Sun closure: The Sun was good for detailed analysis

Dear Tony,

I can only imagine the heart-break and devastation at the Sun’s closure. I am very sad, and shocked. The electronic age hasn’t been totally kind to newspapers and the employees will be burdened immensely at the loss of their employment. 

The journalistic community will also be burdened, having lost a competitor and companion — that other voice that media organizations hear that helps to keep them straight.

I’m saddened as a former employee and as a reader of the Sun. Especially on major and more critical stories, I have always looked to the Sun for that moderating balance not necessarily available elsewhere in the sometimes raucous chatter that constitutes news. Bermuda will miss that strength.

The Sun was also good for the more detailed analysis that other organizations didn’t provide (e.g. the recent six-page series on the OBA investigation. Great work under a looming loss!). Often, it’s those details that aid readers in understanding the facts and making sense of the context. Those details, too, I have long-known, aid leaders and people at all levels of public life to hear each other for the good of Bermuda. News has a forceful influence on public thinking and conduct — on public life. The Sun’s influence has always been positive and constructive and that is, sadly, now lost. All the best to the staff in the present and future.

Coggie Gibbons

Former Bermuda Sun reporter