Inside: The former editor of a small Nova Scotia newspaper quit over a public apology she says never should have happened. LOCKEDLOCKED OUTOUT ATAT THETHE CBCCBC THE CANADIAN ASSOCIATION OF JOURNALISTS WINTER 2006 • VOLUME 11, NUMBER 4 • $3.95 L’ASSOCIATION CANADIENNE DES JOURNALISTES– Winter 2006 Volume 11, Number 4 Publisher Nick Russell INSIDE Editor David McKie Books Editor DEPARTMENTS Gillian Steward 4 First Word It’s time for the brokers of government information to emerge from the shadows. By David McKie Legal Advisor Peter Jacobsen (Bersenas Jacobsen Chouest 5 JournalismNet That email you just received may be from a person pretending to be someone you know. Thomson Blackburn LLP) But don’t worry, there are ways to verify the authenticity of that message. By Julian Sher Designer Bonanza Printing & Copying Centre Inc. 6 Profile A feisty editor of a small-town Nova Scotia newspaper quit after management found her front-page story on the death of a resident to be offensive. Now she’s collecting Printer Bonanza Printing employment insurance. & Copying Centre Inc. By Kim Kierans Editorial Board 8 Writer’s toolbox Are you looking for ways to improve your writing? Our writing coach, Don Gibb,explains Chris Cobb, Wendy McLellan, 12 ways to look for inspiration. Sean Moore, Catherine Ford, 10 Books briefly Investigative books on Canadian injustices make their mark. Michelle MacAfee, By Gillian Steward Lindsay Crysler, John Gushue, Rob Cribb, 13 Ethics We need to tone down the rhetoric over blogging. Rob Washburn By Stephen J.A.Ward Advertising Sales John Dickins 14 Fine print The sponsorship scandal should force the government to improve the federal access to information law. Administrative Director John Dickins By Dean Jobb (613)526-8061 Fax: (613)521-3904 E-mail: [email protected] MEDIA is published three times FEATURE a year by: Canadian Association of 16 The future of the CBC Given its lack of resources, the public broadcaster is not the service it used to be. Journalists, By Tony Manera 1385 Woodroffe Avenue., B-224 Algonquin College Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K2G 1V8 18 Time for a change The CBC’s English television can’t maintain the status quo if it is to become a viable alternative for Canadians looking for higher-quality programs. Reproduction without the written By Donna Logan & Beth Haddon permission of the publisher is strictly forbidden 20 Looking in the mirror The CBC must re-examine the way it serves Canadians — and its employees. Media is a publication of the By Ross Eaman Canadian Association of Journalists. It is managed and edited independently from the CAJ and its contents do not necessarily reflect the views of the Association. DEPARTMENTS 23 Computer-assisted reporting The fight for data in Canada continues.Along the way we do experience success. Subscriptions: $14.98 (GST incl.) per year, By Fred Vallance-Jones payable in advance 24 Opinion Objectivity is impossible.And the concept of fairness, equally so. Indexed in the Canadian Periodical Index. Feroza Master explains how her studies in Britain helped her reach this conclusion. Canada Post Publications Canadian Mail Sales Product Agreement 26 The Last Word The water crisis in Kashechewan seemed to take the nation — and its federal politicians — No. 182796 by surprise. The question is, why are we so out of touch with the problems besetting ISSN 1198-2209 aboriginal communities? Cover Photo By David Wiwchar Ken Furness FIRST WORD BY DAVID MCKIE Our information age and democratic deficit Access to information is being thwarted by politicians and bureaucrats who prefer to operate in the shadows ur democracy has been at a critical point procedure that has become common practice for guidance of the CNA, were able to expose these for some time now.Never,it seems,have we rooting out pesky requests called Amber Lighting. undemocratic practices is a good beginning. Ohad the promise of so much access to Though by law bureaucrats and politicians are not Gomery part two is yet another opportunity to information about the inner-workings of supposed to know the names of the individuals push for better laws, lower user fees, and a new governments at the federal, provincial and making the request,they have devised a system for spirit of cooperation on the part of bureaucrats municipal levels, and yet the disenchantment tracking the occupations of the requesters. and politicians. But journalists must push by citizens feel about their governments is Knowing that a request is coming from a exposing secretive practices and doing stories increasing. So what's going on? And what can journalist or politician allows the political when bureaucrats or politicians attempt to journalists do about it? apparatus to go into high alert, crafting a message operate in the shadows. Well,for starters,perhaps we can engage in "a to counter the damaging