Randal Marlin
Page 54
new provisions.
4. The act would raise the status and enhance the freedom of journalists by protecting
their rights in cases where owners had major interests outside the newspaper; this would
also provide an opportunity for the voice of the community, whose citizens have a par-
ticular stake in the quality of the local newspaper, to be heard.
This would protect editors of newspapers belonging to a chain or conglomerate by
requiring that the editor-in-chief be appointed under a written contract, the nature to be
spelled out in statute, for a period of not less than three years and not more than seven.
The editor would decide news, and his judgment could not be overruled, although he
would be advised by a committee of four “in-house” members and three representative
people from the community. This committee would publish an annual report, and com-
ments would be published in the newspaper.
5. The act would establish, in conjunction with the Canadian Human Rights
Commission, a Press Rights Panel which would monitor the implementation and
effectiveness of the legislation.
The Press Rights Panel, which was to operate within the Human Rights
Commission, would have many functions, including the monitoring of the press.
It would provide guidance to advisory committees and would review and provide
flexibility in cases of proposed acquisitions. It would have power to get information
from newspapers on matters pertinent to its work. It would, rather importantly, have
up-to-date information on all business interests with which the ultimate proprietor
was in any way associated. It would also observe the performance of newspapers in
Canada and publish an annual review of that performance.
274 PROPAGANDA AND THE ETHICS OF PERSUASION
BV-Propaganda-Interior-04.indd 274
9/5/13 4:52 PM
6. A tax credit and surtax to encourage newspapers to devote more of their resources to the provision of information would be provided.
The idea is quite simple and seems worthy of adoption. The only two objections
to it are a general objection to a newspaper act, on the grounds that, once in place,
such an act might facilitate Orders in Council, with the government acquiring a
weapon against disliked media and, secondly, an encouragement to wasteful expenses
to get the tax benefit and avoid paying the surtax.
7. Matching grants to help improve the news services within Canada and around the
world would be provided.
The Commission felt that Canadians should be better informed about gen-
eral national and international news. A financial incentive would encourage more
such coverage. For instance, if the Canadian Press were to increase expenditure by
$100,000, then the Treasury would pay a grant of $50,000 to the news service the
following year.
Criticism of the Kent Commission Report
There were many criticisms, some of them expressed in terms of outrage, by the media
at these proposals. H. Perrin Beatty, a Progressive Conservative MP (later President
and CEO of the CBC) focused on the discretionary power that would lie in the hands
of the Press Rights Panel: “What is so dangerous about this board of the Government’s
friends is that it has the power to determine whether a newspaper can stay in business.
It is this panel that decides whether the law will apply and, of course, if it doesn’t feel
the law goes far enough, it has the right to recommend changes to the Government.”
He was concerned that self-censorship would take place “if newspapers had to worry
about keeping the favour of a panel of the government’s friends.”63
The recommendations went virtually nowhere, since the Trudeau government was
in the thick of its battle to amend the Constitution and bring in the Charter of Rights
and Freedoms. It could ill afford to alienate the media any more. Despite this other
preoccupation, a much reduced set of proposals was presented by Jim Fleming, Minister
of Communications, in May 1982 at a time when, he noted, 77 per cent of the national
newspaper circulation was control ed by chains compared to 58 per cent in 1970. His
proposed Canadian Newspaper Act would not allow any one owner to acquire more
than 20 per cent of the average Canadian circulation of daily newspapers. (Two owners
already in excess would be allowed to keep their existing holdings but not acquire more.)
There would be a Canadian Advisory Council on Newspapers, reporting biannually and
promoting public debate. “Canadians must have some objective place to air their griev-
ances against newspaper stories short of a costly setting,” Fleming said.64
The cabinet approved the bill, but the legislation was not introduced in
Parliament. Two cabinet decisions were announced instead. One directed the CRTC
to prohibit newspapers from holding a control ing interest in broadcast media in the
CHAPTER 7: THE QUESTIon oF ConTRoLS 275
BV-Propaganda-Interior-04.indd 275
9/5/13 4:52 PM
same area. This had the effect of delaying the licence renewal of one of the Irving radio stations in New Brunswick, although in 1985 the federal cabinet, under the new
Progressive Conservative government, abandoned its effort to prevent newspaper
owners from keeping broadcast outlets. The other cabinet directive was for an equal
cost-sharing program to establish new out-of-province or foreign news bureaus, to a
maximum of $50,000. The total amount granted would not exceed $1 million. I am
not aware of the offer having been taken up by any news organization.
