April 17, 2008

This is the letter sent to Earl Maucker, president of the Inter American Press Association by Premier Dr. Ewart Brown with responses to Dr. Brown's points by Royal Gazette Editor Bill Zuill highlighted in bold:

Dear Mr. Maucker,

I am writing to address your concerns brought forward in a letter dated April 15th, 2008. I hope my response can give you a fuller perspective of the government's decisions on cost cutting.

Last month the Cabinet Office released a statement on cost cutting which said in part: "The Bermuda Government will reduce the scope of its print advertising and systematically move toward electronic media outlets for the purposes of delivering messages to the public."

This process was directed proportionally at The Royal Gazette because it is the only daily newspaper in Bermuda and the recipient of almost $800,000 in government spending during the last fiscal year. It is the logical place for us to start in pursuit of cost saving measures. The government will still advertise in print media, but we will find less costly alternatives to The Royal Gazette which just recently raised its advertising rates.

The Government's "systematic move" away from print advertising has so far only been directed at The Royal Gazette. There has been nothing "proportional" about the move; only The Royal Gazette has been affected. A fair approach to cost cutting might have been a systematic approach across the board, rather than singling out one newspaper.

It is true that The Royal Gazette has raised its rates, largely in order to pay and support its 100-plus employees (of whom around 85 percent are Bermudian), to invest in new technology and to meet the growing costs of doing business in Bermuda. This is the first time that we have been told that the Government is unhappy with our rate increase.

Meantime, it is also worth mentioning that 83% of Bermudian residents say they have household Internet access, according to the most recent Bermuda Omnibus Survey. That number is far greater than the percentage of Bermudian residents who subscribe to The Royal Gazette.

It is more penetrative for the Government to advertise online, and as a result, more cost effective for the taxpayer. Radio broadcasters also enjoy market saturation in Bermuda, plus the government has the option of delivering information to the public at no cost on CITV — its television entity. A high percentage of Bermudian households have cable television.

Dr. Brown is comparing apples and oranges. Having Internet access gives no indication of what people use it for and comparing Internet access to "subscriptions" does not take into account total readership. According to Total Marketing, which conducts the Omnibus Survey, 79 percent of local residents said in September 2006 that they read The Royal Gazette. Sixty-four percent of residents said they read a newspaper on a daily basis, which by definition means The Royal Gazette.

In 2005, Research Innovations, owned by Sen. Walton Brown, reported that 54 percent of residents read The Royal Gazette on a daily basis. A further 26.9 percent of residents said they read The Royal Gazette sometimes, giving an overall reach of 81.1 percent. That means The Royal Gazette, as a single entity, has the same share of the market as those people who have Internet access, regardless of which of the millions of sites available on the Internet they go to.

The statistics show that it is still possible to be assured of reaching the greatest number of people through the newspaper. Dr. Brown also says radio broadcasters enjoy market saturation, but the statistics do not entirely reflect this.

Although most residents (89 percent) listen to at least one station, this is spread across nine different stations, with according to Total Marketing, HOTT and Power 95 each being reported as among preferred stations.

That means that advertising needs to be spread across three stations or more to have the same reach as The Royal Gazette. And the same ads need to air in the morning (presumably in "drive time") to have any significant reach; Sixty four percent of residents reported listening to the radio in the morning, seven percent in the afternoon and six percent in the evening.

Just 16 percent said they listened all day long. As for CITV, Dr. Brown did not provide any viewing statistics for it. It may be free (except to the taxpayer), but how many people are watching? This is not to deny that radio, TV and Internet advertising do not have a place.

Most advertisers opt for a mix of mediums. But it is a question of effectiveness. We believe the statistics show The Royal Gazette remains the single most effective means of reaching the greatest number of people — to say that the Internet, for example, is more penetrative, does not make sense, although it is true that The Royal Gazette has one of the more successful Internet sites on the Island and no one from Government has enquired about using it, even though it had four times the number of unique visitors in 2007 than one of the websites Government is now using to get its message out about Cabinet Office internships.

Although not in your letter, I understand a press release on the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) website states the Editor of The Royal Gazette believes our position on print advertising is "payback for its 'The Right to Know' Giving Power to the People campaign".

I think the Editor's point is weak if it has to be made on the Editorial Page instead of in the news section through informed sources outside the newspaper.

The Editor's opinion is further weakened by the fact that the government has repeatedly said, before and after the newspaper campaign, that it supports Public Access to Information (PATI) and will deliver the relevant legislation. Of course I have not seen the letter The Royal Gazette sent to IAPA, so I can only hope our position on PATI was made to you clearly and fairly.

