Tourism Minister Ren?e Webb claimed 20/20's decision to pull their segment on Bermuda on Friday night proved she was correct to use stock photos in a tourism campaign.

Ms Webb spoke in the House of Assembly on Friday night, the night a segment by the ABC news show on the recent tourism photograph controversy was supposed to air.

Ms Webb and the Tourism Ministry came in for sharp criticism after it was revealed they used a stock photo of a beach in Hawaii as part of the new Bermuda tourism advertising campaign.

Ms Webb did not deny that the picture was of Hawaii.

However, she stands by her argument that there was nothing wrong with using stock photographs, despite the allegations of false advertising and the wounded pride of Bermudians who saw a slight to Bermuda's natural beauty in the act.

20/20 was to do a piece on the story, with Ms Webb interviewed during a recent trip to New York as well as footage shot actually in Bermuda. In fact, Ms Webb said in the House on Friday, the footage of Bermuda was the reason she agreed to the interview: still claiming no publicity is bad publicity, she stated: "It still would've shown Bermuda in a good light because Bermuda would have been filmed and Bermuda sells itself" - a statement which seems contradictory to her feeling that stock photographs of Hawaii are appropriate in a tourism campaign for Bermuda.

However, the 20/20 segment did not air on Friday night. The reason, said Ms Webb, was because of an advertisement which a member of the public brought to her attention. The full-page ad appeared in the New York Times travel section, listing fares for American Airlines to countries all around the world - but not including Bermuda.

The photo used in the New York Times ad, however, was very clearly one of Shelly Bay beach - a stock photograph which American Airlines used and the New York Times ran.

Ms Webb also cited a second example of Bermuda being the victim of such a practice in a recent Golf magazine special on courses in the Caribbean. Again, Bermuda is not mentioned in the article - however the photograph on the cover of the magazine is of the 16th hole of the Port Royal Golf Course, complete with the resident Port Royal pro swinging a club.

Unlike the tourism ad passing Hawaii off as Bermuda, neither ad appeared to name the Bermudian locations as being somewhere else.

"All this is to say the practice is very common," Ms Webb said, adding that when she showed this information to 20/20, the Bermuda segment was pulled.

That act led to a blast against the Press by Ms Webb. During her 20/20 interview, she said she was asked on camera if she believed the outcry over the Hawaii photograph had anything to do with the integrity of the Press. "I said, 'The integrity of the Press is an oxymoron,'" she told the House.

Citing CNN as well as the recent controversy over New York Times reporter Jayson Blair, who was accused of fabricating stories for the newspaper, she said: "We cannot assume what we get is factual".

Admitting "we did put ourselves in a position where we could be targeted," she pointed out 20/20 never interviewed the New York based photograph or agencies used in the Bermuda tourism campaign. "And now we put a spanner in the works regarding American Airlines and the New York Times and the story gets pulled," she said.

The producer had told her if another time slot popped up, the segment would be run. "So having said that I don't know if they're going to run the show," she said.

However, UBP whip Maxwell Burgess had these words of advice for Ms Webb: "If you find yourself in a hole, drop the hoe.

"I don't care what American Airlines does," he said.

"If they don't want truth in their advertising, that is a matter for them... Government intended to use false advertising."

Ms Webb pointed out the former UBP Government had also used stock photos, saying that was why former Tourism Minister David Dodwell had never spoken out against the move.

However, Shadow Environment Minister Tim Smith said that was not the kind of example Government should be setting for Bermuda's children.

If his daughter came home and told him she was smoking marijuana, he said, and then defended herself by saying that everyone was doing it: "that is not a good enough defence for me".

"As (Mr. Burgess) said: drop the hoe!"