3. What CanWest Global says

CanWest Global's defence of its actions falls broadly into four categories. It claims the right as proprietor of its newspapers to set the editorial line. It says it is encouraging rather than stifling opposing views. It says the contentious columns were edited or terminated for good reason, including journalistic deficiencies. And it says it was within its rights to discipline protesting employees.

Owners' rights

None of CanWest Global's critics have stated in so many words that owners should not be allowed to contribute material to their own media. Many have explicitly acknowledged this prerogative. Yet CanWest executives return to this theme repeatedly, and somewhat defensively. An example is David Asper's Oakville speech:

If you believe the nonsense uttered by our competitors, you must believe that we, the proprietors, have no business expressing a view in a newspaper …. They would have you believe that owners should either never contribute material, or that if they do, it should be done under a cloak of secrecy with a nudge-nudge to our editors. (25)

Another thread running through CanWest statements is the suggestion that the controversy is a struggle between plucky mavericks in Western Canada and a threatened Central Canadian media establishment. Gazette editor Peter Stockland wrote that the Aspers' real transgression was "being outsiders doing things differently than they've always been done in the cozy confines of Canada's media compact." (26) (The fact that two of the most serious challenges to the CanWest policy have arisen in Halifax and Regina would seem to undercut this argument.) Stockland also criticized media coverage of the controversy:

Thoughtful, legitimate concerns that were raised in December, including points made by staff and former editors at The Gazette, were drowned out by ear-splitting whoop-whoop about imaginary threats to the very existence of journalism. (27)

But in fact, the three former Gazette editors who came out publicly against the CanWest policy in the early days of the controversy were in line with other critics. They wrote:

The imposition of a single corporate editorial line in a majority of Canada's metropolitan newspapers can only serve to curtail the vigorous public debate on which democracy depends. It is a potentially dangerous distortion of freedom of the press. (28)

The suggestion that basic freedoms are at stake has been challenged by CanWest Global, which has challenged the depiction of its actions as censorship. It defines freedom of the press as "the freedom of media and individuals from government intrusion." (29) In an interview with CJFE, Murdoch Davis vigorously denied that anyone's freedom of expression has been compromised over the chain-editorials affair.

I don't think that the principle of free speech is impeded when an individual general-assignment employee in a newsroom is told 'hey buddy, it's not your responsibility to go out to competing media and go out to the public and tell them about how this newspaper is editing copy.' (30)

Nevertheless, CJFE's experience in defending freedom of expression shows that it can be violated, threatened or brought into disrepute not only by governments but also by private individuals and institutions - for example, by threatening to inflict economic hardship on people exercising the right to peaceful dissent.

Local and dissenting voices

A key point at issue is the extent to which local voices will be able to develop in the Southam group. On this point CanWest chairman Israel Asper seemed clear when he spoke to the company's annual meeting at the end of January:

We firmly believe that on some major issues our readers deserve and will welcome a national point of view and not just merely a local or parochial perspective. We do this because as publisher-in-chief we are responsible for every single word which appears in the newspapers we own and therefore we want to ensure that on national and international key issues, from time to time, and only those which are important, we should have one official, not 14 official, editorial positions.' (31)

Larry Smith, the new publisher of The Gazette, suggested in January that the aim was to develop a consensus on six to eight issues. (32) But Southam News editor-in-chief Murdoch Davis left little doubt that local editors would be on a short leash:

We do not want to have our newspapers contradicting ourselves, within that small part of the page, on the core positions that are taken. (33)

A Southam editorial said:

Local editorials will expand on the topics addressed and add regional perspectives. Editors, editorial writers and others can express differing views in signed pieces. (34)

Davis told CJFE the chain not only welcomes opposing points of view but sometimes commissions them from outside writers, as well as allowing individual member papers to commission their own dissenting pieces. He cited several examples. He agreed that the initiative was a "work in progress" and said local editors might be able to petition headquarters to change its stand if circumstances changed. He offered this view of the way the system would work:

