However, I was deeply offended when the Editor of ‘Prime News’ and part-time Editor of the ‘Kaieteur News’ singled me out for one of the worst forms of attacks and in so doing described me as an "idiot" in his ‘Kaieteur News’ column of Sunday, October 13, 2002 captioned: "I care not what they say about me".

While we are competitors, one would expect some amount of civility in our exchanges and common respect for each other.

On October 4, 2002, I reported the views by several commentators on the type and manner of questions posed by Mr. Harris to the joint Police-Army press conference held at Eve Leary. Since the role and conduct of the media are of much concern to the public and our viewers, the story was worth telling. In order to get a balanced story, I made several unsuccessful attempts to get a reaction from Mr. Harris. This was reported in the story. However, I included in the report Mr. Harris' question/comment at the press conference.

Even Harris, in his unfortunate comments on the news story, could not claim that he was misreported or the story had no factual basis (in fact he also disclosed the amount of public interest in his posture at the press conference outside of the ‘News Update’ story). But one would have thought that as colleagues, and notwithstanding the competition between ‘News Update’ and ‘Prime News’, Mr. Harris would have requested to have his views on the incident reported subsequently. Had such a request been made, ‘News Update’ would have been happy to facilitate this.

Instead, Mr. Harris used his access to the media to launch an unprovoked attack on my character and competence as well as the reputation of the newscast and its Editor Mr. Neil Marks. This was uncalled for and I urge the ‘Prime News’ editor to withdraw the derogatory remark.

I would not wish to compare the professionalism and competence of ‘News Update’ with Mr. Harris' ‘Prime News’. Viewers are the best judges. But I would wish to point out that unlike Mr. Harris, I do not bring any political baggage to my job.