Bermuda should be more open in governmental and quasi-governmental business and have no fear of the public's ability to interpret events, Royal Gazette Editor William Zuill told Rotarians yesterday.

Mr. Zuill affirmed the need for freedom of the press and the public's right to know at the Hamilton Rotary Club's weekly luncheon yesterday, saying: "The current government has a poor record when it comes to releasing information, but the United Bermuda Party was not much better when it was in power.

"Certainly the Progressive Labour Party was a greater defender of freedom of information and transparent government when it was in opposition than it is now."

He said while a Whitehall styled Government tends to promote secrecy over open government, he added: "Who controls information tends to have the power and is able to wield the greatest effect by controlling what the public gets to know and when it does not."

Mr. Zuill spoke about the risks of secret government and how easy it is to sacrifice the principles of openness and transparency in favour of the so called "efficiency" of closed or secret government.

Mr. Zuill, Bermuda Broadcasting Company's Jim McKey, and VSB's Brian Darby were attempting for the first time ever to have a hearing before the Broadcasting Commission opened to the public.

The hearing was to decide whether a broadcast message by the Premier, Jennifer Smith, was a party political broadcast. The UBP had objected to the speech because the Premier had criticised a shadow minister.

Mr. Zuill and other media thought that it would be interesting because of issues of how far a "Government" broadcast could be political and what parameters the broadcast media should adhere to when accepting or refusing broadcasts of this kind.

Government argued that there was nothing in law that required the hearings to be open and further that the press could not be trusted to deliver a fair and accurate report of the proceedings.

The Opposition argued that there was nothing in the law preventing the hearings from being open to both press and public.

The Royal Gazette offered to publish the entire transcript of the hearing on the website, so that that those who wanted to read to could, and also so that the government could judge for themselves whether the reporting was fair and in context.

The media lost, with the majority in the Commission saying hearings have "historically" been held in camera, adding this allows "the parties' arguments to the Commission will be directed to relevant issues, rather than directed towards gaining public sympathy through the media".

Mr. Zuill responded yesterday, saying the commissioners appear to be saying the public would be incapable of making up their minds about the arguments being made to the Commission.

"It seems to me that Bermudians are common sense people who can make up their own minds about what is rhetoric and what is relevant," he said.

He continued: "The Royal Gazette has tried for years to gain access to get their meetings made public.

"And we have had to fight for such fundamental rights as the right to be present when ballots are counted in polling stations. But if we have not attempted to gain access to Broadcasting Commission hearings in the past, then we were wrong. But that should not stop us from trying now."

He said: "Well run committees and statutory bodies have nothing to fear from open meetings and open government. This is what the `full sunshine of public scrutiny' means. It's time we started living up to the promise."