Business Development and Tourism Minister Wayne Furbert is suffering from an “empathy deficit”, according to the One Bermuda Alliance.“Where is the empathy for the families that have buried loved ones? Where is the empathy for the marginal communities that have suffered this violence? Where is the empathy for Bermuda?” asked Jeff Baron spokesperson for the OBA’s Shadow Board on National Security.“It’s clear from these statements that a Cabinet Minister, Wayne Furbert, is suffering from an empathy deficit.”He was reacting to Mr Furbert’s criticism of The Royal Gazette for its lead story this week which compared Bermuda’s murder rate to the global average.“Making suggestions that the story should have been given a lower profile further marginalises the pain and suffering that families who have suffered from violence, who have been to funerals, who have written eulogies, have gone through,” continued Mr Baron.“He wants to lower the profile of the story and what that indirectly says is he wants to lower the profile of reality.“But it’s not going anywhere hiding it on Page 10 does not make crime go away.”Mr Baron, who has a master’s degree in criminology said that he understands Mr Furbert speaking as Tourism Minister but asked: “How many times have you seen Wayne Furbert hold up a newspaper, hold up the obituaries and say ‘why is this like this? We’ve got to fix it. We’re in the boat together? Not once.”“What stirred him emotionally is not that we have crime here but it’s the fact that it’s been printed on the front page of the paper. And that bothers a lot of people.”Mr Baron said: ”It’s not the story that’s damages Bermuda’s credibility.“It’s the reality that we are struggling to manage violence in Bermuda. And if we are truly in this boat together, where are his solutions?”At a hastily called press conference on Monday afternoon, Mr Furbert said that he was “quite disturbed” by the lead story which reported that the Island’s per capita murder rate this year was double the world average.He questioned why this newspaper chose to highlight the figure, saying that with such a small population, any per capita rate for Bermuda will be high.Mr Baron said that with respect to crime, quantitative statistics were important.But “what I tend to focus on is the qualitative data. Going to Malcolm Outerbridge’s funeral was an extremely emotional ceremony. That’s the qualitative data we really need to pay attention to. What gives those statistics a heartbeat is the feedback and discussions we have with victims.”Mr Baron agreed that “statistics can be engineered to appear favourable or not so unfavourable, depending opn your agenda. Certainly, statistics ought to be taken in context.”But he added that what was relevant is the fact that Bermuda has had eight murders this year. “Putting our crime data on Page 10 isn’t going to solve or help manage crime in Bermuda.”Asked for his response to Mr Baron’s comments, Mr Furbert was reluctant. But he stuck to his guns and said that his primary purpose was to ask the press to be responsible.“I’m not going to respond to Mr Baron’s comments. This issue was not to be made political. All I asked was for the press to be responsible. I did not tell the press not to record the news,” he said. “What I asked was for the press to be more responsible. And what is the message they are trying to put forward.“The headline was ‘Murder Rate is Double the World Average’ If it had continued by saying But Bermuda is still one of the safest places in the world, you and I could agree with the headline. But by just stopping there, you’re sending a message that Bermuda is not safe, and that I don’t agree with.”