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The Journalistic Career: a Lonely Pursuit for Truth

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Canada's communications magazine $2.00 Industry critics agree, No formula yet TV is worst-reported for Canadian story all-news channel The journalistic career: a lonely pursuit for truth by Barbara Moes When was the last time you read verse Since his deanship in 1981, Desbarats that was truly delightful? Read Peter has applied the greasepaint one more Desbarats' The Night the City Sang. When time to host a controversial TV documen- was the last time you read impassioned tary called Inside TV News produced by prose about the Canadianess of Cana- Mark Blandford (Duplessis, Empire Inc.) dians with a plea in favor of bringing, of CBC's Montreal English headquarters. home the constitution? Read Peter -This program became the centre of much Desbarats' Canada Lost Canada Found. controversy because those that make the When was the last time you saw a docu- news product were forced to go into a mentary that looks at your own industry pseudo-analysis to determine how they with a critical eye? Persuade the CBC to were coping with a world (in three-minute let you view Inside TV News hosted by clips) that is exploding with incomprehen- Peter Desbarats and aired in the dog days sible events. Provocative questions were of August 1981. When did you last visit the raised by Desbarats (most of them University of Western Ontario campus? unanswered) pertaining to accountability You may just do so in the near future of journalists, the time constraint problem, because the new dean of journalism, Peter which in turn led to a disturbing look at Desbarats, is planning some innovative the near impossibility of getting a coherent programs for Canadian journalists. report on Finance Minister McEachen's Desbarats' dedication of his Canada budget in a palatable form for the hungry Lost Canada Found book to, among news audience. others, Bill Cunningham, former vice- TV critics across the land unanimously president of news and current affairs at complained of the non-existent publicity the Global TV network "whose convic- for the 90-minute documentary which was tions about journalism over the years have buried in the August schedule. Desbarats been unwavering no matter how the cor- Peter Desbarats in his new academic claims that the expensive orphan project porate winds blow" is a significant tribute home, Middlesex College, UWO campus was finally aired by the public affairs to a relationship that marked a turn in the Heard felt the same way. He recently told department headed by Bill Morgan who road for Desbarats whpse career also Global president Paul Morton that while felt uneasy about the project from the included TV news journalism. Following he was still "mad as hell" (they gave him beginning._The Inside program went an anchorman stint with Global TV's Peter the legal 30 days' notice) he now felt that through a series of screenings inside the Trueman he wound up his on-camera it was the best thing that had ever hap- CBC "like I've never seen before" remarks work as Global's Ottawa bureau chief pened to him because it gave him a Desbarats. While Mark Starowicz was very where for seven years he commented chance to stop and Jook at his accom- protective of the Journal (the Inside crew astutely on the political scene. plishments over a 15-year period and wanted to film the historic opening night The 49-year old Desbarats evaluates it forced him to get out of a rut at 49 but were not given permission to do so) his profession as he speaks freely from instead of at 55. the CBC news department was very keen his "tenured" dean's chair about his His term of unemployment after the (there is a clip of Mike Duffy trying to sort experiences in front of the camera recall- Global release lasted only about three out the infamous budget). CTV refused to ing the still "mystifying" termination of his weeks at which time the Kent Commis- participate at all while Global and CityTV contract with Global after his seven years' sion decided to recruit him for its investi- were very co-operative as were the Ameri- service there. He speculates that it was an gation into the newspaper business. can network media barons who stipulated internal fight over authority and money Desbarats was well qualified because of however that the program not be aired in along with his alignment with Cunning- his own print background (the Montreal the U.S. But Desbarats concedes that the ham. "When he lost I lost with him." Gazette, Reuters News Agency, Winnipeg CBC deserves .credit for airing the pro- gram at all, because certainly nobody else Desbarats claims that he may have been Tribune, Montreal Star) and also because too expensive (he wouldn't reveal an exact he inherited the feisty spirit of his great- -would have done so. figure but said he was earning somewhere grandfather who was a printer/publisher Desbarats came away from that experi- between $75,000 and $1 00,000 at the at the time of Confederation and launched ence with some curious insights about time). a daily newspaper in New York, the most the psyche of Canadian journalists who When Ray Heard stepped into Cunning- competitive market in the world. Two- he claims tended to be more defensive ham's spot (Desbarats and he had worked thirds of the way through his one-year than the Americans who willingly engaged on the Montreal Star together) Desbarats commitment to the Kent Commission in discussions about accountability, flaws felt that it would be interesting because where he prepared a report titled News- in the medium, and the negative impact of "we didn't see eye to eye on things," but papers and Computers: An Industry in deadline pressures. Desbarats.posits that felt that a certain amount of diversity and Transition, the University of Western the U.S. by and large is a more demo- tension inside a news organization would Ontario asked him to head up its innova- cratic society because people feel they be a good thing. He doesn't think that tive journalism department- with tenure. can change institutions there whereas> Broadcaster/March, 1983 11 Canadians (with their colonial mentality) can't just go into the question period, grab nation of gullibility and scepticism. Despite expect authority to come from above mak- a few inflammatory clips and pretend that some naivete, surveys indicate that televi- ing certain practices a fait accompli. He you're covering what goes on in Ottawa. sion has a high credibility rating among cites a recent unlque experience in And yet that's what most of the media do, . viewers but at the same time it is regarded Lethbridge, Alberta, when he shared the particularly the television media. as a big institution that is very suspect, stage with the publisher of the Lethbridge The politicians have been telling us for admits Desbarats. Herald who was actually in front of an some time now that Parliament is becom- One of journalism's chronic ironies, audience of irate readers explaining what ing less and ·less important and thereal laments Desbarats, is the lack of accessi- he was trying to do with his paper. "To me power in Ottawa is in some of the regula- ble library and resource centres for jour- that looked very unCanadian" says tory bodies which are almost never cov- nalists whose end product is information. Desbarats but he .thinks publishers and ered by the media. You can't recruit some- "If they're making shoes, they have a editors should be encouraged to appear body 26 or 27 years old who has worked library; if they're making news, they don't. on platforms more often. in a local radio newsroom for four or five The old tradition that the journalist works But if we are to cure the ills of the profes- years and plunk him up on the Hill and with a kind of a notebook and pencil is still sion the media dean believes that Cana- expect him to make any kind of sense. with us and the media owners are quite dian journalists will have to be more Ottawa is a place of great expertise and happy to go along with that because it's autonomous, especially in private tele- here is some person who is half their age very inexpensive." earning one-third their salary with far less vision, in order to make demands on the Speaking of his own experience at education and infinitesimal experience system and to enact change. Desbarats Global TV he refers to Bill Cunningham as most of the time. The last election cam- points to the publicly-funded CBC which "an enlightened news director" but "even paign that Icovered in Ottawa was 1980; I has, ironically, more editorial inde- he was astonished when I asked him for a was about 46 and one of the oldest jour- pen·dence because "there is a deliber- . fuII-time researcher in Ottawa, which I got, nalists on the campaign trail." ate fear of political interference which is and which at that time made us unique in consciously resisted." He cites an that sense. CBC didn't have one (only a example. "When I worked on the October clipping clerk) and people don't believe Crisis in Montreal (Desbarats' career that a news industry could possibly func- encompasses a stint with the Montreal teletext .. ~ will go a long tion like that." (A Global spokesman veri- CBC where he, a native of that city, pro- fies that since.Desbarats' departure there duced several political documentaries) we way towards remedying has been no full-time researcher in received an internal directive from the CBC the big flaw in television Ottawa.) that we weren't to comment editorially on But as Desbarats sees it television news what was going on at the time.
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