Tourism Minister Ewart Brown is not going to answer ?plantation questions?. Works Minister Sen. David Burch is not going to respond to stories published by ?that rag?, the Mid-Ocean News. Premier Alex Scott believes he can get the Government?s message out better through a Government TV station. When Progressive Labour Party spokesman Scott Simmons didn?t like a satirical article written in this newspaper, he called for a press complaints council.

So the Government is shooting the messenger again. Ho hum. Politicians have been doing that since the first newspaper rolled off a press.

Oddly enough, the media is an easy target because it really does make its mistakes for all to see. And newspapers are the first to admit that they are not perfect. So when things go wrong, governments almost always criticise the media long before their admit that it might be their policies or actions that are at fault. No, they just ?have to get their message across?. This is all fairly normal. Former Premier Sir John Swan used to criticise this newspaper regularly. Former Premier Sir John Sharpe?s fall from office was covered in detail.

What is disturbing that in Dr. Brown?s case anyway he is infusing his unhappiness with the media with words like ?plantation questions? that at the very least have racial undertones.

What does ?plantation questions? mean? Perhaps only Dr. Brown really knows. But given his urging of people not to vote for the United Bermuda Party in the last election because it would send Bermudians ?back to the plantation?, one can only assume that the message is that the nasty slavemaster media is trying to force the poor descendant of slaves Dr. Brown to answer questions and that somehow Dr. Brown?s answers will put him back in bondage.

It is worth remembering that these questions, put by a reporter (not from this newspaper) this week, were apparently in connection with Club Med and apparently concerned why one developer, who happens to be a white Canadian, was given the push from the project, and another developer, who happens to be a white American with an allegedly questionable financial past, was put in.

What on earth does that have to do with plantations or slavery?

Dr. Brown claimed that several tourism developers in the past have been chased away by an intrusive press. But it is worth remembering if tourism is to ever recover, it needs a stable and secure financial base from which to do so.

And Bermuda has had its share of dubious hotel developers come and go. A little more due diligence by the Ministry of Tourism (and the media) concerning James Dwyer, who cut a swath through the Bermuda tourism world before disappearing and leaving the employees of White Sands without any pay, would have been in order.

Similarly, Harold Stavisky, the owner of the Hamiltonian, still owes hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes and pension arrears. Going further back, a little more due diligence in the 1980s might have prevented the spectacular collapse of the venerable Coral Island Club.

The list goes on. And yes, most if not all of the above catastrophes began under the United Bermuda Party. There are one or two developers in Bermuda today who started under the PLP who raise concerns too, however. The Wyndham under the ownership of Clifford Schorer seems to have been closed more than it has been open, and there is no need to go into his involvement with the Bermuda Homes for People project.

Can anyone be blamed for wanting to know as much as possible about developers who come to Bermuda talking a good game and leave rather more quietly?

Developers with sound finances and good business plans should have nothing to hide, and nor should Dr. Brown.

It may be that he is sore after being criticised for two weeks in a row by the Island?s hoteliers, first for committing them to subsidising an air charter, and then doing the same when the Tourism website signed a deal with Expedia for booking Bermuda vacations, which would see the hotels pay a commission both to the Ministry and the web service.

Both ideas no doubt had merit, but it?s usually a good idea to tell the people who are going to be footing the bill what you are doing.

And that?s the point. Before attacking the media, or deciding you are not going to answer any questions, it is worth trying the other approach ? more openness, not less. More transparency, not less. To be fair to Dr. Brown, he has usually been one of the more accessible Government Ministers. He should stay that way and not go the way of some of his colleagues.