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Royal Gazette Feels Burned After Push for Sunshine Law

Published: May 13, 2008
Last Updated: May 13, 2008

By Bill Zuill
Editor, The Royal Gazette, Bermuda

While the government maintained that the decision, which singled out the island's only daily newspaper and media leader, was part of a cost cutting initiative which would see a "systematic move" from print to the Internet and broadcasters, the timing of the move was unmistakable.

Ironically, the government says it supports Public Access to Information, its terminology for Freedom of Information and intends to pass legislation making it a reality. And The Royal Gazette's "A Right to Know" campaign, which began in January and culminated with Sunshine Week, had the wholehearted support of the former leader of the governing party.

To be sure, relations between the newspaper and the government have been poor for some time, in part because the governing party believes, wrongly in our view, that this newspaper and its owners support the Opposition party.

It seems this view was cemented, at least in the eyes of the government, by the publication last year by The Royal Gazette's sister paper (which has its own editorial team) of confidential documents from a police investigation into the Bermuda Housing Corporation that revealed that the activities of several cabinet ministers, including the current premier, had been investigated, although no charges were ever brought. Attempts by the government through the courts to block publication of further documents by any of the media failed, although only after the government had gone to Bermuda's highest court — the Privy Council in London.

Around the same time, the premier told me that he was at war with The Royal Gazette.

A general election followed, in which the governing party was returned. Soon after, the government said it planned to pass legislation instituting a press council to make the print media "more mature."

The advertising ban came soon after.

Attempts by this newspaper to be provided with the methodology that led to the advertising ban have proven futile, and it has escaped no one's notice that the government, which spent around $800,000 with The Royal Gazette in the previous year, continued to advertise in rival print publications which it seemed to regard as being more politically friendly.

A few weeks before the ban was announced, a cabinet minister had already put in place a ban on advertising and newspaper subscriptions. Sen. David Burch, who hosts a weekly radio call-in show as well as steering the powerful Ministry of Home Affairs and has never hidden his distaste for The Royal Gazette, said it was an economy measure. But he added on national TV: "I think my views on both these publications [The Royal Gazette and the Mid-Ocean News] are well known and I see no value as a minister of government spending taxpayers' money on purchasing fiction, and if people wish to do that people should spend their own 90 cents."

At the same time that the advertising ban was put in place, another ministry, Cultural Affairs, cancelled a contract just a week after signing it to provide The Royal Gazette's magazine, rg, with a $25,000 subsidy for the annual heritage edition, ending what had been a successful eight-year partnership.

And soon after, the committee preparing for Bermuda’s 400th anniversary in 2009 was told that it could not provide a request for proposal to The Royal Gazette for collaboration on a book, in spite of the fact that there would be no public financial support for the project. Apparently, even being connected with this newspaper was too much for the powers that be.

That decision in turn seemed to suggest that the advertising ban had less to do with cost cutting than government claimed.

As editor of the newspaper, this series of events has been difficult. Natural tension between the media and the government is no bad thing, and in fact should be a very good thing, but the reality that a government could declare war, figuratively, anyway, on a newspaper is a different matter and makes editing a newspaper harder than ever.

To some extent, this has been a useful experience, albeit not one we would have chosen. Either refusing to publish stories based on government press releases, or only publishing favourable stories in the hope of getting the advertising money back, would have been a disservice to our readers. Refocusing on what's really news and important to our readers has been invaluable.

What has also been terrific is the degree of support we have received from international trade organisations and organisations dedicated to freedom of speech. It can get lonely on a 22-square mile island located 700 miles from the nearest land. It is nice to know that we have friends out there.

The Royal Gazette, unlike newspapers in other countries where government advertising bans have been imposed previously, is not dependent on government advertising to survive. But it is a significant amount of money and the newspaper company has had to look for economies, as well as new sources of revenue. As all editors know, the former is not fun, and the latter possibility is difficult in a mature industry. At the time of writing, we have not had to cut staff, either within the newsroom or without, but nothing can be ruled out.

In the end, it would appear that Sunshine Week, and this newspaper's advocacy of a freedom of information law, was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

The government’s confused message on the legislation along with its vigorous efforts to discredit the campaign and The Royal Gazette suggest that the ban had been in the works for some time, but our attempts to shine a little light on the inner workings of government proved to be more than it could take.

So was our Sunshine Week campaign worth it? The legislation is no closer to being passed. We have lost some advertising. But those aren’t reasons to stop pushing for freedom of information — more now than ever before, they show why we need it. See you next year!