CKNW Editorial
for April 24, 2001

I want to talk a bit more about the leaders’ debate we will be hosting about a week before the election. The station decided – and I concurred – that it would be Mr Dosanjh and Mr Campbell only. For this decision I have taken considerable flak.

Much – in fact nearly all – of the flak has come from minority party leaders like Mr Delaney or their supporters. This I understand. To get as large an audience as this one is very helpful whether you’re selling soap suds or political soft soap. One letter made the argument that it wasn’t fair because if I allowed – in this case the Unity Party – to be part of the debate people would get to know them much better.

Let me make a couple of comments. It is not obligatory on me that I give equal time to all, but to be fair. This is a very difficult thing to measure with any precision but I suggest that having the leaders of the Green Party, the Unity Party (who have both been on the show fairly recently) and the Marijuana Party on tomorrow is more than fair.

Debates between two people are hard enough to manage and I have a duty to the listeners to put on a show that gives both the main contenders a chance to put their case and have it tested. Most of us have seen or listened to the multi person debate and know how it often becomes a ganging up of all the underdogs on the front runner. I carry no particular brief for front runners but this sort of result scarcely gets all the issues aired. Minor parties have the luxury to say what they want and try to land a lucky punch as Gordon Wilson did in 1991. That simply is not what I want to accomplish.

I believe the plan we propose is fair to all and more than that, is good programming.

On another topic I was as shocked as many of you were at the gutting of the North Shore News by David Asper, the new owner. Clearly this was done because Mr Asper wants a different slant to be taken on public affairs. And this raises a question that free peoples have been agonizing over for years – how do you get fairness in the media?

In theory it comes from competition, but since the media is now so narrowly held, that notion seems a tad outdated.

I think we must start by asking if owners do slant news so as to suit their own political views.

I think the answer is yes and no. There is no doubt that there is interference from time to time. The same David Asper, a few weeks ago, sent a letter to all his Southam papers including the 50% owned National Post, making the case that they had been treating Jean Chretien badly and insisting that each paper print his letter on the op-ed page. In the other side of the ledger, Andrew Coyne, writing in the same National Post the next day, excoriated Mr Asper for his interference. But then we must ask, is Mr Coyne permitted to get away with this because Conrad Black still has an interest and runs the Post? Did other columnists in other Southam papers take a kick at Mr Asper and if not, why not?

Publishers will often bristle at the suggestion that they tamper with columnists. But they do, by who they will print and who they will not. Moreover, as to editorial policy a paper’s editor is entitled to say what he pleases except he knows that if he displeases the boss, he’s out of there … pronto. Accordingly the denial of owner influence may technically be correct – as in Bill Clinton saying I did not have sex with that woman – but is factually barnyard droppings.

I can speak from considerable experience on the radio side. I have never been interfered with except once about the Vancouver Canucks when I was ordered to apologize to Brian Burke. I wouldn’t and didn’t and that ended the matter.

But, it might be – indeed is – argued that CKNW gets its political message out by selecting as broadcasters those who have appropriate political views. Perhaps. All I can say is that when Bill Vander Zalm was the Premier one of the Vice Presidents of CKNW was a staunch Socred and most certainly none of the executive and management supported the NDP. The station showed its bias by giving then Premier Vander Zalm his own show but they never said boo to me.

But I don’t think any of what I just said settles anything. In a free market system a person can own media outlets. If he does, subject to the general law of the land, he can do as he pleases. Since most owners are capitalists, their views and the views of those they hire will be favoured.

Having said that, what to do?

I can’t imagine anyone wants the government involved. They already have a national radio and television company and will anyone deny that the CBC goes hard on the opposition and very gently indeed on the government? Would anyone opt for what would be government censorship as the answer to the concentration of media ownership?

Certainly Press Councils don’t work. Just as bad as having the government being the judge of owners fairness is to have the owners make that decision.

I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t believe that columnists and editorialists have all that much sway. We all tend to listen and pay attention to opinions we agree with anyway. The greater danger is in the handling of news – not just how it is presented but when and where. There has been a tendency over the past couple of decades to mix editorial comment in with new reporting and that is a very bad thing.

Though the notion is usually pooh poohed, perhaps its time to have another Royal Commission. The Kent Commission was 25 years or more ago and maybe it would do us all good to have a full and open look at the media, determine what if any problems there are … and what, if anything, we can and should do about them.