HEAD OF NEWS at the Grenada Broadcasting Network (GBN), Odette Campbell, caught in the center of a broil over government's threat against the local media, says she is quitting the post at the partly owned state station.

Campbell was suspended last week reportedly over her direction of GBN's coverage of allegations that Prime Minister Dr. Keith Mitchell may have accepted a half-a-million dollar bribe - something the government has denied.

Government was also reportedly upset about Campbell's role in a walkout at a press conference that the Media Workers Association of Grenada (MWAG) engineered to show its displeasure over the Mitchell administration's attitude towards the media.

Campbell confirmed on Monday that she has tendered her resignation, effective at the end of June. Campbell said she is leaving with a clear conscience.

"As head of news of GBN I ensured that we carried the story in a responsible manner, ensuring that we did not attract legal action so to speak. I tried to make sure that we were responsible", she said.

"I took some time during my suspension period to really reflect on what had happened, and I believe firmly that the decision to suspend me demonstrated a serious compromise on the ideals of press freedom, something that I hold dearly', she added. Campbell declared: "I am convinced that I have done nothing wrong, not one thing wrong".

She said government handled the entire issue with the allegations badly saying that media workers were correct to be offended by the threatening note that promised the "full force of the law" if they pursued the allegations story. Campbell was once considered as "the media darling" of GBN's local director Leslie Pierre who has often thrown his support behind the Mitchell government.

However, she reportedly fell from grace under suspicion from NNP quarters that she supported the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) in last November's general election. Dr. Mitchell managed to hold onto power by a slender one-seat majority following his 15-0 clean sweep of the polls four years earlier.

The relations between the Mitchell government and the local media have been receiving regional and international attention in the last week since it took a turn for the worse because of the press' determination to follow the accusations against the Prime Minister.
Another reporter, Leroy Noel was detained by police last week for questioning over an article he wrote on the issue.

That move has been condemned by Reporters Without Border, an international freedom-of-the press watchdog agency.