Audience members questioned the diversity of journalists in Bermuda and coverage of the black community in an explosive race relations discussion on Friday night.

Discussion, which followed a panel with Les Payne an African-American news editor for Newsday of Long Island, NY, and Bill Zuill, representing this paper and its sister paper the Mid-Ocean News, was held by The Bermuda Race Relations Initiative (BRRI).

Mr. Payne opened the evening, speaking of his career which saw him kicked out of six countries — three at gunpoint — and winning a Pulitzer Prize for his work in tracking the heroin trade through Turkey, France and into America in 1974.

However, the majority of the session was left to the 150 to 200 participants who peppered Mr. Zuill with questions during an-hour-and-20-minute question and answer period.

One black man stood and asked: “I just want to find out if it is a requirement that your journalists come from the UK because the Caribbean have a lot of stellar journalists that would love to come to Bermuda.

“You don’t cast your net wide enough!”

Another man said that people in his neighbourhood — Bailey’s Bay — were tired of the misprints, innuendoes and negativity, which he felt came from the media not giving black people a “fair shake”.

Mr. Zuill, who was the only representative of the media present — two Bermuda Sun editors were asked and turned down the invitation — said journalists did not have to come from England and many had been recruited from Canada.

And as the questions continued, he maintained that he was there for an open discussion but would also always available by phone or e-mail and shared many of their concerns.

He added: “I came here tonight to listen to your views. Like Les said we are very good at examining others within the media but we’re not as good at looking at ourselves.

“It can be very subconscious rather than conscious. And diversity in the newsroom is not something we do very well. We are 60 percent white and about 50 percent foreign journalists.

“But I have been the trainer and producer of many of the officers to the Government. In fact I hired a reporter in December who had ten years experience in the United States and wanted to move back to Bermuda.

“The Premier hired him a month ago. So that’s part of the problem — newsrooms are very fluid places.”

Turning the tables on those who usually do the questioning was part of a more focused approach by the BRRI, which began in March this year and will run until November.

The initiative was spearheaded by Premier Ewart Brown with the support of the Cabinet Office and the Commission for Unity and Racial Equality (CURE) and Rolfe Commissiong is the chief organiser. He was appointed as Dr. Brown’s consultant six months ago and charged with helping to find solutions on matters of social importance relating to the community.

However, each of the Initiatives are facilitated by American experts Dr. Bernestine Singley and Professor Robert Jensen and yesterday Mr. Jensen said although the turnout in general is good, the white community attendance has fallen.

He said: “When we started the racial balance was much like it is in Bermuda — 60 percent were black and 40 percent were white. Today there were far fewer white faces.

“On the one hand white folks are too comfortable in a white society and they don’t have to think about race. They have to be made uncomfortable, but it also has to be a space where white people want to come into.”

And Friday, the majority of the audience members were black and questions continued, until the other facilitator Dr. Singley finally had to call for a final question.