When our position on PATI is taken into consideration you might realise, as many have, that The Royal Gazette's campaign was a campaign without opposition. The Government of Bermuda has no reason to "punish" anyone on this issue — I would say punishing those who agree with you is not a wise practice among political leaders.

Government's position was made clearly in our letter; the letter stated that Government says it supports it, but it is not a high priority. We have never disputed Government's support for PATI and the campaign was not launched in opposition to Government; it was aimed at urging Government to make it a higher priority.

Further, Government's support of PATI was far from clear on "Sunshine Day" when the Premier's press secretary and two Senators did everything they could to denigrate the campaign on a morning radio show. One of those Senators, David Burch, has also taken the lead in the advertising ban, and has made it clear that is distaste for the newspaper was behind his decision to cut subscriptions and advertising.

Further, the ban has not just concerned advertising and subscriptions. Government reneged on a contract it had just signed to once again subsidise rg Magazine's heritage issue and the Bermuda 2009 Committee was ordered not to offer a proposal for a joint project to the newspaper, even though it involved no Government spending whatsoever.

More importantly, we have said ever since Government's advertising ban was announced that we would like to know what methodology Government used to determine that The Royal Gazette was not an effective means of communication; as readers will have seen above, we don't think the statistics support the Government's view.

In the absence of a demonstration of that information, we said it was hard not to draw the conclusion that the Royal Gazette was being singled out for punishment.

There is a further point that I would like to make personally because I am a former newspaperman. I know that newspapers around the world have seen a decline in readership and advertising. If that global trend is not a systematic attempt to be "contrary to freedom of the press," I submit that our government's decision is also not "contrary to the freedom of the press".

This action on our part is merely a sign of the times. Bermuda and its media are not immune. In fact one could argue The Royal Gazette has been complacent during its decades of success while other newspapers around the world were cutting resources. The last time the Government offered its Official Gazette contract The Royal Gazette chose to not even compete.

Additionally, when we announced our cost cutting measures last month, no one from The Royal Gazette directly approached the Cabinet Office to discuss new pricing options for our bulk subscriptions or bulk advertising. As a customer, those two moves told us The Royal Gazette did not need our business. If that is indeed the case, I am hard-pressed to figure out how the government's decision to curtail advertising and suspend subscriptions "severely restricts freedom of the press".

Dr. Brown seems to think that "cutting resources" is the answer to changes in the media world, which are undoubtedly occurring. The Royal Gazette thinks that improving its editorial product, and deploying our existing resources in print, online and through other media, sometimes at a cost to the bottom line of the company, is the best way to serve its readers. The Royal Gazette chose not to bid for the Official Gazette because it did not believe it would be cost effective to do so.

Dr. Brown states that we did not approach the Government after the advertising and subscription ban was put into place, but it is fair to point out that no one from Government approached The Royal Gazette prior to the ban to explain their concerns, their plans or to attempt to negotiate a better deal for Government as a whole.

We have publicly offered to sit down with Government since the ban was announced; this has been ignored, and until now, the Premier's last word on the matter was "live with that" — hardly a basis for negotiation.

How does a government decision to cut $800,000 from a company's revenue restrict freedom of the press? Quite simply, it affects newspaper's resources directly since we still have to pay our bills and taxes, and in an extreme situation it can also mean job cuts and a reduction in a newspaper's financial ability to cover the news. It can have a demoralizing effect on a newspaper's staff and can make journalists nervous to ask questions which may cause a government discomfort.

This has happened elsewhere, in Guyana, Botswana, Namibia and Pakistan, just to name a few countries. We are determined that despite this decision, we will continue to strive to report the news fairly and accurately and without fear or favour, but for Dr. Brown, as "a former newspaperman", not to understand the effects of his Government's decision is disingenuous.

Perhaps you will be heartened, as I have been, by the entrepreneurial spirit that this has aroused in Bermudians. We have received a number of proposals for innovative ways to communicate government's information to the people of Bermuda. Internet, radio and the like have stepped up and it is exciting.

We take pride as a government in stimulating new economic opportunities for Bermudians and it would appear that we have succeeded in that area once again.

Finally, allow me to thank your organisation for its interest in the economics of journalism in Bermuda. We now invite you to monitor closely the quality of journalism on our Island. Sincerely,

Dr. the Hon. Ewart F. Brown, J.P., M.P.

Premier and Minister of Tourism & Transport