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Canada Guild Fights Censorship, Discipline
Four reporters at Canada’s Regina Leader Post were suspended and six others received letters of reprimand in early March after they withheld their bylines on stories in a protest over the ethics of an editing decision.
The workers are members of the Saskatchewan Media Guild, Local 30199, part of The Newspaper Guild of Canada/CWA, which is helping the local fight the disciplinary actions, including the loss of five days’ pay for the suspended reporters — punishment for speaking to the media about the protest.
In a meeting with union officials, CanWest, the paper’s corporate owner, refused to withdraw the discipline. Both sides agreed to arbitration, but a date hadn’t been set as the CWA News went to press.
The protest is the second one recently for CanWest involving bylines. In December, reporters at CanWest’s Montreal Gazette withdrew their bylines and spoke out against the company’s policy of using identical editorials in the chain’s newspapers throughout Canada.
After several days, the reporters were muzzled by a company-imposed gag order that has since been extended to all reporters in the chain, including CanWest Global TV operations.
Dan Zeidler, a national representative of TNG Canada/CWA, said “reporters have the right to withhold bylines and, we believe, a moral responsibility to tell the public about censorship issues at their paper.”
The nationwide gag order shows “how far this company is willing to go to intimidate all their employees into silence,” he said. “The company seems to have accomplished one thing: to create a chill and uncertainty in every CanWest newsroom in the country.”
The Regina incident involved the company’s decision to rewrite a story on a speech to University of Regina journalism students by a Toronto Star editorial writer, who spoke about the state of journalism in Canada. He addressed the influence of the family that controls CanWest, the owner of 14 major newspapers in Canada, 120 community papers and the Global Television network.
The original story quoted speaker Haroon Saddiqui as saying “CanWest Global performed ‘chilling’ acts of censorship when it refused to publish several columns containing viewpoints other than those held by the Media Empire.” Management changed the paragraph to read: “A Toronto Star columnist says it’s OK for CanWest Global to publish its owners’ views, as long as the company is prepared to give equal play to opposing opinions.”
Zeidler said reporters felt they had to take a stand for integrity. “Any paper that maintains the principle of free speech must not stifle critical or diverse opinion and must not alter the record of the day to cast itself in a better light,” he said.
The workers are members of the Saskatchewan Media Guild, Local 30199, part of The Newspaper Guild of Canada/CWA, which is helping the local fight the disciplinary actions, including the loss of five days’ pay for the suspended reporters — punishment for speaking to the media about the protest.
In a meeting with union officials, CanWest, the paper’s corporate owner, refused to withdraw the discipline. Both sides agreed to arbitration, but a date hadn’t been set as the CWA News went to press.
The protest is the second one recently for CanWest involving bylines. In December, reporters at CanWest’s Montreal Gazette withdrew their bylines and spoke out against the company’s policy of using identical editorials in the chain’s newspapers throughout Canada.
After several days, the reporters were muzzled by a company-imposed gag order that has since been extended to all reporters in the chain, including CanWest Global TV operations.
Dan Zeidler, a national representative of TNG Canada/CWA, said “reporters have the right to withhold bylines and, we believe, a moral responsibility to tell the public about censorship issues at their paper.”
The nationwide gag order shows “how far this company is willing to go to intimidate all their employees into silence,” he said. “The company seems to have accomplished one thing: to create a chill and uncertainty in every CanWest newsroom in the country.”
The Regina incident involved the company’s decision to rewrite a story on a speech to University of Regina journalism students by a Toronto Star editorial writer, who spoke about the state of journalism in Canada. He addressed the influence of the family that controls CanWest, the owner of 14 major newspapers in Canada, 120 community papers and the Global Television network.
The original story quoted speaker Haroon Saddiqui as saying “CanWest Global performed ‘chilling’ acts of censorship when it refused to publish several columns containing viewpoints other than those held by the Media Empire.” Management changed the paragraph to read: “A Toronto Star columnist says it’s OK for CanWest Global to publish its owners’ views, as long as the company is prepared to give equal play to opposing opinions.”
Zeidler said reporters felt they had to take a stand for integrity. “Any paper that maintains the principle of free speech must not stifle critical or diverse opinion and must not alter the record of the day to cast itself in a better light,” he said.