The drive to get freedom of information laws in place was the most prominent campaign by The Royal Gazette in recent years — and it came during a low point in the newspaper’s relationship with Government.

“The Right to Know: Giving People Power” campaign was launched on January 21, 2008 and was aimed at “helping the people of Bermuda find out what Government and other publicly funded bodies are doing on your behalf, and how they are spending your tax dollars”, the first article stated.

It came at a time when publicly funded bodies routinely met behind closed doors, despite an ambitious commitment to transparency made nearly five years earlier by the Progressive Labour Party Government under former Premier Alex Scott.

“A Right to Know calls for Premier Dr Ewart Brown and his Government to return plans first introduced in 2003 by Mr Scott for public access to information (PATI) to the top of the PLP’s agenda,” the opening article continued.

Bill Zuill, the editor of the day, quickly found himself accused of targeting the PLP.

Asked why no such campaign had been brought to bear against the previous United Bermuda Party administration, Mr Zuill responded: “The answers are various: the first and most important is that we should have been, and were wrong not to. But that doesn’t make the cause any less important now.

“The second is that in general, reporters at The Royal Gazette find it harder to get information and straight answers from Government now than ever before.

“It is fair to say that some ministers and ministries are better than others. But the point of open government is that access to information should not depend on the whim of a politician or civil servant — it should be automatic.”

As the campaign began, Dr Brown reiterated his support for PATI but did not commit to giving a date for tabling legislation — and just a few months into the campaign, the Government pulled the plug on its advertising with this newspaper.

Mr Zuill viewed the move as payback, but Dr Brown described the PATI drive as a campaign without opposition, and said that withdrawing advertising had been simply a pragmatic business decision.

With freedom of information being popularly associated with sunshine in American media campaigns, The Royal Gazette pushed a “Sunshine Week”, branding March 20 as “Wear Yellow Day”.

Government Senator David Burch, unimpressed, called it “laughable and hypocritical in the extreme”, adding that he felt personally offended by a campaign that he felt was aimed at tarnishing the PLP Government.

However, Jeremy Deacon, a former assistant editor of this newspaper and now executive officer of the Media Council of Bermuda, said the campaign had been driven by a need to revive an initiative that had faltered.

“PATI legislation had been talked about for some time, but it appeared that there was no momentum behind it, no real sense of urgency to introduce it,” Mr Deacon said this week.

“Through the ‘Right To Know’ campaign, we sought two things: to highlight what the legislation was capable of doing and to speed up its introduction.

“We wanted to highlight that it could lead to greater transparency of Government and its quangos, as well as helping hold those same institutions to greater accountability.

“We experienced a lot of pushback from the then Government, but we were determined to continue and reporter Sam Strangeways, who wrote the editorial content, deserves praise for keeping the campaign going.”

Mr Deacon said that he had experienced Britain’s Freedom of Information Act as a journalist there, but regretted not having made better use of it.

“I sensed from other journalists that there was a degree of ignorance about how it could work,” he added.

“As part of my work with the Media Council, I want to try and raise awareness of how it can be used and the rules.

“It potentially opens up a whole new world in terms of what reporters can ask and receive — e-mails, official documents and so on.

“There are some exceptions, such as national security, but in Bermuda I believe there are something like 200 organisations or Government departments that now have to comply with PATI.”

The initiative’s biggest implication will be the bringing of transparency to Government and the Island’s many quangos.

“On the one hand, we can find out what has actually happened and potentially expose flaws in the system or wrongdoings, but on the other hand exposing those flaws can help to make the system better in the future,” Mr Deacon said.

“It means there is so much more accountability. For the media, there is access to information within weeks when normally it could take months of painstaking, investigative work.

“For the public, they can find out in much greater detail how their elected officials — as well as those who are not elected in the quangos — have been doing.”

Asked if he saw potential flaws, Mr Deacon said: “One of the flaws in the current system is the cost, about $50 an hour, to research something.

“I understand that the media can cite public interest and have the charge waived. However, I can see many battles coming over the definition of public interest.

“Also, we have to remember that, as I understand it, although information officers are, or should be, in place, there will be a steep learning curve and it will take some time for things to run smoothly.

“I cannot immediately think of any pitfall regarding PATI. I can see a pitfall if it is abused in the sense that there are too many fishing exercises, but I have every confidence in the new information commissioner, who will make sure this is stopped.

“Having met her, I can see that she is fully committed to making this work.”