Spring 2007 - Canadian Association of Journalists
Transcription
Spring 2007 - Canadian Association of Journalists
Inside: NOT HAVING IT ALL: Motherhood and a career in national television don’t mix RARE : G N I T H G SI Look quickly because this is one of the rare occasions you’ll find Prime Minister Stephen Harper talking to journalists on the Hill THE CANADIAN ASSOCIATION OF JOURNALISTS SPRING 2007 • VOLUME 13, NUMBER 1 • $3.95 L’ASSOCIATION CANADIENNE DES JOURNALISTES– BC TELEVISION C B C T E L E V I S I O N C BCCB N DN CB CC E.TCW EAS LW E VOIRSLI O CC B CR A ND E IWOS SWC OB RC L. CDA C CBBC C RNA EDW I OS EC XBPC R. CE AS S C B C N E W S E X P R E S C B C N E W S W O R L D C BC CB CT E RL AE D IVOI S C I OB N C B CC BNC ENWESWWS OERXLPDR E S CBC RADIO CBC.CA CBC NEWS EXPRESS CBC News Anytime. Anywhere. Delivering the news through more services than ever before, CBC News is the source Canadians turn to for the whole story. CBC TELEVISION CBC NEWSWORLD CBC RADIO CBC.CA CBC NEWS EXPRESS cbc.ca Spring 2007 Volume 13, Number 1 I N S I D E 4 5 DEPARTMENTS First Word JournalismNet Business Editor David McKie The imbalance at The National between work and family. Books Editor Gillian Steward Hunting for videos and information on social network sites such as MySpace can be tricky. But there are ways to make your searching more efficient. Legal Advisor Peter Jacobsen (Bersenas Jacobsen Chouest Thomson Blackburn LLP) CanWest's decision to cancel its liaison with Canadian Press won't be the end of the wire service — not by a long shot! Designer Bonanza Printing & Copying Centre Inc. By David McKie By Julian Sher 6 Publisher Nick Russell By Scott White 8 Update When the Edmonton police chief was fired after a sting operation that targeted Edmonton Sun columnist Kerry Diotte, that should have been the end of the controversy. Hardly. By Mike Jenkinson 10 Inside Ottawa Prime Minister Stephen Harper has a "pathological hatred" of journalists on Parliament Hill. By Richard Brennan FEATURE 14 16 CAN WOMEN SUCCEED IN NATIONAL TELEVISION? Not if you happen to be a mother of young children. TAKE YOUR PICK Being a national television reporter — sadly — means making a choice between family and career. By Hélène Buzzetti By Catherine Ford DEPARTMENTS 18 Opinion The media outlets may have let the Harper government off the hook on the childcare issue. By Dianne Rinehart 20 Legal affairs The British House of Lords' decision may help Canadian journalists seeking the public interest defence in defamation cases. By David Crerar and Michael Skene 22 The fine print A new weapon in the fight against defamation suits. The Canadian courts should follow the British lead and allow "responsible journalism" as a legitimate defence in libel suits. By Dean Jobb 23 Computer-assisted reporting Google now offers a spreadsheet program that's worth testing out. 24 Writer’s toolbox You should always keep your listeners, viewers and readers in mind when writing stories — not your sources. By Don Gibb 26 Ethics Media outlets should be sensitive to concerns over coverage in the Pickton trial, but they must not let that concern drive the coverage. By Stephen J. A. Ward 30 The Last Word Should journalism be a profession? The answer to this question is being debated by some of the top thinkers in the business. By Alan Bass By Fred Vallance-Jones Printer Bonanza Printing & Copying Centre Inc. Editorial Board Chris Cobb, Wendy McLellan, Sean Moore, Catherine Ford, Michelle MacAfee, Lindsay Crysler, John Gushue, Rob Cribb, Rob Washburn Advertising Sales John Dickins Administrative Director John Dickins (613)526-8061 Fax: (613)521-3904 E-mail: [email protected] MEDIA is published three times a year by: Canadian Association of Journalists, 1385 Woodroffe Avenue., B-224 Algonquin College Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K2G 1V8 Reproduction without the written permission of the publisher is strictly forbidden Media is a publication of the Canadian Association of Journalists. It is managed and edited independently from the CAJ and its contents do not necessarily reflect the views of the Association. Subscriptions: $14.98 (GST incl.) per year, payable in advance Indexed in the Canadian Periodical Index. Canada Post Publications Canadian Mail Sales Product Agreement No. 182796 ISSN 1198-2209 Cover Photo CP/Fred Chartrand FIRST WORD BY DAVID MCKIE Balancing work and family The dilemma has always been the same for many women who choose to become journalists t's difficult to open a newspaper or listen to a program these days without hearing references to the need to balance work life and family. Indeed, working life for many Canadians has become busier. The extra leisure time that some experts had predicted has yet to materialize. For executives, it may be a case of working long hours and weekends, having little time to indulge in healthy hobbies. For workers in the lower ranks, it may also mean putting in the extra hours, either to get ahead or to keep pace with the demands. Career ambition, it seems, is still dominating the centre stage, except when it involves young women attempting to balance child care with the exigencies of deadlines in the world of journalism. In her piece about women who have left CBC Television's The National, Hélène Buzzetti discovered first-hand the incompatibility between the program's deadlines and child-rearing. Buzzetti, an Ottawa-based Parliamentary correspondent for Le Devoir and herself a young mother, spoke to a number of high-profile women at The National to find out the exact nature of the problem that seems to be more pronounced than it is at other networks in French and English Canada. "… exactly why are so many female reporters running away from The National after becoming mothers?" she wonders. "The answer is contained in one word: schedule. About every person interviewed for this story, in Ottawa and throughout the country, would only talk anonymously. They left because of the crazy hours they were asked to put in to be part of The National's team." In light of Buzzetti's anonymous conversations, we asked Media editorial board member Catherine Ford to reflect on what the women had to say. Ford, who is a retired columnist for the Calgary Herald, begins her piece by pointing out that when it comes to young women attempting to balance home life and work, nothing has really changed. "Feminism brought equality of opportunity, but being female means there is no equality of child bearing. To do both — have children and aspire to one of the top media jobs in television — is still almost impossible. And I say 'almost' in recognition there have always been so-called superwomen who can, and do, have it all." I MEDIA, SPRING 2007 PAGE 4 Shifting from the pressures faced by some women to the business pressures endured by media outlets, we examine the relationship between Canadian Press and CanWest. The latter is ending its association with CP. There was a time, argues Scott White, when this decision would have been devastating, prompting panic, soul-searching and massive layoffs. No such thing. CP's editor-in-chief argues that while the pull-out will have an impact, it will not be as large as people think. "A quiet revolution has been going on at CP over the last five years, which has meant not only a transformation in the way our reporters do their "Feminism brought equality of opportunity, but being female means there is no equality of child bearing." jobs but a major ground shift in the co-operative's finances and customer base." The business of journalism has also been the focus of the courts in London and some media lawyers as of late. For the first time in a while, we have decided to give a little bit of extra space to matters of the media and the law. In his column, Fine Print, Dean Jobb draws our attention to a recent decision of Britain's House of Lords in the case of Reynolds v Times Newspapers Ltd. that could have an impact in Canada when it comes to defamation suits. The British top court ruled that "responsible" journalism can be a legitimate defence against companies, governments, or individuals pursuing journalists for defamation. The ruling is not binding on Canada's courts but media lawyers here have begun citing Reynolds-based defences as part of their responses to defamation suits, writes Jobb. "The process may take time but our courts should import the responsible journalism defence. Solid journalism on important issues of public interest deserves a legal refuge." Vancouver based media lawyers David Crerar and Michael Skene carry that argument forward in their assessment of the decision's potential impact on Canadian journalism. And speaking of defamation, Edmonton Sun columnist Kerry Diotte is suing that city's police force. The defamation suit stems from an incident that occurred on the evening of Nov. 18, 2004, at a Canadian Association of Journalismsponsored event in Alberta's capital city. Diotte, who had recently written columns in the Sun critical of the force, became the target of a sting operation in which the police seemed determined to catch him driving home drunk from a bar called Overtime. There was public outrage, the force's police chief was fired, and that should have been the end of the matter. But it wasn't. Diotte's former colleague, Mike Jenkinson, updates the continuing saga. In his piece, Jenkinson tells us about the public and police reaction to a story Diotte wrote about the force's questionable actions involving aboriginal sex-trade workers. The feedback included letters from readers who felt Diotte was biased against the police. "Wrote one reader in a response typical of the negative reaction: 'It's obvious to me that all of your police bashing stories are simply due to the fact that your panties are still in a bunch over the Diotte/Overtime thing, and you are only out for petty revenge.'" And finally, a word about our cover: Prime Minister Stephen Harper holding court with journalists on Parliament Hill. The scene is rare, as strange as that may seem. It turns out that not much has changed from the spring of 2006 when we first drew your attention to the sad state of relations between Harper's "new" government and the press gallery. In his update, Parliamentary press gallery president, Toronto Star reporter Richard Brennan, tells us that journalists are subjected to bullying and intimidation. So we thought it was worth drawing your attention to this issue by, once again, putting it on the cover. As usual, we have on offer a wide variety of stories. If you have any comments about what you've read, or suggestions on topics we should be covering, feel free to contact me at [email protected]. In the meantime, happy reading. JOURNALISMNET BY JULIAN SHER Searching YouTube and MySpace There are tricks to hunting for information on these popular sites received an e-mail recently from an NBC producer who needed to find Iraq videos from his network that had been posted on YouTube. It's a common problem. YouTube and similar sites have muscled into the domain of traditional web news sites. Just think of how YouTube helped spread the cell phone footage of Saddam Hussein's execution. Or how U.S. politicians are already using YouTube for their presidential campaigns. Meanwhile, social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook or Friendster are becoming important resources for finding people for news stories or leads. Each of these sites has its own internal search engine, of course, but they can sometimes be clumsy or inaccurate There is no perfect solution to these new challenges for web searching. But let's look at some tools and tricks you can use. I DOMAIN SEARCHES The easiest solution for all these sites is to use Google's powerful domain search feature in Google Advanced. (See Media Magazine, Fall 1999, Vol. 6, No. 3). Go to www.google.com/advanced_search. Put in whatever keywords you want — for example: NBC Iraq Next, scroll down to the ninth line labeled DOMAIN. (highlighted in yellow above) This allows you to narrow your search to one web site or domain. Put in www.youtube.com (it is important NOT to put in the "http://" You will then get results of all of the YouTube postings that use the words NBC and Iraq in their descriptions. Now, this does not mean those words will appear in the video, but it is usually a good bet someone's description of their posted video will be reasonably accurate. VIDEO SEARCHES You can also use search engines that specifically look for videos. These tools search for descriptions and sometimes for the words encoded in the video file descriptions. (A few are also trying to develop the ability to scan for the words used in the video, but this is still preliminary.) One Japanese-based site has been set up expressly to search YouTube and similar video sites, with the neat name Qoogle. (It is at video.qooqle.jp.) Google itself, of course, has its own video search term at video.google.com — and Google conveniently owns YouTube. You often get different results using the same keywords in different video search engines and in Google Advanced, so it pays to try various searches on different sites. SEARCHING MYSPACE Everyone from rock groups to lonely teenagers to BBC reporters have MySpace pages. There are more than 100 million accounts — and some of them may be the people you need for a story. Again, MySpace has its own fairly decent search engine but I always start with a domain search at Google Advanced. (The same trick applies to Facebook, Friendster and other social networking sites; just put in their web address in Google's domain box.) There are also specialized search engines that try to favour MySpace. One of these, shown below, is IceRocket at www.icerocket.com: For other blog-type searches, you can try web sites such as Podzinger.com and other s e a r c h tools listed on my site at www.journalismnet.com/blogs. Julian Sher, the creator and webmaster of Journalism Net (www.journalismnet.com), does Internet training in newsrooms around the world. He can be reached by email at [email protected]. This article and other columns are available online with hot links on the Jour nali smNet Tips page at www.journalismnet.com/tips YouTube and similar sites