Digicel has always appointed the best person who, in its view, can efficiently lead the company, and that has proven itself in the company's success over the 12 years it has been operating in Jamaica.
That leadership has also been instrumental in implementing the vision of the Digicel Foundation which, since it was founded in 2004 with a donation of $60 million from Digicel Chairman Denis O'Brien, has undertaken more than 200 projects that have helped thousands of Jamaicans and numerous communities.
Although not having a Jamaican as a CEO here, Digicel, we know, has appointed Jamaicans as CEOs in other countries in the Caribbean and in the South Pacific islands of Tonga and Vanuatu.


Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/News/...#ixzz24BH8P100

Isn't it curious that a major multinational would be so sensitive about such an innocuous question that it (presumably) contacted the newspaper to insist on such a clarification?
Well, perhaps not.
Not when we know that at least 18 Irish journalists have received nasty letters from Denis and his legal representatives over the last decade.
It makes me wonder about the influence exerted by Digicel on the media in other parts of the world.

[ZeroWedge]

The murder rate in Jamaica is one of the highest in the world. Hopefully, the tax dodging scumbag, Denis the Menace, will find his way into those statistics, sometime soon.

[Saoirse go Deo]

What's the source for the 18 journalists claim?

[PaddyJoe]

What's the source for the 18 journalists claim?

Anne Harris in her interview with James Osborne last Sunday:

AH: Given, though, that he is certainly a major influence in INM now, what do you think of his penchant for threatening to sue journalists personally?
JO: Has he sued you?
AH: No he hasn't. Before he threatened to sue Vincent Browne, in the 10 years prior to that, 17 journalists received legal letters from him. Now obviously it's 18.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/an...e-3203453.html
Justine McCarthy in a ST piece in October last claimed O'Brien had been responsible for suing "20 news organisations and individuals in the high court since 2003."
Behind a paywall unfortunately

Our reputation for free speech is under pressure

[Saoirse go Deo]

Good man, thanks. (I didn't doubt you, just wanted it for future reference)

[C. Flower]

Should a fund be started, a bit like the Land League, for journalists under threat of impoverishment and loss of their homes by B. O' Brien ?

A nice little apartment could be bought from NAMA, and made available to any journo in need of it.

[Baron von Biffo]

Should a fund be started, a bit like the Land League, for journalists under threat of impoverishment and loss of their homes by B. O' Brien ?

A nice little apartment could be bought from NAMA, and made available to any journo in need of it.

It's hard to be very sympathetic to journalists whinging about the libel laws.

The press has enormous power that's routinely abused and the ugly irony is that if someone were to point to unprofessional conduct by a journalist (s)he would quickly use the laws they whinge about to get a large wodge in compensation.