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Dabydeen, Stabroek News, and a tangled web

Dec 09, 2009 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Last Wednesday, the Stabroek News carried a news item that listed Dr. David Dabydeen as nominating President Jagdeo for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. The Stabroek News item clearly stated that it made contact with Dabydeen who offered not to expand at that moment and offered his e-mail address.
We have heard nothing further from the Stabroek News. Based on the Stabroek News reporting I did a critical column on Dabydeen.
On Thursday, Dabydeen spoke to one of the most admired citizens of the Caricom region denying the Stabroek News report. Dabyden was lengthy in his explanation. He intoned that he had no discussion whatsoever with the Stabroek News and that the paper engaged in fabrication.
Secondly, he mapped out the operating principles of Warwick University that prevent him from engaging in the type of activities that Stabroek News reported on.  Thirdly, he promised a press release. I am typing this article six days after the “Dabydeen nomination” and there is no rebuttal from the Warwick Professor. I did observe in my Sunday column that Dabydeen disclaimed the nomination. Has he?
Why after six days, there is no rebuttal from the professor. Let me say most emphatically, not for a moment, not for a fleeting moment, would I disbelieve what this Caribbean citizen told me about the conversation he had with Dabydeen. It means that I believe that this gentleman had such a telephonic engagement with Dabydeen.
The question that is creepy and eerie is why isn’t Dabydeen defending himself from what he deemed is a Stabroek News fiction? There is more confusion, this time at the Stabroek News. No newspaper editor would tolerate a journalist that invented a story about an eminent professor nominating a country’s president for the Nobel Prize and retain that staff member. You are talking about peremptory dismissal.
So we are left with two questions. Did Dabydeen do it? Did Stabroek News invent it? Can someone demarcate this labyrinthine pathway? The implications are destructive for both Dabydeen and the Stabroek News. If Dabydeen did it, then told one of the Caribbean’s most admired sons that he didn’t, then it is time the governors of Warwick University come into play. To have a high-level professor nominate President Jagdeo for the Nobel Prize, then deny it to a Caribbean citizen who is quite known to the governors of Warwick University, and to add insult to injury used the name of Warwick University to deny it certainly calls for an investigation into Dabydeen’s contact
If Dabydeen is truthful, then Stabroek News has committed an infamy. The newspaper’s editors may not have been involved because any reporter can create a fiction that appears factual and how would the editors know that a fiction has been committed. It has happened to the best newspapers in the world, including the New York Times that has been hit twice by outright shameless subterfuge on the part of two of its journalists.
As big as he was in journalism, when Dan Rather accepted and displayed on the news a document that purported to show that President Bush altered his military records to avoid Vietnam duties, the bigwigs at CBS were harsh on him. He was let go.
My feeling on this matter is that Stabroek News is principled enough to apologize to Dabydeen once the Warwick professor was in touch with them. The fact that they haven’t as yet leads me to believe that the paper is still to hear from the Warwick guy. There is some bit of confusion here.
If Dabydeen could explain at length to a prominent Guyanese that Stabroek News lied on him, then, why didn’t he communicate with the Stabroek News the very day? Why wait so long to make a response. This column is being composed on Tuesday morning, yet Dabydeen is silent.
Could it be that he is planning to sue the paper therefore this removes the need to issue a press release. In other words, Dabydeen is moving to the courts, Stabroek News doesn’t know that he is doing so thus the absence of a response from Dabydeen and a retraction from Stabroek News.
Finally, it needs repeating exactly what Stabroek News did and what Dabydeen did so readers could reflect hard on this mess. Stabroek News wrote that Dabydeen sent a nomination to the Nobel Committee with supporting documents. On hearing this, they contacted Dabydeen who advised that the paper e-mail him on the issue.
Dabydeen has absolutely denied having sent in nomination papers for Jagdeo’s Nobel Prize consideration. He asserts that the statutes of Warwick University do allow him such latitude. Who is lying?

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