have muscled into the domain of traditional web news sites. MEDIA, SPRING 2007 PAGE 5 BUSINESS BY SCOTT WHITE Pulling out won’t cripple us CanWest’s decision to withdraw from The Canadian Press cooperative will hurt — but not as much as people think he current media landscape is a confusing, complex and tumultuous environment. The public's appetite for information is insatiable and the technology exists to feed it every moment of the day. But what kind of information do people want? And what technologies are their preferred choices for getting that information? Does a Blackberry necessarily make a newspaper obsolete? Do iPods mean people will eventually tune out radio or will future generations of iPods do for news and information what they've already done for music? Do a million bloggers typing a billion words bring new definitions and expectations to the traditional journalistic standards of trust, accuracy and objectivity? Like all news organizations, those of us at The Canadian Press have been pondering these and many other questions lately. CP celebrates its 90th anniversary this year. Born out of necessity in the First World War because Canadians needed information about their soldiers who were dying overseas, CP has moved steadily over the years from the telegraph age to the satellite age to the Internet age. Technology has been the driving force for a more recent change at CP, but this one has nothing to do with the way the news co-operative delivers its stories and photos. Rather, it's the technology shift in the way people "consume" their news and information that has resulted in unprecedented changes at the national wire service. A quiet revolution has been going on at CP over the last five years, which has meant not only a transformation in the way our reporters do their jobs but a major ground shift in the cooperative's finances and customer base. There has been a lot of talk within the journalism community about CP's future ever since Canwest announced last year its intention to withdraw from the co-operative after June 30. When Southam Inc., Canwest's corporate predecessor, made a similar announcement a decade ago, there were legitimate fears that CP would die. To respond to Southam demands for a scaled-down service, CP was forced to cut its workforce by 25 per cent and drastically drop the membership fees it charged newspapers. Ten years later, the Canwest decision has caused none of the same tumult. The reasons can T MEDIA, SPRING 2007 PAGE 6 PULLING OUT: CanWest Global Communications vice-president, David Asper, addresses the Global Business Forum in Banff, Alberta. One of his business plans for CanWest is doing without the services of CP. be explained by the changing media landscape that CP now serves. In 1996, Southam newspapers made up more than 50 per cent of CP's membership and about 40 per cent of its revenue. Now, Canwest has only 11 newspapers in the co-operative and revenue from those papers represent just nine per cent of CP's budget. Beyond the Canwest issue, there has been a gradual shift in the way CP generates the finances necessary to provide comprehensive editorial coverage of such a large and diverse country. Ten years ago, CP relied on newspapers for two-thirds of its revenue. Today, newspaper revenue represents just one-third of CP's budget. More and more of CP's financial success is tied to non-newspaper sources — broadcasters, business and government clients and, of course, online news sites. The Canadian Press is the largest supplier of online news in Canada. Last year, CP stories were "clicked" more than 250 million times on member newspapers' sites alone. If you add commercial sites, the number jumps significantly. PHOTO CREDIT: CP PHOTO/Jeff McIntosh All of this explains the changes in the way our journalists do their jobs. Over the last five years, CP's newsrooms have undergone something known internally as the "integration project." Initially, this meant bringing together the two traditional arms of the service — Canadian Press and Broadcast News. Now it includes adding online video to CP's newsgathering. This means that in some cases, a CP journalist is writing a story for online sites and newspapers, filing audio for radio stations and shooting online video. Being a multimedia journalist is a demanding task and CP's reporters and editors deserve tremendous credit for their willingness to take on new newsgathering skills to meet the changes in the media landscape. That changing landscape was addressed last year in a strategic review of CP's editorial service conducted by senior newspaper editors, broadcasters and online producers. The final report by this diverse group, which included Canwest representatives, started with an impressive opening statement: "The Canadian Press is in the process of transforming itself from a traditional newspaper service — and information wholesaler — into a more agile, multi-platform service with a wide range of traditional and new media customers. It is critical that CP has the ability to respond to news wherever it happens in Canada and provide that news and information in the various formats required by its members and clients. We think it's crucial that the entire organization and its stakeholders embrace the notion that CP is no longer simply a third-party provider of content; rather it is a multimedia company that could bring considerably more value to its members and clients than currently realized. There is the capacity in the organization to enhance members' revenue, reduce their costs and improve their products if some of the old strictures and ways of thinking are reevaluated." The transformation in our newsrooms hasn't come without challenges. But it has also been rewarding. Integrating our newsgathering has allowed us to shift resources from news to add reporters in business, health, entertainment and sports. The change has also helped promote a culture of discussion within our newsrooms where journalists and supervisors speak more freely than ever. Beyond the Canwest issue, there has been a gradual shift in the way CP generates the finances necessary to provide comprehensive editorial coverage of such a large and diverse country. Ten years ago, CP relied on newspapers for two-thirds of its revenue. Today, newspaper revenue represents just one-third of CP's budget. Planning stories from a multimedia standpoint has resulted in stronger journalism for all of our various services. For example, CP recently produced a multimedia project called Missing Lives on the 26 women Robert Pickton is accused of killing. Profiles of the victims were transmitted for CP's newspaper service. BN clients received audio profiles of each victim, as well as a 20minute documentary. As CP marches towards its centennial over the next decade, there will be more challenges ahead. But the strong, platform-neutral editorial work by our reporters, editors and photographers and CP's ability to respond quickly to the rapid industry changes bodes well for the venerable and independent wire service. Scott White is CP's Editor-in-Chief. You can help Honour His memory The Don McGillivray Prize for Explanatory Journalism Is being established at Concordia University, where he taught for many years. He was one of the most clear-headed journalists of his generation. He was a magnificent teacher. He was a pillar of the CAJ for many years. Help us to encourage the kind of journalism he did so well. Cheques should be payable to Concordia University; donations and any questions should be sent to: Linda Bell Development Officer, Faculty of Arts and Science 7141 Sherbrooke St. West Room AD-322 Montreal, Quebec H4B 1R6 See what he meant to journalism and to the CAJ; visit... http://caj.ca/history/don-mcgillivray-tributes and http://www.caj.ca/mediamag/awards2004/cajAwards/theAwards/McGillAward MEDIA, SPRING 2007 PAGE 7 UPDATE The controversy that won’t go away On Nov. 18, 2004, Edmonton Sun columnist Kerry Diotte got a tip. Police were attempting to catch him driving home from a Canadian Association of Journalists-sponsored event to see how much he had been drinking. The sting operation led to public outrage, a lawsuit and the firing of the Edmonton Police Service's chief of police. Now, Diotte's former colleague, Mike Jenkinson, updates us on the scandal that still has people talking he smouldering ashes of the Overtime scandal burst into flames in Edmonton again this past February, despite the fact there was absolutely nothing in the news about the elaborate, failed drunk-driving sting conducted by the Edmonton Police Service on Nov. 18, 2004, at the Overtime Broiler and Taproom, that tried to nail Edmonton Sun columnist Kerry Diotte. (See Media, Winter 2005, Vol. 11. No.1) In early February, Diotte got tipped off that aboriginal sex-trade workers were recruited to get high on drugs so they could be studied by cops in a training exercise. Diotte ran the allegations by the officer in charge of corporate communications for the police service. The response was that the police could say very little about it, lest the EPS jeopardize the internal investigation. The column was so good that the Edmonton Sun decided to make it the paper's line story. And the reaction was stunning, but for all of the wrong reasons. A number of local radio talk show hosts, aided and abetted by a bevy of police officers, rushed to the airwaves to declare not just that the story was wrong, but that Diotte was so antipolice that he made it all up! Some of the public reaction was the same. The Edmonton Sun received numerous letters to the editor and phone calls from readers who were convinced that the story was entirely invented by a columnist who carried a vendetta against the police. Wrote one reader in a response typical of the negative reaction: "It's obvious to me that all of your police bashing stories are simply due to the fact that your panties are still in a bunch over the Diotte/Overtime thing, and you are only out for petty revenge." (One of the letters came, unsurprisingly to Sun editors, from a police officer who took part in the Overtime sting and is a fairly regular correspondent to the Edmonton Sun, but only T MEDIA, SPRING 2007 PAGE 8 when he is complaining about Diotte's supposed bias against the cops.Vendetta? Really, now.) Funny thing, though — a day after the police service declared it couldn't talk about the story, the deputy police chief held a news conference — when he wasn't slagging the Edmonton Sun for THE PROBLEM THAT WON'T GO AWAY: The sad episode showed the degree to which the Overtime scandal has harmed Diotte's reputation as a journalist in Alberta's capital. misrepresenting the story — to confirm everything that had already been reported. He even added more details to the story. In other words, Diotte had an entirely legitimate story that was in the public interest. But instead of the public questioning the ethics of the police in recruiting hookers and drug addicts as guinea pigs, the story became about Kerry Diotte and his anti-police bias. The sad episode showed the degree to which the Overtime scandal has harmed Diotte's reputation as a journalist in Alberta's capital.And that's because Overtime has gone from a scandal so serious that it cost the police chief his job, to a complete non-event in which the cops have convinced the public their actions were entirely justified. They've managed to do that by ensuring none of their members involved in the drunk driving sting were punished. Last June, the final police officer who faced disciplinary action related to the Overtime fiasco, Const. Jim Smyth, was given the lightest possible sanction — a written reprimand. Not for the botched and embarrassing sting operation, though. No, he received a written reprimand for using bad language on the police radio during the operation! By that point, however, the pattern had been well established. Staff Sgt. Bill Newton had already received a written reprimand for running Diotte's name through a police database. Insp. Bryan Boulanger was completely cleared of discreditable conduct charges. Boulanger had issued a news release after the failed sting, saying that the police officers at the Overtime bar had been targeting "intoxicated" individuals. Neither Diotte, nor Martin Ignatiuk, the then-head of the police commission who also got caught up in the cop dragnet that night, were drunk. But that didn't stop the police from concluding that two highprofile members of the community were drunk and were going to drive home. (Both took cabs home after being tipped off by other media members assembled at the bar for a Canadian Association of Journalists mixer for journalists and candidates running in the provincial election.) This was a serious scandal which made headlines in Edmonton and across Canada. It eventually resulted in the police commission firing police chief Fred Rayner and large amounts of public outrage over the incredible abuse of police powers in targeting two high-profile critics of the police service for political purposes. Despite that (or more likely, because of that), the internal disciplinary hearings determined that the Overtime affair was entirely on the upand-up. It was hardly surprising, then, that the cops involved came out of their hearings denying they had done anything wrong. Smith declared that the Overtime operation had "no improper purpose and no evil intent" even though it was set up on the strength of a tip that Diotte was a habitual drunk driver. (It's ironic that for all the times the EPS illegally accessed Diotte's file in the police computer, the cops never noticed that he had never been picked up for drunk driving. And Diotte's colleagues at the Sun all know that he regularly takes cabs from bars when he has been drinking.) Boulanger and Newton similarly defended their actions, saying they had done nothing wrong. Diotte has sued the police for defamation of character, and has gone on record as saying he would settle out of court for a formal apology. At an editorial board meeting with the Edmonton Sun last October, Chief Mike Boyd hinted that there might be some developments on settling Diotte's lawsuit, saying that there would be something happening "soon." So