Let's take water exports. We published the view that the notion of exporting water either between provinces or between countries should not necessarily be verboten and people should open their minds to it and it might actually be something that's in the interests of the country. So we wouldn't have the Ottawa Citizen publishing an editorial the following week saying no, ban all water exports. That doesn't mean that if there's a specific proposal in the Ottawa Valley they can't address it, or turn around later and say, ban this particular water export or that one over there. (35)

The columns

Israel Asper, echoing David Asper's "anathema" comment, told a television interviewer: "Does that mean we will hold off dissent? Absolutely not. Does that mean our own writers can't say you're crazy, in print? Absolutely, yes they can." (36)

This appears to be in conflict with the experience of columnists who attempted to say things much milder than "you're crazy" in print and were not allowed to do so. Without naming writers, the Southam editorial said the spiked columns were

rejected because they falsely or even maliciously portrayed the initiative, or the owners and senior managers, or got other facts wrong. It is appropriate to withhold articles that don't meet journalistic standards. Those were reasonable decisions by the editors involved, nothing more. (37)

This is at odds with published accounts of the circumstances surrounding the spiking of columns by Kimber, Domet and Cuthand, and the termination of Worthington's column at the Windsor Star.

Davis, in a 2,300-word opinion piece, said Worthington and Kimber had got "key facts wrong" in writing about the chain-editorial issue but did not say what they were. (38) Speaking with CJFE, he said Kimber erred in saying the chain-editorials initiative would hamper columnists' freedom of opinion, whereas in fact it constrains only local editorial boards, and in not checking this fact with anyone from CanWest Global. (39)

Davis also told CJFE he believed Kimber knew the column would be spiked. "My own view is that Kimber wrote the column intending to provoke exactly what happened," he said. "He wasn't really interested in committing journalism. He was interested in making some kind of a statement." Davis suggested that had Kimber agreed to submit a revised or different column, "he could be happily continuing to contribute to that newspaper today, and he could write a column every week disagreeing with the national editorial if he wanted to do that. He made the choice to withdraw." (40)

Davis said he was not involved in the decision to terminate Worthington's column, but agreed that it could have been made after consultation with headquarters. He said Worthington had demonstrated an "astonishing bias" against CanWest Global and its proprietors and "an inability to bother doing his research." He acknowledged that the decision might appear arbitrary. "It might be bad management, it might be unfair … but it's not censorship." In general, he said, "one of the things that we are not going to do is employ people who shit all over the company and the managers without even bothering to pick up the phone and check their facts." Again, this appears to be at variance with Israel Asper's assurance that "our own writers [can] say 'you're crazy' in print." (41)

Davis said the Cuthand column was spiked in Regina because it "didn't meet standards of accuracy, and fair comment must be based on facts, so it didn't run." (42) He told CJFE he understood that local editors had tried unsuccessfully to reach Cuthand to discuss the issues of fact and interpretation before spiking the column. (43)

The employees

According to Davis, some disciplinary measures at The Gazette and The LeaderPost were handed out for alleged misconduct involving the provision of draft versions of contentious articles to competing media. Others appear to have been imposed simply for speaking out, or for participating in organized byline withdrawals. Davis suggested the company would apply a test of truthfulness to public statements by its employees, and impose discipline in the case of those it maintains are false. (44)

"When the first editorial went out, some employees at The Gazette reacted as if we were deliberately printing lies," Davis wrote. He added that they "faxed the company's material to competing media." He further asked: "Does any reasonable person really think being a journalist trumps the normal obligations that come with being an employee?" (45) (The answer to this is "no." But it is also true that journalists occupy an unusual position with respect to their employers and the public which makes discipline inappropriate as punishment for initiating public discussion of journalistic issues.)

In connection with the Regina debacle, Davis suggested that LeaderPost editors assigned coverage of the Siddiqui speech not on its merits as a news story but because they wanted to bend over backwards to give the appearance of fairness in covering the CanWest Global affair. He described the disagreement over the rewriting of Michelle Lang's story as

a debate on the head of a pin about whether editing the lead or changing this word or that word amounts to censorship … Maybe it was bad editing. Maybe it was a stupid decision. Maybe it was a stupid decision to run the story. The point is, it is not censorship.

