Supreme Court Sharpens Libel Focus
December 22nd, 2009
Honest journalists and publishers will welcome today’s Supreme Court of Canada ruling on libel, based as it is on our profession’s touchstone principles of responsible journalism.
Conversely, the Court’s sharper focus on the steps taken by journalists to verify the information presented in their stories spells trouble for writers who breach the profession’s basic rules – and their employers’ own standards of policy and practice.
Read More...Alberta’s Red Blanket Leadership Crisis
December 11th, 2009
When a government goes into cardiac arrest, a clever leader applies serious CPR, and fast. But last week, Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach responded to the many emergencies afflicting his flat-lining administration by downing a couple of aspirin.
The premier blamed his government’s collapse in performance and public approval on a nagging headache: Albertans just don’t understand him. The prescription was obvious. The premier’s director of communications had to go.
With that one, hapless aide excised, the patient was discharged and the province lurched towards the next crisis.
As ever, Stelmach and his advisors are dodging the hard facts, the realities that speak to a pronounced case of managerial incompetence. Little details, like the loss of Alberta’s competitive edge in a tsunami of red ink and fiscal chaos. Rising unemployment, a health care system headed for bankruptcy — and the refusal, by government, to be accountable for these and other failures.
But there’s a more basic dysfunction driving the Progressive Conservatives’ decline, one that is glaringly obvious to any of us who’ve worked within the machine.
It’s known, rather misleadingly, by a single word: patronage.
Read More...A Government Failing And Falling
October 22nd, 2009
You didn’t need to be a fortune teller to predict Ed Stelmach’s trajectory as premier of Alberta. A few months working with Ed, his staff and key cabinet colleagues heralded the direction the Stelmach government has taken: downward, to a public disapproval rating estimated at more than 60%.
One phone-in poll this week suggests that 78% of Calgarians believe the premier will lose his Progressive Conservative Party’s leadership review in just over two weeks’ time.
Confronted with all of this, Ed told CTV Calgary’s Barb Higgins that he has to do a better job communicating with Calgarians. “We have a lot of work to do, in getting the message out…”
He still doesn’t get it. In public service, the top priority is to listen.
As one of Ed’s candidates in the 2008 Alberta election, I discovered that the premier and his people view communications as a one-way street. When I had the impertinence to suggest that voters, educators and business leaders deserved a turn at the wheel, the party’s thought-police loomed large in the rear view.
Read More...The Scotiabank Herald: The Horror?
October 10th, 2009
It’s a spectre that should, by rights, send a chill down the spine of every red-blooded journalist - and citizen, for that matter.
Control of Canada’s leading daily newspapers, titles like the Ottawa Citizen, Vancouver Province, Calgary Herald and Montreal Gazette, has reportedly fallen into the hands of … a bank.
Yes, a bank, Scotiabank by name, formerly the Bank of Nova Scotia, trailed by a clutch of creditors of the crumbling Canwest Global media empire.
So is it curtains? The end of giving our fedoras a rakish tilt and murmuring “Honey, get me rewrite” down the phone line? What will it be now for the staffers of Canwest’s print newsrooms across the country? Clicking a mouse on “Powerchequing”, then linking to “Gain Plan” with “Paperless Recordkeeping” and the “Private Client Group?”
And what about the people of Canada, the citizens whose last, best defence against untrustworthy government, unscrupulous tycoons - and yes, banks - is the fourth estate, a free press? In this context, Canwest’s collapse constitutes one of the gravest threats to our country’s political culture since big-dollar patronage placed a chokehold on our ruling party machines.
But to the men and women who’ve toiled loyally for Canwest, and for the legion of retirees and ‘rightsized’ former employees who rely on the group’s pensions, a much more basic set of threats looms up from the ashes of the House of Asper.
Read More...Canwest Witnesses Go Under Oath
September 9th, 2009
Pursuing the managements of giant media conglomerates through the courts is a costly, time-consuming venture.
But eventually the long, steady climb up the slopes of procedure and the crags of delay ushers the parties onto the sunny plateau known as examinations for discovery. At last it’s time to look at the facts of the case in the full light of day.
Witnesses are sworn in and questions are put to them by opposing counsel. A court reporter notes every word for the record.
On July 14th, examinations for discovery began in Kent vs. Don Martin, Canwest Publishing, the National Post, the Calgary Herald and related companies.
I brought this lawsuit last year in response to the attack article published Feb. 12, 2008 on the nationalpost.com website and the following day in the print editions of the National Post and the Calgary Herald (please see The Page At Issue pdf at the top right of our homepage) and because both the Post and Herald refused to publish my response.
Read More...Awakening To Alberta’s Lost Advantage
March 3rd, 2009
One year ago, we Albertans set a new record. Ominously, it had nothing to do with our province’s economic growth, which we had come to take for granted. This benchmark was about who we are as citizens, and how we see ourselves within our communities, our culture and our economy.
Last March 3rd, only 40.6% of eligible voters cast ballots in the Alberta general election, Canada’s lowest-ever turnout for a provincial vote. Ed Stelmach’s Progressive Conservatives won an increased majority, but the victory was warped by indifference: only 23% of the electorate had voted PC.
This was embarrassing, to be sure, but few Albertans expected grave economic consequences. Many followed the lead of Premier Stelmach and his cabinet, shrugging off the gloomy statistics as evidence that Albertans are resigned to one-party dominance.
But this year, the headlines aren’t as easy to shrug off. It turns out more than just some vague notion of civic duty was on the line last year. Our families’ jobs, our solvency - our entire economy was at stake.
Read More...