far, there has been no movement on that front. Former Edmonton Sun editor-in-chief Paul Stanway, in a column for the newspaper last year on the Law Enforcement Review Board's hearings into the Overtime affair (which continue this spring), wrote that he'd known Diotte for a long time, and characterized him as a serious journalist with a thick skin. "But the public hammering his reputation has taken over the past two years has exacted its toll." Just how much of a toll was shown in February, when his well-sourced and corroborated column on the police drug training program was dismissed out of hand as being just the invented rantings of a columnist with an ax to grind. The police got away with an incredible abuse of power in the Overtime affair. None of the officers involved were held accountable. And the reputation of one of Edmonton's finest journalists has been shredded. Overtime has gone from a scandal so serious that it cost the police chief his job, to a complete non-event in which the cops have convinced the public their actions were entirely justified. Mike Jenkinson is the former Comment editor of the Edmonton Sun. OPSEU Ad repeated MEDIA, SPRING 2007 PAGE 9 INSIDE OTTAWA BY RICHARD BRENNAN Prime Minister Stephen Harper doesn’t like journalists on the Hill How else would you explain the treatment they receive? HARPER SIGHTING: It has been a rare sight these days when Stephen Harper talks to reporters after question period. The Prime Minister has taken to sneaking out the back door instead of going up the steps to his office at the west end of Centre Block. t had been a good morning for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. I It was national flag day and the students at Ottawa's Lester B. Pearson Catholic high school had been a splendid crowd, waving their tiny Canadian flags with enthusiasm, while paying rapt attention to Harper's speech, which of course addressed Canada's role in Afghanistan. When it was over the Prime Minister paid his respects to the teachers in the hallway and was whisked away by security and his zealous handlers. With noon quickly approaching, the television crews, radio and newspaper reporters and photographers were keen to file their video, photos and stories. MEDIA, SPRING 2007 PAGE 10 Two RCMP officers had other plans. They put their shoulders to the door of the gymnasium and refused to let the media out. It was a game of push and pull that went on for several minutes. By now Harper was long gone. This is what passes for press relations in the nation's capital. For whatever reason Harper has a pathological hatred of the Parliamentary Press Gallery, and of course the staff in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) take their lead from him, which results in poor or non-existent relations with the Gallery members. While there may be many reasons, real or imagined, the consensus is that Harper doesn't think he was treated with the proper amount of respect when he was opposition leader and now PHOTO CREDIT: CP PHOTO/Tom Hansen that he is Prime Minister he has a chance to get even. It didn't take him and his close advisers long to come up with the so called "list" where the PMO decides who gets to ask Harper questions. It was put to the various bureau chiefs that the new government was going to "control you guys." As you might imagine, it didn't sit well with some of the media companies, the Canadian Press, The Globe and Mail, CBC television and The Toronto Star, who agreed with their respective Ottawa bureau chiefs that they should rightly boycott the list and have done so for a year or so. There may be signs of a thaw in relations but it's far too early to tell. Anyway, some reporters covering the Hill have also learned that if they do stories the government doesn't like or go ahead and write stories the PMO has tried to block there is price to pay. At least one Gallery member continues to be persona non grata for having the temerity to write a story about a legislative assistant in the PMO who was disbarred — albeit many years ago — for bilking clients and was subsequently jailed. The clear message: don't mess with the Harper gang. The fact is the penalty is not that severe since Harper, whose style is more presidential than prime ministerial, rarely makes himself available to the media, particularly the great unwashed in the Parliamentary Press Gallery. Harper's disdain for the media was driven home during his three-day trip to France in April to mark the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge. During his three-day trip, not once did he meet with the Canadian media contingent that was travelling with him. Parliamentary media veterans had a hard time recalling the last time a Prime Minister travelled abroad on a foreign trip in such a bubble. Instead, the trip was a carefully staged series of photo-ops: Harper attending Easter Sunday church Sunday with wife Laureen and his two children; touring a World War I cemetery hand in hand with his daughter; sharing a stage with the Queen at the commemoration service. But it all played like a silent movie — visuals but few sound bites, at least none outside of his carefully scripted speeches. There was lots to chat about — the prospect of a spring election, Canada's latest casualties in Afghanistan, even a dad's pride in having his two children join him on a pilgrimage to a place where Canadian history was made. At the G8, prime ministers going back to Brian Mulroney's days always had a lengthy press conference at the end of the summit. Under former prime ministers Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin, there were some years featuring daily pressers by the Canadian PM, not to mention extensive daily briefings by somebody senior. In St. Petersburg, Russian President Vladimir Putin held press conferences every night, while Harper had only one real press conference at the end. At it, his aide went around and asked who wanted to be on the list of questioners, saying that Harper was going to take a lot of questions, so everyone who got on the list should get a question. Harper came out, took maybe five questions and walked away. None of the Russian reporters got a question and were rightly ticked. And just recently because the Conservative government has been getting a rough ride over the possible mistreatment of detainees in Afghanistan, cabinet ministers are refusing to come to the microphones in the foyer following question period. Harper has taken to sneaking out This is what passes for press relations in the nation's capital. For whatever reason Harper has a pathological hatred of the Parliamentary Press Gallery, and of course the staff in the Prime Ministers' Office (PMO) take their lead from him, which results in poor or non-existent relations with the Gallery members. The consensus is that Harper doesn't think he was treated with the proper amount of respect when he was opposition leader and now that he is Prime Minister he has a chance to get even. the back door after question period instead of going up the steps to his office at the west end of Centre Block. On top of all this the PMO announces at the very last minute Harper's schedule, hoping Gallery members will decide not to follow him when he goes out of town. It's all part of the catand-mouse game. And not since being sworn in as Prime Minister has Harper held a press conference in the National Press Theatre. No question, the Prime Minister can do what he likes. If he doesn't want to talk to reporters there isn't a heck of a lot anyone can do about it. But governments come and governments go and like Prime Ministers before him he will be relegated to the history books complete with an asterisk: did not like reporters. Oh well. Richard Brennan, a Toronto Star reporter, is president of the Parliamentary Press Gallery. He was also president of the Queen's Park Press Gallery for eight years. MEDIA, SPRING 2007 PAGE 11 Student Journalist Hong Kong Fellowship Exploring Hong Kong – Asia’s world city Application Deadline:July May 2007 Application Deadline: 31,31, 2007 Hong Kong, Asia’s world city, is a Special Administrative backgrounds. The winning student journalists must publish Region of the People’s Republic of China, run by Hong Kong or broadcast at least three stories about Hong Kong within people under the “One Country, Two Systems” principle. six months upon completion of the trip in the local media or Situated at the southeastern tip of China, Hong Kong is in their university/school journals or newsletters, but they will one of the most open, externally oriented economies in the have complete editorial freedom. world. It is also considered the best springboard to trade and investment in the growing China market. The award is open to any journalism student who is currently in a recognized university or college level journalism program. Hong Kong has been rated the world’s freest economy by the Applicants must be a paid-in-full member in good standing Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute and Fraser Institute. of the CAJ. Non-members may take out membership upon making an application. For application procedures, please visit What makes Hong Kong tick as a great world city and a world the CAJ website at www.caj.ca class financial and business centre are: its unrivalled location; its free and liberal investment regime; its low and simple tax Selection of the successful candidates will be made and regime; its transparent common law legal system and rule of announced in mid-June. The visit program must be completed law; its world class infrastructure; its free flow of information; before the end of March 2008. its entrepreneurial spirit; and a truly international lifestyle. Application must reach: Student journalists, who are interested in knowing more The Canadian Association of Journalists about Hong Kong and seeing Hong Kong to gain first-hand Algonquin College of Applied Arts and Technology insight, are invited to apply for the “Student Journalist 1385 Woodroffe Avenue, B-224 Hong Kong Fellowship”, organized by the Hong Kong Ottawa, ON, K2G 1V8 Economic and Trade Office (Canada) in association with the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ). Two winning student journalists will be awarded a package each, including a 5-day official visit with an economy class air ticket and hotel accommodation. When in Hong Kong, the winners will have the opportunity to visit various points of interest, and meet with people of diverse views and cultural Tuesday, July 31,31, 2007 By Thursday, May 2007 For enquiries, please contact Mr Stephen Siu, Assistant Director (Public Relations) of the Hong Kong Economic & Trade Office at (416) 924-7374 or email: stephen_siu@ hketotoronto.gov.hk or John Dickins, Executive Director, CAJ at (613) 526-8061 or email: [email protected] Dateline Hong Kong Fellowship 2007 A Working Fellowship for Canadian Journalists Application Deadline: Application Deadline:July May31, 31,2007 2007 Hong Kong, Asia’s world city, is a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the People’s Republic of China, run by Hong Kong people under the “One Country, Two Systems” principal. Hong Kong is one of the most open, externally oriented economies in the world, built on free enterprise and free trade. With China’s unprecedented economic growth, Hong Kong has been used as the gateway to the robust China’s Mainland market. It has also served as the springboard for the Mainland companies to go overseas. Hong Kong has been rated the world’s freest economy by the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, and Fraser Institute. Working journalists are invited to experience Hong Kong at first-hand and write or report on various aspects of this great city by applying for the “Dateline Hong Kong Fellowship 2007” organized by the Hong Kong Economic & Trade Office in Canada in association with the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ). Winning journalist(s) will be awarded a package with a 5-day official visit program with business class air travel and hotel accommodation. When in Hong Kong, the journalist(s) will have the opportunity to visit various points of interest and meet with people of diverse views and cultural backgrounds. Neither the Hong Kong SAR nor the CAJ will have any control over or rights to the work of the participating journalist(s) and they will enjoy full editorial freedom. Each application must include a resume, a written statement of support, including a letter of intent from the editor/producer of designed media outlets to publish/ broadcast at least three Hong Kong stories within six months upon completion of the trip in the respective newspaper, magazine, or electronic media as they deemed appropriate. The proposal can concentrate on any area of life in Hong Kong, including but not limited to business, trade, politics, infrastructure development, IT, tourism, housing, education, culture and environment, etc. Selection of the successful candidates will be made and announced in mid-June. The visit program must be completed before the end of March 2008. Application must reach: The Canadian Association of Journalists Algonquin College of Applied Arts and Technology 1385 Woodroffe Avenue, B-224 Ottawa, ON, K2G 1V8 By Thursday, Tuesday, July 31,31, 2007 By May 2007 For enquiries, please contact Mr Stephen Siu, Assistant Director (Public Relations) of the Hong Kong Economic & Trade Office at (416) 924-7374 or email: stephen_siu@ hketotoronto.gov.hk or John Dickins, Executive Director, CAJ at (613) 526-8061 or email: [email protected] FEATURE BY HÉLÈNE BUZZETTI Mamma non grata at The National? Network television doesn’t seem to welcome young mothers he scene took place last fall. A new CBC recruit was requesting a Parliamentary Press Gallery accreditation to cover federal politics in Ottawa. At the sight of the picture of the young, pretty and female reporter, someone asked spontaneously: "Does she know she won't be allowed to have kids?" You think such a meanspirited comment would only come from an old boy's club member who refuses to adapt? Think again. It was the sarcastic and disillusioned expression of another young female national reporter who, like