Veteran journalist Bryan Darby yesterday warned any eroding of freedom of speech — amid a culture of hostility to the press by politicians — would lead to a gloomy future for Bermuda's children.

The VSB reporter said repeated attacks on the media, particularly The Royal Gazette in press conferences, were an attempt to divide and conquer.

Mr. Darby said VSB declined to publish politicians' verbal assaults on fellow news organisations — explaining that when journalists' rights are abused, so are those of the public they represent.

He raised the subject when asked for his thoughts on difficulties faced by Bermuda's press, during an interview with this newspaper about our A Right To Know: Giving People Power campaign, which is calling for public access to information legislation to be introduced in 2008.

"They are now trying to divide and conquer," said Mr. Darby. "You see them get up at a press conference and attack The Royal Gazette, and the rest of us are encouraged to go along with it and publish their attack.

"If we start getting into that game, then it's game over. We don't publish attacks on other media.

"They don't seem to realise we are in the same game. We don't like having our colleagues and fellow journalists treated with such obvious disdain. It's frightening."

Royal Gazette reporters are regularly verbally attacked and belittled by politicians at press conferences and public events.

In the House of Assembly earlier this month, Progressive Labour Party and United Bermuda Party MPs rounded on this newspaper's sports editor, Englishman Adrian Robson — with Works Minister Derrick Burgess calling for him to be deported because of an opinion piece he wrote about cricket.

One senior MP present during that session privately likened their behaviour to that of a lynch mob. A number of MPs have personally assured expat reporters that not all politicians feel that way about them.

Asked whether attitudes are different now to years gone by, Mr. Darby said: "It's worse in some ways and better in others. The worst bit is the feeling of being a journalist in a hostile environment.

"It was never hostile in the old days — maybe unfriendly and uncooperative. It was never hostile. You were never treated with such hatred. You thought they don't understand my job, but I'm going to do it anyway.

"It's better in some ways — you get more press conferences these days. You go to a Colonel Burch press conference and get four stories; Michael Dunkley you get two or three stories. At least they try. They have taken the public and the press seriously. It's just incredibly hostile ... it's politically immature and I think extremely dangerous when it comes to democracy. It's one step from totalitarianism, and we don't want that in Bermuda."

Mr. Darby said the culture began to change under former Premier Sir John Swan toward the end of the UBP's rein.

"Unfortunately, it was when politics began to become confrontational," he said. "Swan got bent out of shape quite a lot by The Royal Gazette. Swan began to become anti the minute he started doing badly at the polls... he began to get quite nasty."

Calling for people to make a stand, he added: "The public have got to realise this is their game. It's not The Royal Gazette's game; it's not my game. We represent them and if we are abused and our rights abused, it's their rights.

"If they can honestly sit back and watch this happen, the eroding of the rights of freedom of speech — it is an eroding — then they have got a very gloomy future for their children, because you can't live without a free press. Anyone who thinks you can should go and study the history of Germany."

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