Re: censorship, Canadian style

["Ken Hanly" <khanly@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks for the interesting post. The Manitoba Provincial Liberals are often
to the right of the Conservative Party. Many big "L:"  Liberals are small
"c" conservatives...including Asper.
I thought that the transer of ownership of the National Post from Black to
Asper was from bad to bad, but it seems it is from bad to worse...


Cheers, Ken Hanly
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ian Murray" <seamus2001@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2002 2:47 PM
>Subject: [PEN-L:21970] censorship, Canadian style


> 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."
>
>