We prefer to inform and then to let our readers make up their own minds.

But Sen. Ira Philip's attack on The Royal Gazette in the Senate on Wednesday does need to be answered, if only because it was so far off the mark and so misinformed.

Sen. Philip's ire was apparently drawn by a story we ran this week in which we questioned a number of the Island's major companies and exposed the relatively poor records of some of them -- including The Royal Gazette Ltd. -- in promoting blacks to senior positions.

Far from being a "snow job'', the story was balanced and an example of good and fair reporting. Sen. Philip felt we had not talked to the right people, and by that we assume he meant members of his own party, some of whom say they have been victims of institutionalised racism.

We felt the public had already heard from politicians of all stripes for more than three weeks as they debated the Tumim Report and we wanted instead to ask large businesses if they had black Bermudians in their senior ranks. If they did, we wanted to ask them how this had been achieved. If they did not, we wanted to ask why not? That is what we did. We did not ask every company in Bermuda, but we felt we asked a cross-section of the businesses which have influence on hiring.

Sen. Philip seems to believe that through some Machiavellian conspiracy, the article was really aimed at falsely boosting The Royal Gazette's standing.

The truth is that we felt it would be hypocritical to leave our company out when questioning the poor records of other businesses. It is strange that Sen.

Philip should be criticising us, not for hiding the truth, but for reporting it.

And it is frightening that Sen. Philip, who has long experience as a journalist and claims to be a pioneer of sorts in the profession, believes we should be prosecuted because of a statement that this company is an equal opportunity employer. Even though Sen. Philip was clearly trying to be provocative, it revealed a tragically low regard for freedom of the Press. If free speech is met by demands for prosecution, then there is little hope for democracy under a PLP Government.

Obviously the PLP has been very defensive lately ever since this newspaper revealed that PLP members hope to receive $125,000 a year if they ever become cabinet ministers. We only revealed what we heard, and we put it no higher than what PLP candidates were saying in the districts.

If Sen. Philip was really interested in determining the existence of institutionalised racism at The Royal Gazette or in the Bermuda media generally, he would have been better served by considering how many Bermudians -- black and white -- are working as journalists in the whole of the media.

The fact is that there are non-Bermudians working at every newspaper and radio station in Bermuda.

It is difficult to recruit and keep Bermudians of any colour of the quality needed to maintain and improve this newspaper and give the community the "local daily'' it deserves. All we can offer is long and inconvenient hours, hard work, sometimes abusive treatment by the public and politicians and daily deadline pressures. We also ask that reporters be able to write well and that they have an all-consuming curiosity about what is going on around them.

They produce a newspaper on a small island which is regularly praised for its integrity, its content and its diversity.

In return, like most of the world's journalists, they are offered poor pay relative to what people are offered by banks, law firms, accountancy companies, the teaching profession and the hotels, all of whom are pursuing the same calibre of staff.

The staff at this newspaper, black and white, Bermudian and non-Bermudian, do an honest job under trying conditions. By accusing this newspaper of being a "racist citadel'', Sen. Philip has insulted them all and demeaned himself.