story that might ensue, We must also fight against the tendency of struggle to advance transparency," a phrase or in some cases crafting policies to deal with governments to create special bodies to deliver Alasdair Roberts refers to in his excellent new problems the requests might bring to light. services.Jobb writes in Media Law:"As the federal book entitled Blacked Out: Government Secrecy in Fixing problems that have been identified by government has created agencies, or shifted the Information Age. In it, Roberts chronicles the requests, or revealing the names of individuals responsibility for government services to outside prominence of the duelling forces taking place in making the requests are indicative of a system organizations, the new entities have tended not to many democracies, especially the United States. badly in need of reform in Canada and in other be subject to the access law." Among the agencies, On the one hand,there is a tendency towards more countries where we, as journalists, may also want are Corporations such as Canada Post and the disclosure, the result of access-to-information or to file access requests. Roberts' book helps us Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. freedom-of-information laws, combined with a understand what we may be up against,and spells And speaking of the CBC, we are devoting a lot voracious 24-hour news cycle and, in the case of out what I believe is at stake if the struggle is lost: of space in this edition to the lockout that was the U.S., an equally robust political process that the ability to prevent a future ad scandal or any of settled at the beginning of October, shortly after uses information as a weapon of mass the other government debacles that preceded it. federal politicians returned to Ottawa from their destruction. On the other hand, administrations, It is against this backdrop that our media law summer holidays. For almost two months, the like those of our neighbour to the south and in columnist Dean Jobb sounds his own warning corporation's full-time, temporary workers and Britain, have attempted to staunch the flow of this about the federal Access to Information Act, an freelancers from coast to coast to coast were information, especially when it comes to national embattled piece of legislation badly in need of forced to carry picket signs, decrying their security. In the middle is a public that seems reform. While part one of the Gomery report was treatment. Because of an obvious conflict of disenchanted by the whole process and expresses explosive, it is the second part, due in February, interest (I'm on the corporation's payroll), I left that frustration when questioned by pollsters. that could take on more significance. That's the job of planning our CBC coverage to my board Canada, too, is caught up in this dynamic, because the report will discuss ways to fix the of directors. which Roberts, also a frequent contributor to democratic deficit described by Prime Minister Our contributors examine why the lockout Media magazine, explains in chapter 4 when Paul Martin.The Access to Information Act will be happened, and how similar disputes can be describing how bureaucrats attempted to deal part of that discussion. avoided. To help us address some of those with the now-infamous ad scandal. Citing There are some encouraging signs that questions, board member Chris Cobb called upon testimony from the Gomery inquiry that went journalists have been willing to push for greater former CBC president Tony Manera, who in his largely unnoticed, he describes how certain discussion. Recently, they joined efforts to shine a piece reasons that: "Either the CBC is funded at a officials tried to limit the amount of internal light on the system.In his new book Media Law for level which is appropriate to its mandate, or the information about the program, lest it become Canadian Journalists,Jobb describes a project that mandate is changed to fit the available resources." public. And when it did become public, thanks to was spearheaded by the Canadian Newspaper For Donna Logan and Beth Haddon, both the efforts of the Globe and Mail's Daniel LeBlanc, Association (CNA). journalism professors and former CBC managers, officials broke the law by disclosing his name,then The project "found that federal departments, the problem resides with the corporation's "prodded the department to develop guidelines to school boards, public health agencies, municipal television service, which is still struggling for an create the impression that the program contained governments,and police forces complied with less identity. They view the lockout as "a wake-up call appropriate controls against political interference than two-thirds of requests for basic information and a signal to those inside and outside the on spending." Then, the kicker: "The guidelines about their operations.