Ocean News editor.

To Mr. Shorto the media both leads and is led -- it promotes and dispels the racist divide at the same time.

By discussing it in a responsible and sensitive manner it can help bridge that divide. By allowing itself to be manipulated it can widen the divide.

"It (the media) does both -- it promotes racial harmony in the sense that it talks about the problem, it says the problem exists and that the problem must be solved.

"At the same time the media is capable of being manipulated by people who want to use race to further their own aims. The very business of journalism falls in with manipulation.

"It is so easy to make claims of racism that people do it all the time. If the media can establish whether the claims are accurate or not you would decrease the number of people who are willing to use race issue as a weapon.

"The way the newspaper, and media, leads is to make sure it is in the business of promoting responsible, sensitive discussions of racial issues.

"You cannot have freedom of the Press without giving people with whatever axe they have to grind access to the Press. It has to be put into some kind of perspective and that is done by promoting responsible, sensitive discussion.'' On what to do -- there are certain issues that need addressing, but it is never a question of ignoring a story.

"There is no question that there are cultural differences in the races -- white people look at one thing one way and black people look at it another way.

"If we have a newspaper whose reporting staff is largely white they tend to write stories which reflect white people. Unless reporters are aware of that and the newspaper is aware of that then black people may feel it is not a newspaper written for them.

Shorto: Church plays a bigger role among blacks From Page 4 "That comes about in the choice of stories and the way stories are written.

It is not a question of ignoring news stories it is a question of what you cover.'' He said the Church plays a much bigger part in the day-to-day lives of black people than it does for white people so what goes on in the churches is to them legitimate news, much more so than to a white person.

"The newspaper needs to be aware it is serving two distinct communities and the reporters themselves need to be aware of it.

"The newspaper has to go out of its way to making reporters more sensitive to black concerns.

"The media in Bermuda should play a pro-active role. Race is a subject that is being talked about more and more now, that might have happened much earlier if the media had pushed it.'' Mr. Gavin Shorto Mr. Walton Brown