It was with great shock to learn after reading the submissions to the information commissioner that the governor’s office has given one of its reasons to suppress the findings of Operation Tempura is because Cayman’s media is “wholly unregulated and uncontrolled”.

Perhaps the governor would like to give examples of our wholly unregulated and uncontrolled reporting.

Although iNews Cayman has only been in existence for 3 years I have personally been involved in our media since 1992 with CITN/Cayman27.

I have lived here for over 32 years. Never in all that time have I been appalled at any of the media, except perhaps for one or two submissions from a media house that no longer publishes and the editor is not with us anymore.

Those isolated incidents can hardly be described as implying every media house in the Cayman Islands is going to write biased reports.

Yes, my Editorials are biased in as much as they are my personal opinions and I make that obvious. In no way, however, do we slant our reporting.

Wherever we can we publish in full every press release, every document we are sent and/or obtain. If the document is too long we give the source where it can be downloaded and we also do this even when we have published it in whole.

We are not alone in this.

I am a practicing Christian and I abhor the behaviour of the Muslim extremists. I am not a fan of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Nevertheless I have personally signed a petition condemning the 183 death sentences handed down by an Egyptian judge to these Muslim members of the Brotherhood. iNews Cayman has published the petition in full today with a link where it can be signed urging our readers to do so.

The reason – the judgment was totally unfair and the trial a mockery of justice.

Is this biased reporting? All I needed to do was not publish the article if I was a scribe to the governor’s accusation.

Is the governor’s office saying Cayman’s media should be censored?

For the governor to claim that the treatment in the local media of the complaint and report, “would be likely to give public currency to the unmerited allegations they contain rather than to clarify the position or promote greater public understanding of his decision” is quite frankly showing bias. There is no support for this disgraceful claim.

Thankfully, the Acting Information Commissioner Jan Liebaers, said Cayman’s press has every right to express our views. We live in a democratic society. Every media house here, I believe, publish retractions from government when we write anything they are unhappy with. We publish their statement in full.

So the governor is calling for us to be regulated and controlled?

What does that sound like? Certainly not being in a democratic society.

All of us have been threatened with litigation from local lawyers. I received one just recently.

One of our largest advertisers when I was at CITN withdrew all their advertising for a year from us over one of our news reports that wasn’t kind to them.

I did not bow down then to that sort of pressure and I will not bow down now to it as I have got older.

This is called freedom. Freedom of the advertiser and my freedom.

We don’t need censorship from the governor’s office we have enough to deal with, thank you.

I, nevertheless, am appalled at the governor’s accusation. It is quite frankly, untrue.

I am proud to stand with and be part of Cayman’s media, as long as I shall live.