For years the Dutch media has described St. Maarten’s own businessman and casino owner, Francesco Corallo, as a ‘mafia boss’.
Now the press in The Netherlands and in both Curacao and St. Maarten are going a step further and basically trying to convict Corallo in the court of public opinion for bribery, corruption and money laundering.
In this opinion piece we will talk about ‘mafia profiling’ and the power of the media.
But first, let’s talk about ‘racial profiling’ as a comparable example.
In May two black men were arrested in a Starbucks cafe in Philadelphia while waiting on a friend to join them. The Starbucks staff didn’t trust them, so they called the police and had them arrested for trespassing. Unfortunately for Starbucks and the police, the video recording of what happened went viral on social media.
BBC’s news comedy show The Blame Game even joked: “Imagine what would have happened to them if these two black guys had gone up to the counter and asked for two ‘Skinny Whites’. They would have been dead!”
The two men were later released for lack of evidence. Reeling from the backlash of the attention the case received via social media leading to mass protests outside and inside the Starbucks cafe in Philadelphia, the company offered the men a settlement of a symbolical $1 each and $200,000 to set up a program for young entrepreneurs.
Talk about the power of social media.
Now let’s talk about ‘mafia profiling’ and the power of the press.
As we wrote in the intro, for years the Dutch media has described St. Maarten’s own businessman and casino owner, Francesco Corallo, as a ‘mafia boss’.
Now the press in The Netherlands and in both Curacao and St. Maarten are going a step further and basically trying to convict Corallo in the court of public opinion for bribery, corruption and money laundering.
The public prosecutor’s office in Curacao has even issued a statement explaining why Corallo is not being prosecuted.
Nevertheless, if the blame game doesn’t work, let’s go the name and shame route. One way or the other we have to get the man. That seems to be the overall strategy. Hence, Corallo is being persecuted in the media, it would seem.
The many freedoms we of the press enjoy when it comes to the expression of our choices for highlighting newsworthy items via our media channels is a privilege we should cherish and treat with great care as this expression when taken too far can easily border on defamation in our yearn for media sensation. That sensationalism can also come at a price, whether from a law suit or from the backlash of what the slippery slope of yellow journalism can entail for a media outlet.
Forgive us not, we don’t care, but we at StMaartenNews.com have a weakness for the underdog. It is one of the founding and guiding principles of our media house: to stand up for the small man (or small woman) and even the underdogs in our society. Clearly, Corallo is the underdog in this situation. What can you do to combat widely spread insinuations that one is a mafia boss? We all know that ultimately the underdog is always vindicated. So we are curious to see what Corallo’s next move will be as the press has chosen to turn all their media spotlights on him since his return to St. Maarten.
We will need to get some popcorn for this one. It could get interesting.
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