more and more these days, is starting to wonder if it is possible to be a mother and work for the CBC's The National. Indeed, over the past years, a significant number of female Parliamentary correspondents have left the CBC's flagship show soon after becoming mothers. In 2006, it was Jennifer Ditchburn and Christina Lewand who quit a few months after returning from maternity leave. In both cases, it was their first child. Ironically, they began working at The National in 2001, replacing Susan Harada and Susan Bonner, on leave after having children. The situation doesn't seem to be limited to Ottawa. In Winnipeg, Jo Lynn Sheane has reluctantly agreed to switch her beat to consumer issues — six months after she returned from maternity leave. At least one male CBC reporter has recently declined a National job because he shared custody of his kids. It seems only Natalie Clancy in Vancouver and Loanna Roumeliotis in Toronto have succeeded in staying in their National job after becoming mothers, obtaining a four-day week. While the "four" in four-day week seems to be only a vague suggestion at best, (Ms Clancy claims to have worked a fifth day for 20 weeks in 2005. Ms Roumeliotis will only say that she needs to be "flexible"), they both are extremely grateful to the CBC for getting it. It is a matter of public record that Susan Bonner and Susan Harada had asked in 2001 to share the working week. There was no openness, as the management claimed it was necessary to ensure continuity in the coverage. Harada left journalism altogether in 2001; Susan Bonner stayed at the CBC, accepting a job of less importance, but nonetheless tailored for her. Christina Lewand also left journalism. She had asked for a four-day week. But there was one catch. She had to work the weekend shift. But exactly why are so many female reporters running away from The National after becoming mothers? The answer is contained in one word: T MEDIA, SPRING 2007 PAGE 14 MAKING THE CHOICE: Jennifer Ditchburn returned to The Canadian Press after leaving the CBC. The long hours made it too difficult to spend quality time with her daughter, Gabriela. She doesn't want to blame the CBC... nor to abandon the fight! "…maybe the time has come in our society," she says, "to re-think work-life balance issues and see how to accommodate parents with young children because having different kinds of people in a workplace makes it a richer environment." schedule. About every person interviewed for this story, in Ottawa and throughout the country, would only talk anonymously. They left because of the crazy hours they were asked to put in to be part of The National's team. All stories for The National must not only be vetted in Toronto, but also viewed by a desk person. The problem, though, is that there is usually nobody free during the crucial filing hours to actually watch the items. Therefore, reporters must very often wait for their story to be aired at 9 on Newsworld. Changes are sometimes requested for the 10 o'clock edition. The reporters I spoke to talked about the "nightmare" of waiting in studios, doing absolutely nothing, to be "good-nighted" by host Peter Mansbridge. Mom (or Dad for that matter) comes back home at around 10, well past bedtime. With an average of three stories a week, it's easy to understand why maintaining such a pace and spending more time at home is nearly impossible. "If you file early, you should be allowed to leave early," says Jo Lynn Sheane, who admits being a bit bitter. The consumer beat, after all, "was not everything I dreamed of, no question about that." The CBC refuses to be labeled as an "antifamily" organization. "The CBC and myself try to be as flexible as we can," says George Hoff, managing editor of the Parliamentary bureaus for radio and television. "But there's a reality. TV news is now a 24-hour operation and The National goes on air at 9." Hoff recalls his own personal experience as a Washington correspondent for six years and a father. "My family didn't see me from Monday to Friday. That's the business we're in. If one wants to work and appear on The National, those are the hours. The National is our most important program. An employee can make a choice." But the French side of the CBC is living proof that things can be done differently. Generally, political correspondents at Société Radio-Canada fare better. The vetting of their story takes place somewhere between 6 and 7:30. The "live" conversations with host Bernard Derome (Peter Mansbridge's French-language counterpart) are usually pre-taped and reporters are not requested to stay until the entire editing is completed.All this makes it possible for them to leave almost two hours earlier than their English-language counterparts. "There is no obligation to stay if the job is completed," confirms Ottawa bureau chief Patrice Roy who himself is a father of young twins. At TVA, the biggest private network whose newscast draws up to 900,000 spectators (by far, the largest television audience in francophone Québec), reporters are usually home by 7. All reporters interviewed think it would be easy to improve the situation, by hiring someone in Toronto to watch the items as they come in at the end of the day. George Hoff disagrees, arguing that such a reorganization is neither feasible, nor desirable. "There will always be more stories than desk editors. Someone, somewhere will have to wait. I've heard of this problem before. Well, it's not a problem.That's the way we work.The best TV news is at 10 o'clock, on CBC. We don't want to make mistakes, we don't want to rush. Our reputation is at stake." And four-day weeks? Hoff admits he is no fan, for continuity issues. He thinks Clancy and Roumeliotis got theirs because they are in situations slightly different from that of being in Ottawa. "For a manager, it's not ideal." "Things won't change," predicted one person I spoke to. "At the CBC, they consider working for The National is a privilege. Thousands of people would like your job. So why change anything?" Another one adds: "It's geared for people who are willing to say 'I will not have a life'." Jennifer Ditchburn, who returned to Canadian Press after leaving the CBC, doesn't want to blame the CBC... nor to abandon the fight! "If you accept a job on national TV, it's like becoming a lawyer or a deputy minister. You know there will be long hours, both for men and women, mothers and fathers. So that makes it difficult for me to criticize the CBC because I knew when I accepted the job how it would be . But in all those cases, including lawyers and deputy ministers, maybe the time has come in our society to re-think worklife balance issues and see how to accommodate parents with young children because having different kinds of people in a workplace makes it a richer environment." Julie Van Dusen agrees. This energetic Parliamentary reporter had a shot at the National in 1995, while her three kids were all under the age of six. She survived 18 months. "When you accept a job, you have to accept what comes with it." At the same time, though, she recognizes it was frustrating to stay at work until 9 to do the same job she now completes for the 6 o'clock show. But other people interviewed for this story say it is characteristic of systemic "discrimination." By telling you from the start of its existence,the bosses are in a way shielding themselves from future criticisms. To be fair, the CBC is not the only network to impose such exhausting schedules. At CTV, too, reporters stay usually until 9:30. Some female reporters still make it. Rosemary Thompson is one of them."CTV has always been good to me,offering me promotions when I got pregnant." She says she even got the four-day week. But still, she admits this was also made possible thanks to an understanding husband and a fantastic mother-inlaw. Every case is different and every reporter interviewed for this story provided a slightly different explanation for their resignation. Still, a lot feel a bit guilty: they wish they had stayed and fought against a system which refuses to adapt. Others were disappointed by the lack of solidarity among female reporters. "It's like teenage sex. No matter how often you're told you could get pregnant, you don't believe it until it happens to you!" Most of them thanked me for writing about such a sensitive issue everybody is whispering about. Bitterness is tangible among the "Ex's" of The National. "I find it sad and ironic that the CBC does so many stories about daycare systems, working women and a vast array of social issues on a daily basis when it has its own internal barriers for women and parents of young children that it has failed to address," said one person. Says another: "We are image makers. And the image we send is the wise senior veteran correspondent who reads the news with the young, enthusiastic, energetic, talented, beautiful women. And what happens to those women when they age? They go away!" Editor's note: Hélène originally wrote this piece for trente, the French-language magazine for Quebec-based journalists. She kindly agreed to translate the article for Media magazine. Hélène Buzzetti is a political correspondent for the Montreal newspaper Le Devoir. She has been a member of the Parliamentary press gallery for 7 1/2 years, and served as its president in 2003-2004. Hélène also has a three-year old daughter. But exactly why are so many female reporters running away from The National after becoming mothers? The answer is contained in one word: schedule. Every case is different and every reporter interviewed for this story provided a slightly different explanation for their resignation. Still, a lot feel a bit guilty: they wish they had stayed and fought against a system which refuses to adapt. MEDIA, SPRING 2007 PAGE 15 FEATURE BY CATHERINE FORD Women in the media can’t have it all The choice still comes down to raising children or making the early evening deadline Plus ça change . . . the more things stay the same. oo bad. Most women would have believed that after almost 40 years of feminism, child care would still not be regarded as primarily a female employee's responsibility. But wishing won't make it so and young women are discovering they still can't have it all, at least not without something or somebody suffering. The ideal, that women should not have to choose between children and career, remains as elusive today as it has been since women were first recruited in 1875 to work as secretaries on the eight-year-old invention, the typewriter. What Hélène Buzzetti reports (on page 14) about young working mothers at the CBC in general and at The National in particular, should not surprise anyone. The CBC isn't much different than other media outlets when it comes to demands on its journalists that the story should come first. T Young women reporters, a number of whom dismiss the title "feminist" with what approaches contempt, must be the children or grandchildren of first- or second-wave feminists. Should they thus believe every job should be theirs for the asking, without any consequences? Reality tells another story. Feminism brought equality of opportunity, but being female means there is no equality of child bearing. To do both — have children and aspire to one of the top media jobs in television — is still almost impossible. And I say "almost" in recognition that there have always been so called superwomen who can, and do, have it all. Mostly, those rare women merely pissed off the rest of us who just couldn't do both. What being female in the mass media (still among the most conservative businesses around) means for most of us is choice, albeit still limited. Many of us who started in the business in the middle 1960s knew the choice was stark: career or children.In the world in which I was raised,the only women who worked were young and single,spinster schoolteachers, nuns or war widows. Married women and mothers — usually the same people — stayed home, whether they were emotionally or psychologically equipped to do so. As the years went by, it got easier to do both, but there are still jobs where the stark choice is one or the other. Today, it is the rare and privileged woman who doesn't have to at least attempt to do both. The dual income family is the statistical norm. If every Canadian woman who works stayed at home to protest the lack of social support for their double-duty lives, the economy would shut down. But that's merely a fantasy, borne out of the realization that while feminism brought us choice, it also delivered an obligation to do it all.And while we were busy teaching the younger generation that little girls didn't have to marry doctors, they could be doctors themselves, we somehow "forgot" to adjust the social infrastructure to allow for the stark fact that it is still the women who bear the children and NOT HAVING IT ALL: Feminism brought equality of opportunity, but being female means there is no equality of child bearing. MEDIA, FALL 2004 PAGE 16 PHOTO CREDIT: CBC.ca "While feminism brought us choice, it also delivered an obligation to do it all." still the women who have the prime responsibility for their care. (Prime Minister Stephen Harper's $100 a month is little better than an insult for anyone who needs outside child care. Maybe it keeps stay-at-home mothers quiet, because they don't seem to be laughing the federal Conservative government out of its daydream that $1,200 a year provides for child care. Those women who are at home, who can already afford to be home, would still be there regardless of the government's stipend. Please see Dianne Rinehart's story on page 18) If the men who run Canada's corporations were to be faced with the choice of being CEO or being Dad, their own companies would rapidly become more family friendly. It's no surprise only about five percent of the top money makers at Fortune 500 companies are women. Some media companies have tried, but few have succeeded. (One woman colleague said to me years ago that the only obvious benefit of trying to make the company more family friendly was that the men were now praised for leaving meetings to go to hockey or soccer practice.) The Calgary Herald and the Edmonton Journal remain