Government’s plan to begin its own television station has proven to be one of the major talking points since the Throne Speech was delivered last week.

Government said that the TV station was part of the Public Access to Information initiative and would have the added benefit of helping to train young Bermudians in the industry. It is also aimed at telling the public about Government policies and programmes.

What was left unsaid in the Speech but has come out strongly since is that Government and, indirectly, the Progressive Labour Party, feels it cannot get its message out through the mainstream media and has therefore taken matters into its own hands.

A Progressive Labour Party spokesman said this week: “To act as if there is not a prevailing bias, in some of our media, is to bury one’s head in the sand.

“It is wise and prudent, for any Government, to provide factual information by way of audio and video imaging and the PLP see this as an extension of information services already provided.”

That statement is somewhat at variance with Premier Alex Scott’s claims that the TV station will not be a propaganda machine and that it will merely bring information to the public’s attention that would not necessarily warrant a story or a headline in the news media.

Whichever version of this comes out, the role of independent media clearly plays a part. Journalists, whether they are work in television or in print, are not ciphers for the Government of the day.

They are trained to ask questions, to dig for the facts even when they don’t suit the Government (or Opposition) spin, to hold people accountable for their statements and promises, and to strive to bring the truth to the public in as fair and accurate a way as possible.

By its very nature, the media is far from perfect. Daily and sometimes hourly deadlines make it impossible to always report news in the depth and context that it may deserve. But this newspaper certainly strives for balance, often holding stories for days in order to get both sides of the story.

But a free press must provide a vital filter to find the difference between facts and distortions and to present them to the public.

A Government television station, by its very nature, cannot do that. Some of what seems to be in the air is welcome, such as televising debates of the House of Assembly and the Senate. Similarly there would be nothing wrong with televising press conferences, seminars and the like, in much the same way that C-Span does in the US. What kind of an audience they would draw is quite another matter, but there you are.

The difference between C-Span and what the Government seems to be proposing is that there may be no room on the Bermuda version for free and open debate. Aside from parliamentary coverage, what would be produced would be all Government, all the time.

And that would be dangerous. Policies, programmes and laws are rarely perfect and they need to be tested in the arena of public debate. It is unlikely that this would happen on a Government-paid for station.

What is more dangerous is that this channel could become a paid-for propaganda vehicle for whatever party happened to be in power. The temptation for politicians to interfere with content would be almost too much to resist.

That would place whatever party was not in power in a prohibitively difficult situation.

Then there’s the cost. As former broadcasting executive and former Minister Quinton Edness stated recently, the cost of TV production is very high and it is fair to assume that none of the Island’s TV stations are profitable, in spite of the fact that all depend to some extent on content which is produced overseas.

To try to fill 12 or 18 hours of broadcasting time daily with locally produced content, focused largely on Government, would not only be extraordinarily expensive, but prohibitively dull too.

There are cheaper ways of “getting the message across”. Government could produce webcasts on its Internet portal, which would certainly brighten it up. And, as Mr. Edness said, it could do what it is already doing — it could buy advertising space and time to promote its programmes and to make people aware of them. That would no doubt be cheaper and more cost effective in the long term.