censorship, Canadian style

["Ian Murray" <seamus2001@xxxxxxxxx>]

Canadian Publisher Raises Hackles
Family Is Accused of Trying to Restrict Local Newspapers' Autonomy

By DeNeen L. Brown
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, January 27, 2002; Page A25


TORONTO -- Late last year, columnist Stephen Kimber says, the
editing of his writing became more and more inexplicable. It wasn't
so much dropped commas or the introduction of errors. Sometimes he
would open the newspaper, the Halifax Daily News, and find that his
opinions had been removed.

"I put up with that for a while, then I began to censor myself,"
said Kimber. "I would remember, 'No, I'm not supposed to write
about that.' "

Kimber had been writing his column without such concerns for 15
years. But things changed, he said, after CanWest Global
Communications took over his newspaper and 135 others last summer.

In December, the company announced that all 14 of its big-city
newspapers would run the same national editorial each week, issued
from headquarters in Winnipeg, and sometimes written at CanWest
papers around the country. Any unsigned editorials written locally
at the 14 papers, the company said, should not contradict the
national editorials, which covered such subjects as military
spending, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and property rights.

The decision provoked immediate complaints from journalists across
Canada, who say its effect goes far beyond the editorials, imposing
control on columnists and reporters as well. In the United States,
the National Conference of Editorial Writers, whose members include
Canadians, joined in, saying the decision was "likely to backfire
with readers who are accustomed to editorials on national and
international subjects that take account of the diversity of views
in their communities." Many journalists say the company is breaking
age-old traditions that keep reporters and columnists independent
of the publications' owners.

CanWest and its owners, the Asper family, deny that the policy
restricts freedom of expression in this way. All they are doing,
they say, is exercising the legitimate prerogative of owners to
influence a limited part of their publications, the editorials.

They show no sign of bending. In a recent speech in Oakville,
Ontario, CanWest publications committee chairman David Asper
borrowed lyrics from the rock group REM: "I can say to our critics
and especially to the bleeding hearts of the journalist community
that, 'It's the end of the world as they know it . . . and I feel
fine.' "

Some analysts say the controversy is a reflection of media
concentration in Canada, where five companies control most major
newspapers and television stations.

CanWest controls a major newspaper in every major city outside of
Toronto. Bell Globemedia, a subsidiary of Bell Canada Enterprises,
a telecommunications company, owns the Globe and Mail, a nationally
circulated paper, and the private network CTV. Quebecor, a
Montreal-based printing company, owns the Sun newspapers, a chain
of tabloids. Torstar Corp. controls the Toronto Star, the largest
paper in the country.

"You can fit everyone who controls significant Canadian media in my
office," said Vince Carlin, chair of the School of Journalism at
Ryerson University in Toronto. "This is not a healthy situation. .
. . There is competition in the United States. There is no
competition here."

John Miller, director of the newspaper journalism program at
Ryerson, said that CanWest newsrooms have become demoralized. "It
is not so much the national editorial, but the fact that everyone
has been sent the message they have to watch what they write,"
Miller said. "If it goes against what is perceived as the Asper
line, then some stories aren't going to get written, or some
stories will be written and then they will be killed."

A member of Parliament, Wendy Lill of the left-of-center New
Democratic Party, has said that the policy threatens "journalistic
freedom in Canada."

As the debate continues, reporters at the Montreal Gazette have
staged a "byline strike," withholding their names from stories to
protest the editorial policy. Kimber and another freelance
columnist at the Halifax Daily News have resigned, claiming
interference, as has a columnist at the Saskatoon, Saskatchewan,
paper, the Star-Phoenix.

And the chain newspaper Windsor Star dropped conservative columnist
Peter Worthington, one of Canada's best-known journalists, after he
wrote a column in an opposing paper criticizing CanWest's editorial
policies. "It seems to me they are not only trying to discourage
dissent in their own newspapers," said Worthington, whose Toronto
Sun-based column appears in several newspapers, in an interview.
"They are trying to eliminate another point of view in other
papers."

Until last year, CanWest was known largely as a television company.
It was the creation of Israel "Izzy" Asper, once a prominent lawyer
in Winnipeg and former leader of the Liberal Party in the province
of Manitoba. He bought his first television station in the early
1970s and later acquired the national Global Television network,
based in Toronto. He is now chairman and chief executive officer of
CanWest.

Last summer, CanWest bought the National Post and 135 other dailies
for the equivalent of $2.2 billion, the biggest media deal in
Canadian history. A CanWest executive said the acquisitions would
put CanWest at the head of a "technological revolution," leading
the way in Canada to "media convergence" that would break down the
boundaries between television, newspapers and the Internet.

How the newspapers came to be for sale was a saga of its own. They
were previously controlled by media baron Conrad Black, who started
the National Post two years ago, poured in millions and lost
millions, and some say used the paper to promote a personal
vendetta against Prime Minister Jean Chretien.

In the 1990s, Chretien urged the British government not to grant a
long-term ambition of Black to be appointed to the House of Lords.
Black renounced his Canadian citizenship, sold the Canadian papers
and is today Lord Black of Crossharbour. Under the new ownership,
the National Post has toned down its criticism of Chretien.

"Many of us had a love-hate relationship with Conrad or Lord Black,
as we should call him," Carlin said. "But he liked newspapers and
liked pointy opinion and liked controversy. The Aspers are not
newspaper people. They don't seem to have a sense of the place that
newspapers play in society."

In the United States and Canada, newspaper chains typically let
local publishers and editors make decisions on editorial policy.

Murdoch Davis, editor in chief of Southam News, a division of
Southam Publications Inc., which is owned by CanWest, defended the
mandatory editorials.

"We felt some issues were worth examining from a national
perspective," he said in an interview. "The policy has been
misconstrued as constraint on other views. It is not that. We
wanted to make sure we did not look like we don't know what we
think. We don't want the core position taken contradicted by
newspapers' own unsigned editorials."

Davis said the policy does not constrict journalism. "No one has
been told to steer away from topics because of the national
editorials," he said. "No reporters have been told not to write
about certain issues" due to the policy.

Kimber, the columnist in Halifax, on Canada's Atlantic coast, said
he resigned after the newspaper refused to run a column he wrote
challenging the new owners. He wrote: "CanWest's owners, Winnipeg's
Asper family, which made its fortune in the television business,
appear to consider their newspapers not only as profit centers and
promotional vehicles for their television network but also as
private, personal pulpits from which to express their views.

"The Aspers support the federal Liberal Party. They're pro-Israel.
They think rich people like themselves deserve tax breaks. They
support privatizing health care delivery. And they believe their
newspapers . . . should agree with them."

A day after Kimber turned in the column, he received a call from an
editor saying it would not be published. "He asked whether I would
be interested in continuing to write for them and I said no."
Kimber resigned that Friday. "Editors have the right to look at a
particular column and say this doesn't meet the standard," Davis
said.

In his speech, David Asper had similar strong words for the
critics. "According to them, by distributing these editorials, we
have brought the entire world of freedom of expression to a
crashing halt. They would have you believe that owners should
either never contribute material, or if they do, it should be done
under a cloak of secrecy with a nudge nudge to our editors. This,
of course, is ridiculous."