the only two Canadian newspapers — at least the only two I could find — with on-site day-care centres. One would have thought the success of both would have convinced other private businesses to follow suit. Alas, such staff benefits — expensive to run and expensive to use — are still rare. When plans for the Calgary Herald's new plant (it opened in 1981) were being unveiled to the staff for suggestions, the building contained a spacious auditorium, to be available for the public to use. Staff members asked about a running track and a patio outside the cafeteria. I stood up and asked where the day-care centre was. The editor at the time chuckled and asked: "Why, Catherine, are you planning on needing one?" Great yuks and guffaws ran through the audience. I sat down and the Herald built its three-storey plant on one of the foothills outside of Calgary's downtown. After the move, it became obvious that few people in downtown Calgary wanted to meet in what was then an industrial park at the intersection of Memorial Drive and Highway 2. A few years later, a more enlightened publisher and human resources manager turned the unused auditorium into a day-care centre. I have never had to use it, but that was my personal choice. Along with that choice not to raise children was also the recognition that my colleagues had a right to both work and child care. But such rights are not absolute. In 1998, Giselle Culver wrote in the Ryerson Review of Journalism that newsrooms are full of women who "face a difficult juggling act as they try to balance the competing demands of career and family, ambition and the desire to be there for their children. As they find ways to cope, they are part of a slow evolution in the pattern of work — an evolution that recognizes the realities of modern family life." One of the journalists Culver interviewed said — maybe with a certain wistfulness — that to be a great mother meant making some other career choice. Almost 10 years later, women are still making those hard career choices. The Why is simple: News doesn't conform to a family's dinner hour and to expect to be able to get home in time to tuck the kids into bed is unrealistic. This doesn't mean the mass media is no place for mothers, but that young women cannot expect to have it all, automatically, because this is 2007. To do both — have children and aspire to one of the top media jobs in television — is still almost impossible. Some things won't change: a reporter in the field, whether for television or newspapers, can't expect the story to conform to his or her family schedule. The media can make more changes than they have — certainly they can adjust to the reality of modern life — but the big story always runs on its own timeline. Catherine Ford is a retired Calgary Herald national columnist and the author of Against The Grain: An Irreverent View of Alberta. She is a member of the editorial board for Media. MEDIA, SPRING 2007 PAGE 17 OPINION BY DIANNE RINEHART Pass the beer and popcorn Why did reporters fail to tell Canadians the real story about the Conservatives’ childcare policy? s it possible that a 30-second sound bite about beer and popcorn gave the federal Conservative Party a free ride from media analysis on their Universal Child Care Benefit policy in the last election? More than a year later, it's time to reassess the scrutiny journalists on Parliament Hill gave to the $2.5 billion program that delivers $100 monthly cheques to families for each child under six. During the election campaign Paul Martin aide Scott Reid infamously said: "Don't give people 25 bucks a week to blow on beer and popcorn. Give them child-care spaces that work." "Everyone went kind of berserk on that," notes NDP MP Denise Savoie in her analysis of the I media coverage during the campaign. It became "a look at a 30-second clip rather than a real discussion of substantive issues," such as the fact there actually was nothing to guarantee, as Reid pointed out, that the money go to childcare. Others involved in the childcare debate describe media coverage of the Tory plan as "shallow," lacking in both critical analysis and basic information. So what went wrong? Did journalists allow Prime Minister Stephen Harper to "frame" the policy as one of choice, and fail to remind readers of the facts? Or did columnists buy the Harper spin and inadvertently help reinforce his message? You be the judge. As of mid-April: was still no plan in place for the ✘ There 125,000 new child-care spaces the Tories pledged under a business tax incentive plan. There was no sense from business leaders, said Canadian Federation of Independent Business president Catherine Swift, that they felt they were responsible for child care spaces. fact, there still was no government ✘ Inresponse to recommendations put forth last December by the task force the Conservatives established to study how businesses could be encouraged to create childcare spaces, something the former Conservative Ontario government under Mike Harris already knew from experience would be challenging: Not one new space was created under their earlier tax incentive plan. parents who have been receiving ✘ Meanwhile, their monthly cheques since last summer realized that they had to pay tax on the money. This was a message they apparently missed from the media coverage — despite the fact it was initially reported when the programs were announced. Or perhaps the message got lost in a deluge of information and political messages about "choice." government was ✘ AsclawingthebackConservative the childcare money, it was also ending the Liberal's childcare program, four years earlier than expected. there was this surprise: after the ✘ And election, perhaps to help finance the new childcare plan, the Tories announced they were canceling another family support program, the Canada Child Tax Benefit, which critics say went to parents who needed the money the most. the kicker? The Harper government ✘ And spent $123,205 on a study that informed KISSING BABIES: The Conservatives' childcare policy was sold to Canadians as being about choice. But how much choice did parents of more modest means really have? These are some of the questions journalists failed to ask. MEDIA, SPRING 2007 PAGE 18 PHOTO CREDIT: CP PHOTO/Adrian Wyld them that — you guessed it — Scott Reid may have been right: "The general consensus was that the $1,200 will not have any real impact on child-care choices and instead will be used to help with the next bill.... No one is So what went wrong? Did journalists allow Prime Minister Stephen Harper to "frame" the policy as one of choice, and fail to remind readers of the facts? Or did columnists buy the Harper spin and inadvertently help reinforce his message? POINT PERSON: Rona Ambrose became one of the daycare plan's main salespeople during the election. The infamous "beer and popcorn" quote allowed her to go on the attack rather than field legitimate questions about the viability of Harper's plan. going to be in a position to go back to work or stay at home to raise children because of the $1,200." Maybe that's why the government announced in its mid-March budget speech, that instead of trying to encourage businesses to build spaces, it would provide the provinces with $250-million a year to create spaces — less than the $1-billion a year the Liberal plan would have delivered, but a welcome reprieve to provinces as the Liberal funding dried up. So why did the Tory childcare plan, that the Conservatives were forced to shore up one year later, get such an easy ride from journalists? Childcare advocates have weighed in with their assessment. They point out that worse than the media focus on the 30-second sound bite on beer and popcorn, was an acceptance by journalists that the plan was really about choice. How many people decided to stay home to take care of their kids, or to enroll them in daycare, because of the $1.2-billion mailed out so far? According to the Conservatives' own $123,205 study, likely no one. "If you're spending a lot of money on a program you kind of want to know whether it actually does provide what is promised," says Martha Friendly, coordinator of the Childcare Resource and Research Unit. In fact, "there's nothing to link it to childcare or even children. The only link is that it goes to families." Don Giesbrecht, president of the Canadian Child Care Federation, doesn't know of any cases where child-care centres received calls from parents saying the $100 cheques were enabling them to sign their kids up for day care. What he is hearing, is parents telling him they didn't realize, until they started filling out their tax forms, that the cheques would be taxed. "The media didn't play that up." Worse, he says the media were fearful of pursuing the story because "they're so afraid of their relationship with this government that they don't want to offend [them]." Ottawa Citizen political reporter Norma Greenaway, who covered the campaign, is perplexed at the surprise parents were expressing this spring that they had to pay tax on the $1,200 annual credit, and that the program, in the end, wasn't about choice. "Most mothers I know knew it was taxable, and though the [political] focus was on choice, to me it was so clear it wasn't going to provide choice." Greenaway thinks part of the problem was the two opposing childcare plans were both complicated, that the election wasn't about childcare — it was "an election that revolved mostly around scandal and charges of Liberal corruption." She says the Liberals didn't do a good job of presenting their policy,and some voters appreciated PHOTO CREDIT: CP PHOTO/Fred Chartrand the fact the Tories targeted "every-day parents." Finally, she argues, the Liberal plan didn't get the boost it needed from the provinces, who were concerned they were signing on to an expensive program, like health care and education, that they may end up holding the bag for down the road. But those suggestions are unlikely to dissuade critics in their assessment of the media's coverage. For instance, they wonder why journalists ignored figures the Caledon Institute of Social Policy released during the campaign. The institute's analysis concluded that families earning $30,000 to $40,000 were the least likely to benefit from the Conservatives' campaign promise.The news wasn't much better for parents in a slightly higher income bracket:A family with two children,with one under six, earning $36,000 would only net $388 a year for the child out of the $1,200. Families who most benefit from the "choice" plan, then? Those with incomes of more than $200,000 with one parent already at home.In short, those who benefit the most are the families that have the choice of having one parent at home. The Caledon study shows they'll get to keep $1,076 of the $1,200 annual amount and spend it anyway they choose. Dianne Rinehart is a freelance columnist, writer and editor, who covered the 1993 campaign as a reporter with CP's Ottawa bureau. MEDIA, SPRING 2007 PAGE 19 LEGAL AFFAIRS BY DAVID CRERAR AND MICHAEL SKENE Public interest in the pursuit of defamation Canadians may be able to look to British courts for additional protection nevitably, in the pressure of a newsroom, otherwise responsible journalists can get their facts wrong from time-to-time. Journalists endeavouring to investigate and publish information in the public interest can now find some relief that their responsible-yet-erroneous reports will not result in a costly court judgment. The Jameel v. Wall Street Journal Europe SPRL [2006] UKHL 44 decision from the House of Lords offers a positive and important protection to media defendants in defamation actions: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200 506/ldjudgmt/jd061011/jamee.pdf In Jameel, Britain's highest court clarified and confirmed that its earlier decision in Reynolds v. Times Newspapers Ltd., [2001] 2 A.C. 127 provided a significant new "public interest defence" available to persons (including reporters, newspapers, broadcasters, and presumably Internet broadcasters) that have published articles on matters of public interest that turn out to contain incorrect and harmful statements. I THREE-STEP ANALYSIS FOR RESPONSIBLE JOURNALISM The Reynolds/Jameel defence essentially assesses whether the actions of the media defendant exhibited "responsible journalism". In carrying out this assessment, the court will ask three questions: 1. Was the subject matter of the article a matter of public interest?: In answering this question, the court must consider the article as a whole, and not isolate the defamatory statement. 2. Was the inclusion of the defamatory statement in the article justifiable?: Did the statement that turns out to be untrue contribute to the article, or was it unnecessary or gratuitous? 