Media Updates

CanWest Global Communications Corporation and the Question of Editorial Freedom and Integrity

By Leslie Regan Shade
October 21 2005

In December 2001, Halifax Daily News columnist Stephen Kimber resigned in protest after his opinion piece criticizing his newspaper’s owner and its recent editorial policy was pulled. That newspaper owner was CanWest Global Communication, which announced in December that it would be running the same national editorial, issued from Winnipeg company headquarters, in all fourteen of the major city newspapers it owned. Unsigned local editorials, CanWest said, should not contradict the national editorials.

News of the Kimber incident soon began to trickle into the newsrooms of other CanWest-owned newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette, where reporters removed their names from the articles they wrote in protest, and has prompted an international debate about the concentration of media ownership in Canada, corporate censorship, and journalistic autonomy.

CanWest Global Communication owns, in addition to the fourteen major daily newspaper in Canada, one national newspaper (The National Post) and 126 other newspaper dailies and weeklies. It also owns a television network (Global Television Network), radio stations, interactive media sites (including the portal Canada.com), and media production services. In 2000, CanWest purchased from Hollinger Company The National Post and 135 other newspaper dailies for C$3.5 billion, thus consolidating themselves as one of the major media players in Canada. It now has the second-highest concentration of newspaper interests in the Western world. (Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation is highest.) CanWest is owned by the Asper family—father Izzy (now deceased) and sons David and Leonard, known to be staunch Liberal supporters and pro-Israeli.

Why is there concern over national editorials? John Miller, a professor of journalism at Ryerson University, argues that a sustainable democracy must include a free press that is host to a diversity of opinions, representative of regional sensitivities, and upholds the right to freedom of expression. Journalists at several CanWest newspapers agree with this sentiment. They set up their own Web site to express their ideas, while various other columnists have either quit the chain or revealed that some of their columns were pulled because of the views they expressed.

Critics contend that the CanWest case exemplifies the danger of such intense corporate
concentration of the media, particularly as it relates to journalistic freedom and integrity. The International Federation of Journalists (the largest journalist group, comprising 500,000 members in 106 countries) has lent support to its Canadian affiliate TNG Canada-CWA in its campaign, writing that “corporate control of editorial policy proves how dangerous concentration of ownership is to media pluralism” (IFJ, 2001). The Newspaper Guild/CWA has also called on CanWest to uphold principles of journalistic integrity through “The Public Trust,” signed by 200 delegates representing more than 36,000 newspaper and other media workers across North America:

THE PUBLIC TRUST
An informed citizenry is the cornerstone of a democratic society. Recognizing this, the 2002 Sector Conference of The Newspaper Guild-CWA calls on CanWest Global Communications Corp., the largest player in the Canadian media industry, to formally and fully commit itself to the following principles:

* That each newspaper within its chain of holdings retain full autonomy in the choice and formulation of its editorial opinions, specifically those expressed on its editorial pages;

* That columnists at all newspapers within that chain retain the freedom to express their opinions fully and without prior restraint, especially by CanWest Global's corporate headquarters. Editing of columns should take place within the newspaper of origin, and be limited to issues of factual accuracy, grammar and style—not the opinions that a columnist puts forward;

* That the appropriate editors at each newspaper rely on their news judgment in making story and photo assignments, story and photo selections, and relative placement of layout elements, not on the dictates of CanWest Global;

* That the primary and overriding responsibility of any journalist, and of any journalistic enterprise, is to the reader, listener or viewer. All have a right to full and accurate reporting of news within their community, country and world and to a range of viewpoints that will stimulate—not stifle—the healthy debate that is the foundation of democratic choice.

The rigorous adherence to these principles by both journalists and management is not only a public trust, but a precondition for the credibility that is any media outlet's core asset and the only reliable foundation for its financial success.

For its part, CanWest argued that its promotion of national editorials was meant only to spark national debates on salient issues, and that the editorials “in no way limit others from expressing contrary views in our papers” (Shecter, 2002). CanWest has since revamped its policy and announced that it will print only one nationally written editorial per week (Damsell, 2002). And, in a submission in Winnipeg to a House of Commons standing committee on Canadian Heritage, which conducted a hearing on broadcasting policy, Leonard Asper, then president and CEO, argued that media concentration was not an issue: “Canadian media are more fragmented and less concentrated than ever before … I submit that people who believe otherwise are not looking at the facts and they also probably believe Elvis is still alive” (quoted in Foss, 2002).

References and other resources
CanWest Global Communication Corporation

Damsell, Keith. “CanWest Scales Back Policy.” The Globe and Mail (February 12, 2002): p. B8.

Foss, Krista. “CanWest Presses Ottawa on Media Legislation.” The Globe and Mail (March 2, 2002): p. B4.

International Federation of Journalists. “Corporate Control of Editorial Policy in Canada
Threatens Press Freedom Says IFJ” [press release], December 20, 2001.

Lill, Wendy. “Media Chaos Reigns in Canada.” Commentary in Campaign for Press and
Broadcasting Freedom, December 20, 2001.

Miller, John. “Do Editorials Matter?” Straight Goods (February 17, 2002).

Montreal Newspaper Guild. Links for CanWest Controversy

Newspaper Guild of Canada. “The Newspaper Guild Calls on CanWest Global to Change
Policies in Name of Public Trust” [press release], February 20, 2002. URL:
http://www.montrealnewspaperguild.com/News/pr-feb202002.htm

Shade, Leslie Regan. Aspergate: Concentration, Convergence and Censorship in Canadian Media, pp. 101-116 in Converging Media Diverging Politics: A Political Economy of News in the United States and Canada, edited David Skinner, James Compton and Mike Gasher, 2005. (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books).

Shecter, Barbara. “Editorial Policy ‘Mischaracterized.’” The National Post Online (January 31, 2002).