Shameful Journalism in Aruba; Wonder What is Really Affecting Tourism?

Recently there was an article referencing that the Natalee Holloway case was affecting tourism in Aruba. That Aruba was being stigmatized and that the tourism was being affected because of the bad light shed by the Alabama teens disappearance.

“There is this stigma. When I was telling people, ‘We’re going to Aruba for spring break,’ people kind of looked at me like, ‘Oh?’ ” tourist Jill William told CBS News correspondent Bianca Solorzano.

Smith says that after 10 years of steady growth, tourism in Aruba is suddenly flat.

“I think that a lot of people think that Aruba is not safe, and it’s just not the case,” he insists

With what has gone on recently in Aruba and the manner in how the investigation and PR has been handled, I would actually beg to differ. In many respects Aruba has no one but itself to blame for the perception that is seen by namely Americans. Americans how make up over 70% of Aruba’s precious tourism. If it was not bad enough that the ex-lead investigator, Gerold Dompig, had gone on TV interviews and blamed the family for interfering in the beginning that forced the ALE to make premature arrests of the three suspects. It was only made worse when Dompig stated during the 48 Hours interview that Natalee Holloway died of an accidental overdose.

Last summer The Aruba Tourism Authority asked individuals not to comment negatively on websites and forums. That their disparaging and ugly comments would not reflect well upon Aruba. Maybe Bon Dia Aruba should have remembered this before they decided to print recent hate-filled and unprofessional articles?

Aruba Tourism Authority wants to ask the community of Aruba to cooperate by not posting negative, vengeful, destructive and/or threatening messages on its ‘bulletin or message board’ of the official website of Aruba www.aruba.com or any other website.

This type of message creates a negative reflection of the community that could and is affecting Aruba’s image to potential tourists.

Of course that was at the same time that Rudy Croes, the Minister of Justice, made the comment that Beth Twitty needed to be “shut up”.

Croes does not consider taking measures against Twitty yet, but does not rule out the possibility to shut her up in the future.

Now from the Aruban media comes the following two articles from Bon Dia Aruba that are as distasteful, disgusting, bias and unprofessional. To the Aruba Get a Grip Blog that hardly ever comments and makes such editorial statements unless truly offended.

Surely the staff at Bon Dia Aruba knows this. Semana Santa is generally a huge week for tourism in the Caribbean. Are the tourists nowhere to be found, and is that why they’re in such a libelous mood?

To you, dear Bon Dia Aruba writing staff, I say: your journalistic standards are underwhelming … The vitriol and lack of humanity has been observed by all. May God have mercy on your souls.

After ten months of a charade known as the ALE investigation into the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, this is the type of nonsense that the Aruban media allows itself to be a pawn of the police. A family is missing their teenage daughter and the Aruban authorities and media some how think its OK to smear the family and actually accuse them of being involved in their own daughter’s disappearance. Shameful.

Now that Dompig has retired, Bernadina is accused of manipulating the investigationStrong suspicion that Natalee Holloway’s mother is more involved in her daughter’s disappearance than is apparent
The fact that she is accusing everyone, indicates that she wants to shift attention away from herself

Now that Gerold Dompig is no longer at the head of the investigative team, Natalee Holloway’s mother thinks it’s good to accused High Commissioner Ronny Bernadina of being the person who is maneuvering and orchestrating the whole investigation with his latest changes in the case of the disappearance of Natalee Holloway. This has put many people to think that now one has to search in the other side, in the direction of the parents of Natalee Holloway, and not in Aruba where there are 3 youngsters who are still suspects.
(GetaGrip – Full translation)

Interesting enough that Bon Dia Aruba printed such libelous trash in Papiamento , but not in English? Funny, why was this not printed in Aruba Today and distributed to the hotels so American tourists could see what the Aruban media was poisoning Aruban readers with? Any journalistic standard that the publication ever thought it had, just went right out the window. The MSM in the United States also better had get a clue as to who they use in Aruba as any sort of credible contact. Those that do go on and state so-called facts best have to explain themselves first as to why they would print such rubbish.

Aruba, do you wonder why you have a tourism issue? Do you really wonder why so many people do not consider going there anymore or why there is this stigma? Its because your authorities, government and media have created it. Who blames and vilifies the family of a missing person as being involved in the crime? Especially when the disappearance happened under your watch in Aruba, not Mountain Brook, AL. The family is looked at as suspects when someone goes missing under their roof, not on vacation on an island thousands of miles away. Are you insane?

This is why people refuse to come to Aruba. Who wants to pay thousands of dollars on air-fair, hotel and meals and if anything goes wrong … the tourist is blamed and vilified. You should be ashamed. Many have never seen anything so heartless and distastefull. As if the Holloway’s and Twitty’s have not suffered enough in what is the loss of Natalee; they need your nonsense of blaming them more than the suspects.

I guess the journalists of Bon Dia decided not to read the articles by Dutch legal experts and scholars regarding the incompetence of the Natalee Holloway investigation. They called it strange and unprofessional.
Law professor in Leiden, Hans Nijboer and Menno Dolman, university professor criminal law in Amsterdam are hardly members of the Holloway or Twitty families.

Instead of doing what a media is supposed to do and be critical and question, Bon Dia Aruba has decided to be nothing more than a mouth piece for the ALE and Aruban government. Why didn’t you translate this into English and distribute it to the hotels?

If you ever wondered why your tourism is where it is, look no further than how you have treated the family of a missing person. This is as far from humane as it gets. Do you people have any idea how distasteful this is to Americans? Have you not figured out after ten months there is two things that one does not do that cross the line of all human decency?

1) You do not bash the family of a missing person and accuse them of the crime when they were no where near the crime scene.

2) You do not talk ill of the dead. (In this case Natalee unfortunately is most likely deceased).