3. Was the defendant journalistically responsible?: Were the steps taken by the media defendant to gather and publish the information responsible and fair? The media defendant must show that it met the expected standard of "care that a responsible publisher would take to verify the information published." MEDIA, SPRING 2007 PAGE 20 INDICIA OF RESPONSIBLE JOURNALISM (6) The urgency of the matter. News is often a perishable commodity. The earlier case of Reynolds set out 10 points for the court to consider in assessing whether the defendant exercised journalistic responsibility such that public interest defence should apply: (7) Whether comment was sought from the plaintiff, although this may be unnecessary, impractical or obviously futile. (1) The seriousness of the allegation; the more serious the charge, the more the public is misinformed and the individual harmed if the allegation is not true. Although the decisions of the House of Lords are not binding upon Canadian courts, Canadian courts place considerable weight on them. Reynolds has already been endorsed and applied in a number of Canadian cases. (2) The nature of the information, and the extent to which the subject matter is of public concern. (3) The source of the information: reliance on hostile, biased, interested or ignorant sources can misinform the public. (4) The steps taken to verify the information. (5) The status of the information: the allegation may have already been the subject of an investigation which commands respect. (8) Whether the article contained the gist of the plaintiff 's side of the story. (9) The tone of the article; a newspaper can raise queries or call for an investigation without adopting allegations as statements of fact. (10) The circumstances of the publication, including the timing. Jameel emphasizes that this list is nonexhaustive; the weight and applicability of these considerations will depend on the facts of the individual case; these considerations are to be applied in a "flexible and practical manner." Importantly, the 10 factors are not to be applied as 10 "hurdles" such that if a media defendant fails to establish one, the defence will be denied. Although Reynolds was greeted with celebration when it was released in 1999, trial courts had since applied that case in a restrictive manner, such that the "public interest defence" rarely succeeded. In essence, if the plaintiff was able to show that the journalist failed in or fell short in any of the 10 factors, the defence would be lost. The court in Jameel was very critical of this restrictive approach. Equally importantly, the House of Lords confirmed that these principles will apply not only to newspapers but to all reportage on matters of public interest, presumably including television, radio and the Internet: as stated by Lord Hoffman, "the defence is of course available to anyone who publishes material of public interest in any medium." RESPECT FOR PRESSURES AND PROFESSIONAL DECISIONS OF EDITORS AND JOURNALISTS The House of Lords endorsed and showed an understanding of the professional decisions that responsible journalists and editors must make under pressure. Lord Hoffman noted that "allowance must be made for editorial judgment," and that "the fact that the judge, with the advantage of leisure and hindsight, might have made a different editorial decision should not destroy the defence." Lord Bingham similarly held that "weight should ordinarily be given to the professional judgment of an editor or journalist in the absence of some indication that it was made in a casual, cavalier, slipshod or careless manner." POST-9/11 STORY OF OBVIOUS PUBLIC INTEREST Applying these principles to the facts of the case, the House of Lords allowed the appeal. The Lords confirmed that the Reynolds defence should protect the defendant Wall Street Journal from a defamation action brought by the Abdul Latif Jameel group and related companies. The article in question, published five months after the September 11, 2001 attacks, alleged that the Jameel plaintiffs were under investigation by the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority for acting as conduits for financing terrorists. This turned out to be untrue. The Journal had spoken to a representative of the Jameel companies the night before publication. The representative declined to wake up Mr. Jameel for comment, but asked that the article be postponed by 24 hours. The Journal declined, and advised that the article would state that representatives for the Jameel companies "were unavailable for comment." The two lower courts had found that the Journal's refusal to delay publication deprived it of the Reynolds defence. The House of Lords disagreed: it did not find that this approach violated responsible journalistic practices, and would not have found the journalist's action to be fatal to the defence. In reaching the decision, the Lords noted the serious and unsensational tone of the article and of the high importance of the subject matter. As stated by Lord Hoffman, "[i]t was a serious contribution in a measured tone to a subject of very considerable importance." As noted by Baroness Hale, "[i]f ever there was a story which met the test, it must be this one….if the public interest does not succeed on the known facts of this case, it is hard to see it ever succeeding". IS JAMEEL THE LAW IN CANADA? Although the decisions of the House of Lords are not binding upon Canadian courts, Canadian courts place considerable weight on them. Reynolds has already been endorsed and applied in a number of Canadian cases. Canadian media outlets and journalists can probably assume that a Canadian court would apply the Reynolds public interest defence, as clarified in Jameel, to offer wide protections to a media defendant that reports on a matter of public interest, in good faith, and behaves in a journalistically responsible manner. The court will likely take pains not to second-guess or rigidly or artificially impose a test of perfect hindsight on editorial decisions. In this, Jameel offers a vital reassurance to journalists, publishers and editors grappling with the pressures and duties of delivering vital information to the public day after day. Sources_AD David Crerar is a partner in the Vancouver office of Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, and serves as an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia Faculty of Law. He is a graduate of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. In addition to media and defamation law, Mr. Crerar practises and has published in the areas of banking litigation, injunctions, class proceedings, and protection of trade secrets. Michael Skene is a partner in the Vancouver office of Borden Ladner Gervais LLP. He holds law degrees from the University of Cambridge and the University of Toronto. Mr. Skene practises in the areas of construction and surety law, and commercial litigation. He has extensive experience in all aspects of media and defamation law, including pre-broadcast and pre-publication advice, obtaining access to court documents, setting aside publication bans, and pursuing and defending libel claims. TRAUMA AND JOURNALISM RESEARCH PROJECT Call for Participants If you are a journalist or photojournalist who is or was exposed to trauma or disaster events in the context of your work and would like to contribute to a study that aims to understand the impact of these experiences: Please contact: Dr. Patrice Keats Simon Fraser University 778-782-7604 [email protected] This study is sponsored by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada MEDIA, SPRING 2007 PAGE 21 THE FINE PRINT BY DEAN JOBB A new weapon in the fight against defamation suits Britain’s highest court recognizes “responsible journalism” as a defence to libel. Our courts should follow suit to protect solid journalism and the public interest inutes before deadline in a Canadian newsroom, a reporter and her editors huddle around a computer. On the screen is the final draft of a story accusing a restaurant inspector of taking bribes in return for ignoring food-safety violations. Police confirm they are looking into the allegations but refuse to identify the inspector. Two unnamed city hall sources confirm his name and say he has been suspended. The mayor promises to take steps to ensure diners are not being served tainted food. The reporter has called the inspector's office and home five times seeking comment, but to no avail. The editors decide to publish and the story, naming the inspector, runs on page one under the headline, "Bribe probe prompts health fears." The police do their work but no charges are laid and the inspector is reinstated. The allegations turn out to be false; public safety was never at risk. The inspector, his reputation sullied, sues the newspaper for libel. As our law of defamation stands, the newspaper can do little to defend itself. Truth is a defence, of course, but the story is not true. News reports are poor candidates for the defence of fair comment (which is designed to protect opinions) and, in any event, a factual basis is required. A judge might conclude that the newspaper had a duty to alert the public about a potential health hazard; if so — and that's a big "if " — the report could be considered privileged and the lawsuit dismissed. But thanks to Britain's top court, Canadian journalists may have a new weapon to ward off defamation suits, even when a story turns out to be false. And that weapon is the defence of "responsible journalism." The House of Lords created the defence eight years ago, in the case of Reynolds v Times Newspapers Ltd. It requires judges to assess the tone of an article, the reliability of its sources, the efforts made to interview those defamed and seven other factors to determine if a story was published in the public interest. M MEDIA, SPRING 2007 PAGE 22 The Law Lords revisited the issue last fall in a ruling that offers further protection for the media. In Jameel v. Wall Street Journal Europe, they reminded lower courts that the "Reynolds privilege" is designed to liberalize the law and ensure important stories are brought to light (both rulings are available online at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld/ ldjudgmt.htm). Thanks to Britain's top court, Canadian journalists may have a new weapon to ward off defamation suits, even when a story turns out to be false: the defence of "responsible journalism." Not long after the September 2001 terror attacks in the United States, the Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. law enforcement agencies had asked Saudi Arabia's national bank to monitor the accounts of the country's leading businesses. The intention was to prevent the accounts from being used — perhaps without the businesses' knowledge — to fund terrorism. Abdul Latif Jameel Group, one of the businesses named in the report, and its president sued and a jury awarded damages of £40,000 — about $90,000 Cdn. The House of Lords, however, faulted the trial judge for setting up the Reynolds factors as "hurdles" for journalists to clear before being able to claim the defence. A "respected, influential and unsensational newspaper," as one Law Lord put it, had published a story on an issue "of undoubted public interest" — the fight against terrorism. The report was based on unnamed but highly placed U.S. and Saudi sources but, given the secrecy of the Saudis, could not be verified. A reporter phoned Jameel Group's president, but he was out of the country and unavailable to comment. The House of Lords saw no need to delay publication until the businessman could comment. They also felt it was proper to name Jameel Group and other businesses being monitored, as this gave the Journal's article credibility. What mattered most, the Lords said, was that the story dealt with an issue of public importance and the journalists acted professionally, tried to verify the information and contacted those involved for comment. To claim the defence, in the opinion of Lord Bingham, a journalist must have "taken steps as a responsible journalist would take to try and ensure that what is published is accurate and fit for publication." Jameel is a major precedent, extending the concept of reasonable conduct at the heart of medical malpractice and other negligence lawsuits to the legal minefield of defamation. Journalists' codes of ethics can be used to determine whether conduct constitutes responsible journalism, Lord Hope noted, providing "a standard which everyone in the media and elsewhere can recognize." The ruling is not binding on Canada's courts but media lawyers here have begun citing Reynolds-based defences as part of their Continued on Page 25 COMPUTER-ASSISTED REPORTING BY FRED VALLANCE-JONES Google now offers a spreadsheet Though lacking in some of the features of programs such as Microsoft Excel, Google’s product is worth testing ast time in this space I talked about Microsoft's latest upgrade of its .Office suite. L Since all's fair in love and war, I figured this time I'd give equal space to Google, Microsoft's primary competitor in the battle-to-rule-the-world. As I mentioned in passing, Google now offers a free spreadsheet program, not to mention a word processor, to anyone who cares to sign up for a Google account (also free, by the way). Unlike the worksheets created by Microsoft Excel, you don't store the result on your hard drive, but rather on Google's server. That means you can revise or edit your work from any computer with an Internet connection, and even allow others to use the same document. The potential here is enormous, both for newsrooms on a budget that would like to give each reporter access to basic spreadsheet software, and for joint projects, where several journalists will add or modify data. The only question is whether it works. Well, after taking a quick test drive I can say that while the Google version lacks many of the more sophisticated bells and whistles of the Microsoft product and has a rather Spartan look, it functions well. Once you have a sheet open on your computer, it behaves pretty much like any other spreadsheet. There is sometimes a tiny delay in displaying the result of a formula, but not long enough to be a bother. Four tabs at the top of the screen give you access to screens to format your sheet, sort it by a single column,and enter formulas.I was surprised to find an impressive array of available functions, including many that journalists would need. There is no autosum button, but by clicking 'sum' at the top of the screen, you can quickly start a sum formula, and then complete it by clicking on cells just as you can do in Excel. The basics, such as an equal (=) sign starting a formula, and a colon used to indicate a range in a formula, are exactly the same. You can also create rudimentary graphs and charts. Saving and reopening a document works smoothly, and allowing someone else to view or work on your spreadsheet is as simple as entering their Google e-mail address.You can 'publish' your spreadsheet on the Internet so anyone can see it, and engage in online chat about it. One of the nicest features of the Google spreadsheet is the ability to export your sheet to Excel, pdf or text format. Google does the conversion for you before the file downloads to your computer. This means you can start a sheet on the road, and then download it to your After taking a quick test drive I can say that while the Google version lacks many of the more sophisticated bells and whistles of the Microsoft product and has a rather Spartan look, it functions well. computer