Davis said CanWest Global does not propose to ban employees from speaking publicly about the practice of journalism. But when asked whether the Regina employees had been disciplined for talking about the case, he replied: "They haven't been disciplined just for speaking about it, but they'll be disciplined if they speak about it falsely, right?" He later added:

There is a difference between having a discussion about the truth and the legitimate aspects of a journalistic initiative that are worth discussing, and going out and either knowingly maliciously portraying it falsely or just stupidly portraying it falsely. Either one is an employment offence, and the fact that it happens to be a journalist doing it is not a whole lot different than if it's an IBM employee doing it.

Asked who would decide whether an employee had committed such an offence, he replied: "Well, their local editor, their local manager, their local publisher." If they disagreed, he said, they could launch a union grievance or, in a non-union shop, take the employer to court.

Davis further suggested there is a hierarchy of legitimacy among CanWest Global employees when it comes to discussing the issue in public.

There are appropriate people to have the transparent and open debate about what Southam is doing with its newspapers. Me or Don Babick or the individual editors or publishers. If the local CBC wants to call up those individuals and have a debate I'm sure they would have it. But that responsibility to have an open debate about what the company's initiatives are does not rest with every general-assignment reporter in one of the newsrooms, to say, 'I want to come forward and say you guys are running the company in a stupid way.'

He acknowledged that LeaderPost and Gazette employees who dissent from the company's views have not had access to op-ed pages or letters columns to state their views.

An employee who has a disagreement with a decision of management as to how they're going to run the newspapers, I don't think has a right of access to the pages of the newspaper to say 'well, this isn't how I would run it if I was in charge.'

He later appeared to qualify that statement, suggesting that the Gazette dissenters might have been offered space if they had requested it.

I'm not suggesting there are not some legitimate concerns. This is a new initiative, people are not sure how it's going to work … Had they said hmm, let's ask some questions first, let's do some research, let's find out what's going on - had they picked up the phone and called me, or had they - you know, anything, then it might well have developed in a way that they might have had access to the pages to publish their view .… But they didn't. They immediately acted in a way that was confrontational, factually inaccurate, taking off a so-called open letter and publishing it in competing media. Once you draw the lines that way, it's pretty tough to back up and say 'OK, here's a 1,000-word space in the paper, fill your boots.' (46)

In any case, four months into the controversy -- a significant news story by any yardstick -- no comprehensive news story or news analysis of it has appeared in The Gazette or The LeaderPost. Neither has the Gazette employees' open letter, or any portion of it. Neither has a commentary by a Gazette or LeaderPost employee opposed to the initiative -- although CanWest Global papers have printed extensive defences of their actions by their own executives. The only major piece by a CanWest employee critical of the initiative was a reasonably tough column by Charles Gordon of The [Ottawa] Citizen, who reminded readers that under previous owners the Southam papers were proud of their editorial independence. This piece also ran in The Gazette, and is very much an exception to the norm, which is that dissenting employees' voices are not heard in CanWest Global papers. (47)

Asked about the ban on byline withdrawals, Davis acknowledged that it "might look a little heavy-handed." But he maintained that the right to withhold a byline, widely acknowledged in Canadian journalism, is designed primarily to be exercised by individual writers who are unhappy about editorial changes to their copy. Management at The Gazette was wrong to allow the two-day collective byline withdrawal, Davis said. And he suggested that the use of the tactic at The LeaderPost was a deliberate attempt to "take action to make sure that competitors embarrass" CanWest Global.

If it was a case where, let's say, the reporters at the Victoria Times-Colonist wanted to send a signal to the local employer or even the national employer, that would be one thing. But if what is done is a way to provoke yet another goddamn story in The Globe and Mail, I'm sorry, I think we're perfectly legitimate to assert management authority to say, you know, enough of this. (48)