Situation Made Worse by ICC “Stranglehold” on Nearly All Aspects of USVI Media, Phones.
ST. THOMAS, U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS - November 16, 2005 - Innovative Communication Corporation (ICC) should sell the Virgin Islands Daily News in order to end the conflicts of interest that are resulting in “uncritical reporting of ICC and intimidation of the firm’s business competitors and customers,” according to Communication Technologies, Inc. (COMTek), the fastest and most reliable high-speed broadband service provider available in the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI). COMTek, a Chantilly, Va.-based “Inc. 500” company, is owned by U.S. Virgin Islander Joseph Fergus.
COMTek CEO Joseph Fergus said: “COMTek is in the Virgin Islands to stay. Period. We will not be intimidated to stop competing with ICC. We say: Let the residents of the USVI make up their own minds when it comes to telecommunication services. That isn’t happening today when USVI residents live under a regime that sees ICC, the largest privately owned telephone company in the U.S., running the Virgin Islands Daily News, which is the territory’s largest daily newspaper.”
Fergus added: “We think ICC owes the residents of the Virgin Islands the answers to some tough questions. How can it justify the Virgin Islands Daily News using one standard for attacking ICC competitors, when it turns a blind eye to the many controversies surrounding the business dealings of ICC head Jeffrey Prosser? How can ICC – as an entity that is subsidized by U.S. taxpayers – get away with using its newspaper as a strong-arm ‘enforcer’ to run off competitors and to embarrass customers and public agencies that want better service and prices? Why is there no Chinese wall between the management of ICC and the Virgin Islands Daily News? Why does the Virgin Islands Daily News consistently fail to disclose its conflict of interest in being owned by ICC when it does stories about telecommunications issues, in general, and ICC competitors, in particular?”
The COMTek CEO noted: “This is the kind of alarming media monopoly situation that lends real credence to those who worry about the dangers of over concentration of too much media in too few hands. It is bad enough to have a single private party controlling the dominant newspaper, radio station and television station in a single market, but the potential for abuse goes off the charts when you add telephone service, wireless and ISP. If anyone thinks you can concentrate that much power in the hands of one person and not have problems, they need to take a close, hard look at what is going on here in the U.S. Virgin Islands. It is sad to think that the Virgin Islands Daily News once was a great and independent newspaper truly worthy of the Pulitzer Prize it won under its pre-ICC management. Clearly, ICC is not prepared to give the newspaper the independence it needs and, therefore, should do the right thing by the U.S. Virgin Islands public and sell the Daily News.”
COMTek officials point out that ICC routinely uses reporters at the Daily News to ferret out details about the business dealings of COMTek and to create an unfavorable view of the company. How blatant are the conflicts of interest? At no point in stories run about COMTek in 2003 and 2004 did the newspaper acknowledge that it is owned by ICC, which is a direct competitor of COMTek. Even worse, the newspaper on one occasion quoted an ICC executive impugning COMTek, but failed to acknowledge ICC’s ownership of the Virgin Islands Daily News. Fergus said: “I could not imagine this kind of lapse happening when the old Gannett management was in charge of the newspaper.”
COMTek is not alone in its concerns about ICC’s controversial “stewardship” of the Virgin Islands Daily News. In 2001, the respected journalism publication Editor & Publisher wrote: “In this Caribbean paradise, the local media scene is dominated by Innovative Communications, which owns the only daily newspaper, the telephone company, two local cable-TV firms, and banks. Of Jeffrey Prosser, who owns all that, The Wall Street Journal in a critical profile last year of the businessman said, ‘No man is an island, but Jeffrey Prosser comes close.’ Prosser bought the newspaper, the Virgin Islands Daily News, from Gannett Co. Inc. a few years ago. It's a virtual media monopoly, and according to critics, the paper is selective about what it covers.”
The extent of ICC control of media and communications is unprecedented in the United States. According to ICC’s own publicly available data, this largest privately owned telephone company in the U.S. owns the Virgin Islands Daily News (the only major daily newspaper in USVI) and TV-2 cable television, both on St. Thomas.
ABOUT COMTek
Communication Technologies, Inc. (http://www.comtechnologies.com) is now delivering the first commercial application of broadband over powerline technology to be deployed on a city-wide basis anywhere in the United States. As a leading telecommunications and information systems technology company, COMTek provides worldwide broadband network service, the complete lifecycle of systems integration (including software development), network operation, systems administration, information security, and training. On December 1, 2004, COMTek announced that it has been named by Inc. Magazine as one of the 500 fastest-growing privately held companies in the United States. The firm’s outstanding success story made it a natural for inclusion on the prestigious “Inc. 500” hottest company list. With 14 years of experience and more than 900 employees, COMTek is headquartered in Chantilly, VA., and also maintains offices in Norfolk, VA., Hampton, VA., San Antonio, TX, Fayetteville, NC, Olympia, WA., and Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas.
CONTACT:
Ailis Aaron, for COMTek, 703-276-3265 or aaaron@hastingsgroup.com