The overall effect of the Kent Commission should not be measured simply in
terms of proposed legislation that went nowhere. It clearly had the effect of encour-
aging self-regulation in the media, and it brought to light many of the potentials for
abuse in the media. It is surely no coincidence that shortly after the Report appeared,
every daily newspaper in Ontario became a member of the Ontario Press Council. Yet
the concentration of ownership has increased, at first in the direction of ownership by
one individual, Conrad Black (until he sold his Canadian papers in 2000–01). Black’s
fortunes were to fall precipitously when a lawsuit for improprieties in the running of
his media empire resulted in criminal convictions and a jail sentence in the United
States. But his influence fol owing his purchase of the Southam chain of newspapers
and the launching of a second Canadian national newspaper, the National Post—rival
to the Globe and Mail—was substantial. Black was more “hands-on” than the previ-
ous pre-eminent press baron in Canada, Kenneth Thomson, and his interest in shap-
ing opinion and political power has been manifest in his newspapers and in his two
autobiographical books.65 But Black also ensured a large amount of space for readers’
letters, thus blunting to some extent criticism that he was using his publications as a
vehicle for promoting right-wing ideology.
Following Black’s sale of newspapers to Winnipeg-based broadcasting tycoon
Izzy Asper and family, a huge controversy developed when newspapers in the Southam
chain were told they would have to publish editorials issued from head office from
time to time. It was also made clear that editorials would have to reflect a pro-Israel
Voices, to express condemnation of the new restrictions on newspaper independence.
The Globe and Mail reported on September 1, 2001 that Michael Goldbloom, publisher
of the Montreal daily newspaper the Gazette, was quitting, citing a difference in perspective between himself and his new CanWest Global Communications owners. The
Globe and Mail said sources at the Gazette confirmed that “senior editors at the paper were told in August to run a strongly worded, pro-Israel editorial on a Saturday op-ed
page.”66 Following the death of Izzy Asper in 2003, many of the smaller newspapers
in the chain were sold. The remainder, renamed Postmedia Network, includes most
metropolitan dailies as well as the National Post. That combination under the same
ownership would not have been permitted under Kent Commission recommendations.
As of 2012, a major cause for concern has been the growing power and influ-
ence of Sun Media under Quebecor Media. Its tabloid chain of papers promotes a
276 PROPAGANDA AND THE ETHICS OF PERSUASION
BV-Propaganda-Interior-04.indd 276
9/5/13 4:52 PM
right-wing agenda, and the arrival of Sun News Network in 2011 gave the same ideological slant on cable television. A key figure in the running of this new outlet has been
Kory Teneycke, Quebecor Media Vice-president of Development. He earlier headed
Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s press relations and reportedly was
present at a luncheon meeting in New York with Harper, Roger Ailes of Fox News,
and Rupert Murdoch, when the television news network was in the planning stage.67
Fears that the television network would become “Fox News North” gained some cre-
dence from that reported meeting.
Any thought that press councils might be a check on this growing media power
was negated dramatically by the announcement in July 2011 that 27 daily newspapers
in the Sun Media group in Ontario were withdrawing from Ontario Press Council
membership.68 A year earlier, Sun Media’s parent, Quebecor Media, pulled its Quebec
newspapers out of the Quebec Press Council.
It seems that the mood that gave rise to the Kent Commission has largely evapo-
rated, though the arrival of social media has provided its own means of countering
media monopoly.
THE MEDIA ConTRoLS ITSELF
The ontario Press Council
In Canada, the threat of government intervention in the media stimulated on at least
two occasions activity of a self-regulatory nature. The Ontario and Alberta press coun-
cils were formed in 1972, shortly after the Special Senate Committee on Mass Media
presented its scathing evaluation of the press in Canada, together with its recommen-
dation for a National Press Council; there was an upsurge in membership of these
councils following the 1981 Kent Commission Report. I will focus on the workings
of the Ontario Press Council, with which I am most familiar. This does not imply
that the Ontario Press Council is superior in any way to other Canadian press coun-
cils. Indeed, a recent writer in the Canadian Journal of Communication says that the Quebec Press Council is “considered to be the most dynamic press council in North
America, and perhaps anywhere.”69
The Ontario Press Council (OPC) was founded in 1972 with Davidson Dunton at
the helm. Since its foundation it has heard, at the 2007 count, 3,774 complaints.70 Like
many other such councils, it has several different functions. It is intended to speak out
against government interference with the press while at the same time correcting the
worst abuses in the press that might fuel public demand for government control. It acts
as an adjudicative body, deciding to uphold or dismiss complaints and giving reasons
for its decision. There are no sanctions other than the requirement that, as a condition
of membership, newspapers publish decisions involving complaints against themselves.
