Well, the Premier today issued a strange press release that is essentially a declaration of war on the press.
Let's review the event that the Premier is trying to spin.
The Gazette evidently received a tip about a court case in the late 90's in California on which Dr. Brown and his wife were named as defendants.
So, doing as reporters do (just ask the Premier's press secretary and former Gazette reporter if he'd have followed that lead), they investigated and....didn't report on it, presumably because they found that the tip didn't have substance.
It happens all the time. That's called being a reporter.
In response, the Premier issues his own press release decrying the Gazette for NOT reporting a story. Damn them. Those responsible reporters!
What's really going on here is a preemptive strike, an attempt to get ahead of the bad news. Dr. Brown has been around long enough, and witnessed enough political scandals in the US I'm sure, to know that once serious allegations are finally aired that a deluge of bad news tends to follow, both because others now feel comfortable to come out of the woodwork to tell their stories, and because reporters feel that they now have the authorisation to dig a little harder than they otherwise would.
This was a pretty transparent attempt to try and frame any future bad news, of which more will almost certainly come, as some sort of unethical media assault, when it's nothing of the sort.
The truth is that Bermuda's press is quite tame and Bermuda's politicians (of any affiliation) aren't subjected to enough scrutiny.
Dr. Brown may be good at keeping a calm demeanor in the midst of a political crisis that is threatening his leadership despite the public denials (just read today's Bermuda Sun for a deluge of "he's got to go" stories), the reality is much more like that duck on a pond, gliding calmly on the surface but paddling furiously underneath.
Posted by Christian S. Dunleavy