to work on it some more in Excel,Access or any other program that can open a text or Excel file. Probably the single biggest downside to the program is its apparent need to have an active Internet connection. I found that when the net connection failed, everything but the most basic functionality disappeared as soon as I tried to move from one tab to another.This was frustrating, and might limit the ability of those with dialup connections to use the service.You will also be out of luck if you are on the road and your hotel doesn't provide net access. I think the jury is still out as to whether this kind of remote-server program is really the way of the future. But it certainly has its advantages.You don't have to crowd your hard drive with bloated software and you'll never lose your files if your drive fails. On the other hand, you put yourself at the mercy of someone else's storage, and take the risk that policies such as the current free access might change. You could suddenly find yourself paying a monthly service charge or per-use fee, which could quickly add up to more than the cost of buying a conventional spreadsheet program. All these things said, Google's spreadsheet application provides a useful alternative to Excel, Quattro Pro and other similar products, especially if you want to easily access your sheet from any computer or share it with others. It's worth taking for a test drive. Just go to Google.com and follow the links to sign up. Fred Vallance-Jones is a reporter and weekend editor at The Hamilton Spectator. You can contact him at [email protected] MEDIA, SPRING 2007 PAGE 23 WRITER’S TOOLBOX BY DON GIBB Write for your audience... ...and not for your sources eporters just want to be loved. By their bosses, other reporters, editors (well, maybe not so much), by their sources … even their spouses and children. We may seem a tough breed, but we're really not. Which leads me to an unscientific theory (probably accurate one time out of 20, with a plus or minus margin of error of 97 per cent). Reporters too often write for the people they are writing about. They give more thought to what their sources, their editors and their reporter friends will think about the story rather than their readers, viewers and listeners — the very ones they are trying to lure into their stories. However, with a little adjustment in thinking, reporters can dramatically alter the stories they write and the impact they will have on their audiences. Learn to write for your audience. Here's an example of what I'm talking about. A reporter has been sent to the local hospital to cover a press conference announcing training for emergency medical attendants (EMAs) who ride the ambulances. Those who called the press conference have an agenda. Fair enough. So do most of the people we interview. In this case, a spokeswoman goes to great lengths to explain how EMAs will soon gain the status of paramedics — just like we see on TV. The reporter dutifully listens to the explanation and writes down how delighted hospital personnel are to take on training that will result in better qualified EMAs. Back in the newsroom, the reporter opens his story with a few paragraphs explaining the transformation from EMA to paramedic. The lead: "They are often referred to as paramedics by many people, probably based on what they see so often on television, but the people riding the ambulance out of the health sciences centre are actually emergency medical attendants." As a feature, maybe that's the way to go, but here's what's buried. Within a few months, EMAs would have the training to actually treat patients on the ride to hospital — treatment that could save lives. These words are in the story and these words speak directly to the reader. The reporter offers examples to back up the comment — giving aspirin to a heart attack victim, hooking a patient up to intravenous, treating a person with an allergy to bee stings. R MEDIA, SPRING 2007 PAGE 24 What the ambulance attendants call themselves is secondary to the story of administering life-saving techniques on the way to hospital. Reporters need to attend such events with an agenda, too, and that should be the readers' agenda. Their job is to ask questions they believe readers would ask or would want answered. What effect does the story have on their readers? What's the impact — good or bad? What do readers need to know? Why should readers care? Reporters… give more thought to what their sources, their editors and their reporter friends will think about the story rather than their readers. The headline on the previous story was, EMAs will soon be paramedics. The headline should and could have been, EMAs receive training to save lives. Which one grabs your attention? By focusing on readers, reporters will ask more focused and more challenging questions. Reporters shouldn't ignore the agenda presented by those they cover, but they should bring along one of their own that focuses on the readers' needs. The real problem, as I see it, is getting caught up in the person's or group's agenda and devoting too much energy to understanding and explaining it without leaving time to explore the impact of the story — what it really means. Reporters need to determine the story focus early. Writing coach Don Murray, of the Boston Globe, offers this sage advice: Most good stories say one thing. "They tell not of a battle, but of a soldier." Write not of the internal details of switching from the role of an EMA to a paramedic, but of the impact of the change — saving lives. Here's another example of the agenda taking priority where the message is never properly translated for those most affected. Let's look at the lead, the agenda and the buried message that speaks to your readers. It has been two weeks of work to rule by elementary school teachers in the Napa District School Board. Work to rule measures were implemented Jan. 4 after contract negotiations failed between … The next two paragraphs quote a teachers' representative attempting to explain the complicated formula by which the education department determines its "funding formula." And then we get to the heart of the story. The first work-to-rule measure to affect our readers — children and their parents — appears in paragraph five. Teachers will not be writing comments on student report cards to be sent home next week. First, the lead. It offers nothing new to readers. Next week's lead could say, "It's been three weeks …" followed by "it's been a full month since …" The lead needs to focus on the main element of the story. Then, the reporter fell into the trap of trying to toss in all of the background before he reported what's new. The teacher's quote and the funding formula were not the story on this particular day; the story was the impact of the work to rule on parents and their children, bringing us back to the all-important question: What effect does the story have on your readers? Answer: Next week's report cards will be missing the comments of your child's teachers. And here's another question to add to the reporter's arsenal: What makes this story different? Court stories can always lead with the judge's verdict. Accident stories can always lead with the fact a 34-year-old local man and his two TIPS FOR KEEPING YOUR AUDIENCE IN MIND Continued from Pg. 22 A new weapon in the fight... responses to defamation suits. (Please see the article by David Crerar and Michael Skene on page 20) The process may take time but our courts should import the responsible journalism defence. Solid journalism on important issues of public interest deserves a legal refuge. Would such a defence help the newspaper that published the story on the restaurant inspector? Let's apply the Reynolds factors: 1) During the researching, reporting and writing process, constantly ask yourself: What's my story? What does it mean to readers? What questions would the reader ask? Can I approach the story from a different angle? What's new? 2) Remember: You are not writing the story for the people you are writing about. Their agenda or message is important, but it is not the full story. What impact their agenda or message has on other people is often more important. 3) Always pursue all sides of a story. A one-source story is rarely, if ever, acceptable. 4) Show readers specifically how a story affects them. Avoid generalities. For example, cutting bus routes is important, but telling readers they'll have to wait longer for the bus is more specific and focused. bribery allegation was clearly a matter of • the public interest 5) Translate jargon. Avoid using words and phrases that are specific to a profession, but exclude readers. Understand the jargon and technical language so that you can report it in plain language to a wide audience. • the sources were solid reporter tried hard • the information 6) Why should readers care? It's an important question to ask yourself on every story. "I don't know" is not a good answer. 7) Ask lots of follow-up questions so that you can write with confidence and with a clear focus. 8) Tell stories. Read your story aloud to see if that's how you would tell it in a conversation with a friend. 9) Find people who represent or are affected by the dull, dry, factual statistics you need to report and use those people to combat our heavy reliance on talking-head experts. 10) Don't be afraid to ask dumb questions. It's better than risking a story with lots of holes and trying to explain yourself to your editor. 11) What struck you about the story? What impressed you, saddened you, made you laugh, made you cry, made you curious? That's often the story. 12) Try writing without your notes. Eventually you can turn to them to clarify a comment or quote, but writing what's in your head allows you to write more conversationally without being tied down by the constraints of your notebook. children, five and three, died in a head-on crash. But if reporters look for what makes this court story or this accident story or this drug bust different,they will get beyond the obvious. Here's a drug bust lead … and what was buried that was different. A mountain of the island's No. 1 cash crop filled a storage room in the local police detachment, the yield from another policesponsored marijuana harvest. Jump to paragraph three. It seems that marijuana was growing "just up the road" from the local police detachment and it was discovered by a police officer out for a jog. Different? I'll say. It takes the story from a routine marijuana discovery to a story readers will talk about. Here are two openings to the same story. Based on the lead, which one would you read? A 32-year-old woman and her four-year-old son died after their vehicle skidded off the road into a canal. Terror-stricken Cassandra Reed screamed into her cellphone and begged a 911 emergency operator for help as her SUV drifted and sank into the icy waters of a canal near Bradford north of Toronto Saturday night. The second one might be a bit long — removing the unnecessary "terror-stricken" won't hurt because we can see the terror — but it is more compelling than the first one. Change the names, the ages, the location in the first one and you have a lead that can appear on any accident story. Don Gibb teaches newspaper reporting at Ryerson University's School of Journalism.He can be reached at [email protected] to verify her allegations had some substance and were • the under police investigation was urgency in publishing — people's • there health might be at risk were made to interview the inspector • efforts (the House of Lords acknowledges, however, that seeking such comment may be "unnecessary, impractical, or obviously futile") story was not sensationalized • The allegations were not reported as fact. and The Reynolds's test considers the circumstances behind the story, including the timing of publication, which would seem to favour the newspaper. The story came up short on two fronts — it did not reflect the inspector's side of the story, and the seriousness of the false allegation compounded the damage to his reputation. With eight of ten Reynolds bases covered, the newspaper should be able to claim the defence of responsible journalism. In Jameel, Baroness Hale declared that Britain needed more "serious journalism" of the kind practiced by the Wall Street Journal, "and our defamation law should encourage rather than discourage it." So should Canada's. Dean Jobb is author of Media Law for Canadian Journalists (Emond Montgomery Publications) and co-author of Digging Deeper: A Canadian Reporter's Research Guide (Oxford University Press). He is an assistant professor of journalism at the University of King's College in Halifax. MEDIA, SPRING 2007 PAGE 25 ETHICS BY STEPHEN J. A. WARD “Call-in-Ethics”: The Pickton trial and offended audiences Media outlets must be sensitive to the concerns of their audiences, but those concerns over too much detail or too little shouldn’t drive the coverage he start of the Pickton trial in New Westminster, B.C., in late January placed news organizations between audiences that demanded extensive coverage and people who demanded limited or cautious coverage. Vancouver newsrooms were flooded by angry email and phone messages accusing the news media of sensationalism, over-the-top coverage and making money from a terrible tragedy. Some callers even suggested that the new media shouldn't cover the trial at all.Others threatened to cancel newspaper subscriptions. Everyone demanded "responsible" coverage. But there were enormous differences on what responsible coverage meant. It was the classic dilemma: Report and be damned; don't report and be damned. The Pickton trial raises a general problem for journalism ethics that is increasingly important in an age where news organizations seek to maintain audience share and bend over backwards to "interact" with readers, viewers and listeners. The problem can be formulated as a question: How should journalists make decisions on their coverage? One possibility is that journalists should "serve the public" by adjusting their coverage to majority (or vocal minority) opinion. Perhaps accountability means adopting a "call-in ethics" — adjusting coverage according