Thursday, June 20, 2002
Hitting where it’ll hurt - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER -- Yesterday afternoon, for my Mum, I phoned the Pacific Newspaper Group requesting that our subscriptions to the Vancouver Sun and The Province be cancelled forthwith. Being a news junkie and all, it’s something I never thought I would do. Even though the Sun is hardly satisfying reading every day, one reads the paper to keep abreast on the news and such. I’m sure if I drank coffee, it’d taste different without a morning paper. It’s a habit, and somehow putting a stop to it seems sacrilegious. However the events of the last few days have made it clear that little old consumers like us, who subscribe to the papers owned by CanWest Global, should do something about the utterly unbelievable policies set forth by their owners.
Sunday, Ottawa Citizen publisher Russell Mills was sacked, when under his watch the paper published editorials calling for the Prime Minister to resign. These editorials ran contrary to the line taken by CanWest’s national editorials written out of Winnipeg. CanWest, if you didn’t know already, owns 14 major dailies across this country (including the only two dailies in this town). These national editorials are written out of CanWest’s headquarters in Winnipeg and are required to be published in those 14 dailies, which include the Citizen, the Montreal Gazette, the Windsor Star, the Calgary Herald and the St. John’s Telegram, among others. I see nothing wrong with the proprietors of the chain wanting their editorials being published in their properties. It is wrong, however when the papers themselves are not allowed to publish contrary opinions.
Conrad Black, when he owned the Southam chain previously, regularly had his papers publish his own writing. The Council of Canadians for one, was in a tizzy over that and the fact Black liked to hire writers and editors who held sympathies that were identical to his. The difference however is that Black gave his papers a general free reign on things when it came to local editorials. The CanWest regime which bought out Black’s share last summer, has put a stop to papers like the Ottawa Citizen publishing anything critical of Jean Chrétien. Chrétien, is a pal of the Asper’s and the national editorials out of Winnipeg have reflected friendliness towards Chrétien and his Liberal lot.
Gordon Gibson, a former Liberal and distinguished columnist out of Vancouver, was told his columns would no longer be published in the National Post or the Vancouver Sun, after a piece of his read: “Jean Chrétien is a dead man walking. He will be gone within a year. This will be a very good thing for Canada.” That piece appeared in the Post on the 3rd of June, and on Tuesday he went to the airwaves of the country (sans any CanWest Global stations, mind you) saying he too had been sacked. Rafe Mair, a radio talk show host, followed with his own resignation from his Vancouver Province column, on the air; calling CanWest’s course calamitous to freedom of speech and democracy. However Gibson got a call from two of the Asper’s saying he really wasn’t fired. I guess the bad press was getting to them. Gibson is reportedly awaiting further discussion with the Asper’s hoping to resume his column, only if new guidelines are put in place allowing the free reign of CanWest’s columnists, editors and publishers, irrespective of the views held by the Asper family.
CanWest’s editorial policy has been a simmering topic of discussion. Two weeks ago, 40 former publishers, editors and directors of Southam, signed a petition calling on CanWest to change its editorial policy. The group ran ads saying the national editorials were silencing “Canada’s diversity of voices.” These notable former journos realised that CanWest is not doing anything illegal, but what they are doing is utterly endangering “free speech, democracy and pluralism.”*
While the NDP and the Council of Canadians may bleat for the government to have a public inquiry into the concentration of the media in Canada, I wouldn’t advise on one. First, the Liberals would be loath to constrain their friends’ monopoly of the media. A monopoly, that for years was held by a Liberal enemy, Conrad Black. This isn’t an issue that the government should get involved in. This is, as Rafe Mair has said, a consumer issue. It is a problem wrought by the market system, and it should be dealt with by the market. At our house we cancelled our subscriptions to the CanWest papers. That is something Mair has called for, and I suggest people who believe in maintaining democracy and freedom of speech in this country should do the same.
The Asper’s media empire has access to 97.6% of Canadians. Whether television or newspapers, a good number of Canadians line the pockets of those that advertise with the Asper’s, and of course the Asper’s themselves. That said, it would be silly to implement some of the NDP or Council of Canadians’ suggestions. The Asper’s have merely been lucky enough to practice ‘survival of the fittest’ with great finesse. Thus, it is the language of the market -- money -- by which we attempt to send CanWest a message. Cancelling subscriptions, boycotting the papers and their television outlets are things we can do. Telling their advertisers we won’t buy their products is another.
Lest anyone think us mere consumers can’t influence CanWest Global, think again. After Conrad Black’s departure at the National Post last fall, the Asper’s decided to gut parts of the paper in an effort to save money. Many expressed their anger by cancelling subscriptions, and soon after, CanWest was forced to reinstate the arts and sports sections. The Asper’s have a right to do what they are doing. But if we can tell them that we won’t stand for it, then they’ll be forced to change their ways. They still want to make money, so they’ll be forced to cater to our wants. It is the market after all.
The multimedia empire that is CanWest Global has immense reach across this country. As stated, nearly all of Canadians have access to CanWest products. This is an immense amount of influence. And to borrow from the recent Spider-Man picture, this great power of influence must be realised with a greater amount of responsibility.
If we let the CanWest cabal go on, then journalistic responsibility would be rendered meaningless. We’ll miss our papers sure, but if we were to allow the status quo to flourish, then we’d be missing the ideals of journalism, democracy, and free speech more. Ideals that some people died for.
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* This was taken off Diversity of Voices’ website: «www.diversityofvoices.ca».
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An archive of Joseph Planta's previous columns can be found by clicking HERE .