CHAPTER 7: THE QUESTIon oF ConTRoLS 277
BV-Propaganda-Interior-04.indd 277
9/5/13 4:52 PM
That is not an insignificant requirement; it provides a moral victory to complainants who see themselves vindicated, as well as having a deterrent effect on the future behaviour of newspapers.
The purpose of the OPC is set out in a preamble, adopted in a 1989 revision and
maintained in the 2010 revision to its constitution. Acknowledging that it exists
because “newspapers recognize that a democratic society has a legitimate and funda-
mental interest in the quality of the information it receives,” it goes on to list the vari-
ous unfair conducts for which papers can be called to account by the public: “invading
privacy without justification, condemning people by innuendo or hearsay, ignoring
commonly accepted ethical standards, reporting conjecture as fact, distorting accounts
of events, or failing to acknowledge error.” While claiming independence from the
newspapers that founded it, the OPC “vigorously defends the independence of the
press and full freedom of public expression ...” and “speaks out for the public on ...
freedom of public expression and access to government information.”71 Its objectives,
as stated in its constitution, are:
(a) To defend the freedom of the press on behalf of public and press alike;
(b) To serve as a medium of understanding between the public and the press;
(c) To encourage the highest ethical and professional standards of journalism;
(d) To consider specific, unsatisfied complaints from the public about the conduct
of the press in gathering and publishing news, opinion and advertising; to con-
sider complaints from members of the press about the conduct of individuals and
organizations toward the press; and to report publicly on action taken;
(e) To review and report on attempts to restrict access to information of public
interest;
(f ) To make representations to governments and other bodies on issues related to the
purposes of the Ontario Press Council; and
(g) To publish periodic reports recording the work of the Ontario Press Council.72
A policy statement issued in 1997 emphasized that the OPC “does not deal with
complaints based only on the differences of opinion between complainant and news-
paper” but that “newspapers have a responsibility to provide a forum for expression of
counter opinions”; it affirmed its determination “to continue to consider complaints
involving opinion if complainants contend that they are based on erroneous infor-
mation or are erroneous in themselves or that the language used was unnecessarily
hurtful.”73 In early 1985, the OPC announced it would not deal with complaints about
rejection of letters to the editor “unless the Council considered that the issue involved
warranted an exception to the general rule.”74
In early years, a complainant had to undertake, as a condition of being heard, to
waive his or her rights to legal redress. The 1982 Annual Report states in the procedure
section of its constitution: “Every complainant shall sign a waiver agreeing not to
278 PROPAGANDA AND THE ETHICS OF PERSUASION
BV-Propaganda-Interior-04.indd 278
9/5/13 4:52 PM
take legal action on any complaint heard by the Council on which the Council makes a finding.” Dav
idson Dunton told a student interviewer at the time that the OPC
rarely insists on complainants signing, but the requirement was an important check.
“If, say, you get a case starting before the Council and, at the same time, they’re (the
complainants) starting a libel case, then one party can be using the proceedings before
the Council to get material for their legal case.”75 The case of John and Judi McLeod,
journalists working for the Brampton Daily Times, suggests that other forms of legal redress than that related to libel might also be barred to complainants. They were
fired following their investigative-style coverage of city council meetings. They wanted
to take their case to the OPC but were unwilling to sign the waiver and so dropped
it. This led to a charge in 1984 by the spokesperson for the Centre for Investigative
Journalism that some Canadian journalists were being “victimized” by press councils.76
In the updated version, the rule is that “under some circumstances” the OPC “may ask
a complainant to sign a waiver agreeing not to take legal action ... [etc.].”77
According to most recent figures there are currently two English language daily
newspapers that are not members of the OPC—the Belleville Intelligencer and the
National Post. The OPC’s revenue comes from member newspapers. In 2007, it was
$212,453, up from $209,959 in 2006. This compares with revenue of $109,195 in 1982.78
In recent years, the OPC has shown itself to be reactive rather than adventurously
pro-active in exploring issues of journalistic ethics.79 Early sceptical comments about
the OPC and what it might accomplish seem no less appropriate today than they were
some 20 years ago. However, there are some hopeful signs. The OPC has a website80
where readers can obtain a lot of information about its workings, including how to
lodge a complaint. The most recent report posted on the site in 2012, that of 2008,
noted 100 complaints received in 2007, down from 120 in 2006 and 106 in 2005, well
below the 1992 record of 169. The value of the website would be much enhanced if
member newspapers had to carry prominently not only the URL but also a direct link
to recent decisions pertaining to the newspaper in question.
An interesting complaint was lodged by Carol Wainio against Ottawa Citizen