to the reaction from audiences. Thorny ethical issues could be settled by surveying what audiences want. If journalism was only a matter of selling a consumer product, then "call-in ethics" might be plausible. Why should a shoe store do anything to offend its customers? But journalism is also a democratic practice of informing citizens, investigating social issues and critiquing institutions. Journalists serve the public, not simply by pleasing their customers, but also by fulfilling a vital democratic role that may offend some people. There are many situations where members of the public may want journalists to compromise their role as critical public informers. For example, in times of war, a majority of the public may want reportage to be uncritical and patriotic, T MEDIA, SPRING 2007 PAGE 26 bordering on propaganda. Journalists have a duty to continue to report in an independent and truthful manner, and not act as propaganda for government — despite angering a substantial number of people. The fact that someone (or some group) is "offended" by certain types of news coverage is not sufficient, by itself, to justify a change in coverage. Other factors must be taken into Journalists serve the public, not simply by pleasing their customers, but also by fulfilling a vital democratic role that may offend some people. account. Journalists do some harm and cause some offence with almost every story. The question is not "Does this offend?" but rather, "Should this seriously offensive material enter the public domain?" What people find offensive must be treated with some scepticism given the subjectivity of such judgments. One person I know finds it offensive to see gays kissing in TV news reports and thinks such pictures should be censored by editors. Sometimes, journalists must offend audiences to make sure that an otherwise reluctant society faces up to a dark social problem. In the late 1980s, I and other reporters covered the Mount Cashel Orphanage inquiry into the physical and sexual abuse of young male orphans by Catholic Christian Brothers in St. John's, Nfld. Throughout this sad event, I and other reporters were accused of sensationalism, of exaggerating the problem, of undermining institutions. It was only the constant, day-to-day coverage of the sickening details of the abuse that finally prompted people to stop blaming reporters and admit that the case indicated a serious problem at the heart of Newfoundland society. In the case of the Pickton trial, what struck me was how many critics focused on the negative duty of journalists not to report certain facts and testimony. Few considered that journalists also may have a positive duty to report certain facts and testimony. To argue that journalists have a "duty to offend" in certain circumstances does not justify the view that journalists shouldn't try to avoid sensationalism and to minimize harm. Journalists should listen to their audiences. Journalism is not a licence for arrogance. But they should remember that they have to balance such opinion against a broader social responsibility challenge society where wrongdoing occurs. The goal of coverage of the Pickton trial should be sober, accurate, non-harassing coverage of what goes beyond news updates and delves into the deeper social and human aspects of this trial. If that sort of coverage is deemed offensive, so be it. Here are some ethical issues to keep in mind: 1. Proportionality: What amount of coverage is needed to serve the public? What is too much, or too little? 2. Framing of the facts and testimony: How does the news media portray the case, the victims and their families? Are the central figures portrayed as humans, with dignity, names and real lives? 3. Beyond emotionalism and sympathy: Although (2) requires sympathy, the coverage should not be overtaken by emotion. Journalists need to ask tough, disturbing questions about our social system and its institutions. 4. Graphicness: How graphic should the coverage be? If the testimony is that women's body parts were cut up and placed in containers, that fact will be reported. But what level of description should be used? How many gory facts are required for the public to understand what happened? NO PLACE FOR THE FAINT OF HEART: Forensic investigators make their way back to work, carrying buckets after a lunch break at the Port Coquitlam pig farm owned by accused serial killer Robert Pickton. Coverage of the trial has raised many ethical questions. 5. Potential harassment: The news media should avoid harassing the families of victims, citizens of the Downtown Eastside or the relatives of Robert Pickton in search of pictures or interviews. Some of these people want to speak to the news media. Others will not wish to speak and that wish should be respected. A respectful process for requesting interviews is essential. 6. What measures have been put in place to help journalists and others deal with trauma due to attendance at this trial? Responsible Pickton coverage requires conscientious reporters and editors determined to make the most reasonable decisions possible and to make sure that PHOTO CREDIT: CP PHOTO/Chuck Stoody editorial processes are in place to monitor, correct and balance their coverage as this long trial unwinds. It also requires reporters and editors willing to endure the wrath of upset audiences. Stephen J. A. Ward is the director of the UBC School of Journalism. MEDIA, SPRING 2007 PAGE 27 THE CAJ GLOBAL CONFERENCE The Canadian Association of Journalists would like to extend a big "Thank You" to all the delegates who attended the 4th Global Investigative Journalism conference. More than 600 delegates from more than 40 countries gathered for an inspiring lineup of 146 speakers, including keynote addresses by Lowell Bergman, Ayann Hirsi Ali and Sally Armstrong. The buzz was palpable, from the interactive opening as delegates took up their Jembe (African drum) and connected to each other in the universal language of music, through the powerful opening plenary with Maher Arar, who challenged journalists to continue the debate on anonymous sources, to to the the celebration celebration of of excellence and the first-ever Global Shining Light award. www.marketwire.com Your newswire is getting rewired. Bigger. Better. Same nice folks. is now called LAST WORD BY ALAN BASS Should journalism become a profession? It’s time to seriously debate this issue f journalism is in a state of crisis in North America — and there seems to be an overwhelming consensus that it is — to what extent are journalists responsible? And what can they do about it? Often, the answer to that question pins the responsibility for upholding good journalism practices on individual journalists and individual newsrooms. This is sometimes called the "heroic" approach because it demands a journalist be prepared to quit rather than submit if put in a situation that violates journalistic principles. Or the answer doesn't involve journalists at all — the onus is put on media owners and managers to make sure the journalists they employ can do their jobs properly. This particular approach is often accompanied by demands that governments break up media conglomerates and encourage local or non-profit ownership. Journalism's current crisis has spawned a significant cottage industry devoted to studying media and the news business and producing reports recommending change. In most cases, the recommendations still tend to focus on these two themes, calling upon individual journalists and newsrooms to do a better job or suggesting journalism will magically improve under different media-ownership structures. However, a third theme is emerging, one that asks journalists to take responsibility for journalism as other professions take responsibility for their work — by defining it, setting standards and criteria for doing it, making sure practitioners are qualified and committed to the goals of journalism and outing those who are not. I'm talking about professionalization. This, to be sure, is a concept guaranteed to turn many journalists apoplectic — as anyone who belongs to the CAJ listserv knows. We've had a number of discussions about professionalizing journalism over the years and there's no doubt the majority opinion views the idea as an apostasy. I think the majority opinion is dead wrong. Increasingly, it seems, I'm not alone. Recent proposals for professionalizing journalism have come from some surprising sources. Philip Meyer, one of North America's most-respected journalism academics, recently wrote a book called "The Vanishing Newspaper: Saving Journalism in the Information Age." His main purpose is to persuade media owners that good journalism can be profitable. But in the concluding chapter, his argument takes a surprising turn. I MEDIA, FALL 2004 PAGE 30 "Maybe the bean counters will get religion," Meyer writes. "Maybe the suits who run media corporations will give more attention to social responsibility. Let's not sit around and wait." The challenges facing journalism today, Meyer argues, "will slowly but irreversibly force it to move from craft to profession. It is time to band together for self-protection …" More recently, Geneva Overholser — whose journalism credentials include Washington Post ombudsman, New York Times editorial board member and editor of the Des Moines Register — authored a document published by the Annenberg Public Policy Center entitled "On Behalf of Journalism: A Manifesto for Change." She reviewed proposals for journalism reform put forward during an Annenberg-sponsored conference in 2005. A section that focused on what journalists themselves can do included a discussion of professionalization. It conclude d: "Whether throug h professionalization or a recommitment to mission, an agreement on core standards or enhanced accountability measures … journalists need to reinvent their social contract with the public." The notion of professionalization has even edged onto the agendas of some journalism organizations. A proposal to professionalize journalists was debated at a conference of La Fédération Professionnelle des Journalistes du Québec a few years ago. In 2005, a discussion paper suggesting British journalists consider become a self-regulating profession was published by the Professional Training Committee of the National Union of Journalists. In both cases,as might be expected,the idea was swiftly rejected. However,minds can change.John C.Merrill,who wrote the book "Existential Journalism" and has been the leading critic of professionalization for decades, recently did a complete about-face. In a 2005 article published in The Global Media Journal, Merrill said he had come to realize that relying on individual ethics is not enough to prevent the public service mission of journalism from being overwhelmed and distorted by powerful commercial and government interests. "Worldwide, it is in danger of becoming either a government bulletin board or an advertising platform, with a surfeit of entertainment to make them acceptable," Merrill wrote. "... To create an elite body.And that is considered a bad thing for the media. But to have a profession of journalism — a true profession — would assure journalistic freedom and institutional autonomy and at the same time would create a structure to ensure high quality and morality among the professionals." This is a difficult concept for most journalists. Many strongly believe any move to regulate journalism, even by journalists, would be a gross violation of freedom of the press. But this way of thinking is based on a confusion of terms. Journalism and freedom of the press are not synonyms. Freedom of the press gives anyone the right to publish or broadcast without censorship. But journalists by definition accept significant restrictions on what they publish — in particular, they accept the responsibility to find, verify, report and analyze the truth in an open, accountable and independent manner so citizens can make wellinformed decisions about their lives and their communities. Freedom of the press and journalism are inextricably linked. Freedom of the press is a precondition for journalism — journalism could not exist without it. But they aren't the same thing. If there's anything we can guarantee in the Internet age, it's that clarifying and enforcing standards for journalism won't stop anybody else from publishing anything they want.But it will be harder to disguise propaganda,marketing,public relations and mistruth as journalism. No one I've quoted above would deny the incredible challenge posed by bringing journalists together and getting them to agree to a definition of journalism, a common code of ethics and an acceptable method to determine who meets the criteria and standards required of journalists. It will require diplomacy of the highest order. It will also require innovative thinking because there's no question journalists will need to develop principles and mechanisms of self-regulation that are different from those of lawyers, doctors and other professions. Indeed, I would argue, the longer journalists refuse to consider professionalizing, the more they betray themselves, their colleagues and the public. Over time, I suspect more journalists will reach the same conclusion. Professionalism may not yet be an idea whose time has come, but its time is coming. Alan Bass is an assistant professor at the School of Journalism, Thompson Rivers University, and comoderates the CAJ listserv. WE’RE THE HORSE’S MOUTH. CNW has been delivering direct-from-source, full-text news for over 46 years. We've had some recent additions to our network of services we'd like to tell you about: • CNW now distributes all Business Wire and PR Newswire content in Canada, meaning all news via the world's two largest newswire networks will be available to you through your CNW feed • CNW has recently added Podcasting to our suite of digital tools. You can now download CD-quality MP3 files of webcasts and other audio files at your convenience. • CNW's photo archive is available to accredited media at no cost. Simply sign up and you will have access to thousands of print quality images. 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