Journalism in Canada is in a sorry state. Over the past months, it has become increasingly clear that, under the guise of buzzwords like “convergence,” diversity of opinion in Canada’s newspapers has been shrinking. Columnists at certain papers who express dissenting opinions on their company’s policies, the Middle East or the Prime Minister have been censored. Journalists who disagree with company policy have had their jobs threatened for speaking out.
The perpetrator of this assault on free press and diversity of opinion is CanWest Global.
Last month, Southam, the newspaper chain owned by CanWest, announced it would begin running national editorials in 12 of its major daily newspapers. The editorials would be written by Murdoch Davis, “editor-in-chief” of Southam, and eventually run three times a week. Individual papers owned by CanWest would be prohibited from running editorials which deviated from the opinions expressed by Mr. Davis at Southam’s head office.
According to Robert Cribb, president of the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ), the danger is clear:
“The federal government has allowed these media monoliths to create themselves, and without much regulation or much attention to what the implications might be. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you allow companies like CanWest… to grow into what they are that there’s going to be implications for journalism and the public interest.”
Furor at the Gazette
CanWest Global Communications Corporation is a Goliath in the media business. Run by Winnipeg-based mogul Israel “Izzy” Asper, the company chairman, and his two sons, the corporation follows a model of ambitious acquisitions and integration, which theoretically produces goods more efficiently and generates greater revenue.
CanWest owns 14 major daily newspapers in virtually every major city, and over 120 daily and weekly newspapers and shoppers in smaller communities across Canada. They also own 11 television stations reaching 94 per cent of English-speaking Canada.
Nowhere did the furor over national editorials hit harder than the Montreal Gazette, where over 50 journalists removed their bylines for a couple of days in December to protest the policy.
On December 14, CanWest forced the discontinuation of the Gazette employees’ protest website. However, their original letter of protest can still be found at http://www.fpjq.org/canwest/index.html, and is still gathering names.
Most shocking to many was not the response to the website, but the memo fired off by Peter Stockland and Managing Editor Raymond Brassard. “Freedom of expression and freedom of the press are crucial matters for all journalists. However, journalists and other staff working for newspapers such as the Gazette must also remember that they are employees of a company,” it said.
The memo ended ominously: “Crucial as free expression and a free press are to journalists, they do not automatically trump every other right. Nor does the designation ‘journalist’ negate the right of the owner of a newspaper company to run that newspaper as he or she wishes, consistent with the law. No one, journalist or otherwise, has the right to work at the Gazette.”
Since the memo went out, Gazette journalists have, naturally, been keeping a low profile and have referred media to their union representative.
Basem Boshra worked as a reporter at the Gazette for three and a half years. Boshra’s contract with the Gazette ran out just over a week ago and he now feels comfortable speaking about what happened at the Gazette in December. He is not sure why only the reporters at the Gazette have made public their discontent with the national editorials, though many have speculated that it may be because theirs is a unionized newsroom. He also says the so-called “national” editorials don’t take into account the complexities of Quebec life. Indeed, in a recent television interview, the author of the national editorials seemed unaware that the Quebec Liberal Party was a federalist party.
Boshra feels that most senior editors sympathize with the reporters’ sentiments, but have more to lose if they speak out. “I think a lot of people in upper management at all of these papers feel exactly the same way we do, but they are in no position to do anything about it without falling on their swords,” he says.
Op-eds targeted as well
In a speech delivered December 13, David Asper, chairman of CanWest’s publications committee, denied that national editorials stifled diversity of opinion, saying they will be “independent of purely regional interests and look at what’s best for the nation as a whole rather than local or regional communities,” he said.
However, there are three topics that are now essentially considered off-limits for local writers: criticism of CanWest Global’s operations, criticism of Prime Minister Jean Chretien and criticism of Israel.
This meant that ten-year veteran columnist Doug Cuthand saw his column that was sympathetic to Palestinians rejected by the papers which normally pick up his work, the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix and the Regina Leader-Post.
“I wrote a column saying that what was happening in the Middle East was equivalent to [Aboriginal] land claims and that both the Palestinians and Israelis had to see it from that point of view,” says Cuthand, who has won three awards from the North American Journalists Association for his columns.
Earlier this month, both Stephen Kimber and Stephanie Domet of the Halifax Daily News quit after their editors refused to let them print articles critical of CanWest.
In December, the Gazette’s Don MacPherson wrote, “A policy that forbids a newspaper from deciding for itself where the interests of its readers lie is not only bad journalism, it’s also bad business.” Before it was published, it was changed to read: “A uniquely Canadian policy that allows for editorials written from both local and national viewpoints, and occasionally lively disagreement between the two, could be good for business.”
In November, Gazette TV critic Peggy Curran wrote a column about a CBC documentary which was critical of the Israeli army. The column was held and Curran had to alter it.
One of the most famous examples of the Aspers’ distaste for differing opinions was their firing of syndicated national affairs columnist Lawrence Martin in July, after he repeatedly criticized the Prime Minister for his alleged role in the “Shawinigate” affair.
And these are only the examples which have come to light. Cribb at the Canadian Association of Journalists reports that he has heard “a lot of those kinds of concerns” from reporters or columnists who have not gone public.
Aspers show disdain for reporters
David Asper’s speech of December 14 made clear his disdain for the protesting reporters at the Gazette. He referred to their protest as “childish,” “self-righteous” and “part of the ongoing pathetic politics of the Canadian left.” He told the assembled crowd, “If those people in Montreal are so committed, why don’t they just quit and have the courage of their convictions.”
Contrary to what Asper says, those offended by the national editorial policy come from across the political spectrum.
In Montreal, the right-wing weekly the Suburban condemned CanWest’s national editorial policy. Conservative reporters at the Gazette—including some adamant Zionists—were among those who signed the letter. All papers not owned by CanWest have, perhaps a little gleefully, condemned the move: la Presse, le Devoir, the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail. The International Federation of Journalists, the world’s largest journalists’ group with half a million members, joined the Canadian Association of Journalists in condemning CanWest. The right-wing Quebec Liberal Party introduced a motion supporting the Gazette reporters in the National Assembly and it passed unanimously. And yes, the left-wing federal NDP asked the Commons heritage committee to investigate what they consider a threat to press freedom.
CAJ president Robert Cribb sees some glimmer of hope in that ordinary citizens seem to understand the threat CanWest’s tightening grip poses. “The issue [has] really captured the public’s imagination,” he says. “People seem to get the fact that the shrinking of diversity of voices is a problem.” It’s up to them to apply pressure on the government—and on the newspapers to which they subscribe—to stop the threat.
As long as the media convergence trend continues, don’t expect to find any diversity of opinion in your CanWest Global-owned paper. For now, it seems the only opinions that are fit to print are that of Izzy Asper, his progeny and their lackeys.
