Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Transport and Communications
Issue 17 - Evidence - Morning meeting
DIEPPE, Thursday, April 21, 2005
The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications met this day at 8:53 a.m. to examine the current state of Canadian media industries; emerging trends and developments in these industries; the media's role, rights and responsibilities in Canadian society; and current and appropriate future policies relating thereto.
Senator Joan Fraser (Chairman) in the Chair.
[Translation]
The Chairman: Honourable senators, it is a pleasure for me to welcome you to this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications here in Moncton, or more precisely in Dieppe, New Brunswick.
We are pursuing our study of the news media and of the appropriate role of public policy in helping to ensure that the Canadian news media remain healthy, independent, and diverse, in light of the tremendous changes that have occurred in recent years, notably globalization, technological change, convergence, and increased concentration of ownership.
[English]
This morning, we are pleased to begin by welcoming Professor Erin Steuter, who is with the Department of Sociology at Mount Allison University in Sackville.
Thank you for joining us, Dr. Steuter. I understand you have been told about the way we generally go. In fact, I gather you know almost as much about this committee as we do. We ask you to begin with an opening statement of about 10 minutes, and then we will ask you some questions.
The floor is yours.
Ms. Erin Steuter, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Mount Allison University, as an individual: Living in New Brunswick where all the English daily papers are owned by one company means there is very little variety in the type of news that is available to New Brunswick readers. We face classic problems of monopoly media ownership in which homogeneity and a narrow range of opinion are common features of the news media.
For example, all three New Brunswick daily papers recently ran editorials praising the appointment of former New Brunswick Premier Frank McKenna's ambassadorship to the United States. While this editorial position may well reflect the view of each paper's editorial team, after 10 years as the leader of a provincial Liberal party that was soundly rejected at the polls at the end of his term, it is likely that many New Brunswickers share a different view. The homogeneity of the editorial position of the three papers meant that the people lost out on the ability to hear any other perspective on this issue.
Living in New Brunswick, where all the English language daily papers are owned by a single large capitalist enterprise means that the voice of the corporate world speaks loudly, and the coverage of labour focuses on confrontational and controversial events, such as strikes, in which labour is often the scapegoat.
For example, this month all three papers ran editorials critical of the New Brunswick teachers in their contract negotiations with the government. Phrases such as ``out of touch with reality,'' ``outrageously high salary increases,'' ``drag students into the dispute,'' and ``distasteful game of chess'' were peppered throughout the editorials revealing a pattern of Irving coverage of labour issues that typically portrays labour as the active and disruptive party.
However, living in New Brunswick, where all the English language daily papers are owned by the most powerful economic entity in the province, means something else entirely. The Irving empire, which includes over 300 companies, has an estimated net worth of approximately $4 billion, and employs 8 per cent of the New Brunswick labour force in operations that span forestry, transportation, and construction, is not exposed to investigative journalistic inquiry in the province's daily papers. Instead, critical observers of the media can easily identify the self-serving nature of the Irving's media coverage on any issue that concerns themselves.
For example, all three Irving papers ran similar news headlines that defended their bosses from accusations of undue influence when it was revealed that they had given government ministers free plane trips and fishing junkets. The national media reported on the case of the then federal industry minister, Allan Rock, who made highly favourable policy decisions affecting the Irving empire after he went on a fishing trip hosted by the Irvings. The national newspaper headlines read: ``Rock faces newconflict-of-interest questions'' in The Globe and Mail; ``Rock disregarded ethics ruling to advance Irvings' cause''; in the National Post; and ``New questions arise over Rock, Irvings,'' in The Toronto Star. However, a review of the headlines from the New Brunswick papers reads: ``Rock defends Irving trip''; ``Audit of Irving deal shows no evidence of conflict''; and ``No Conflict in Fishing Trip.'' Similarly, when it became apparent that our local MP, Claudette Bradshaw, had also benefited from the Irving's trip, the Irving papers covered the story with the headline, ``Bradshaw free flight scandal overblown.''
The adage that you do not bite the hand that feeds you means the readers of the New Brunswick papers are being given a very different spin on news than readers in the rest of the country. In this case, the story attracted enough national media attention that local people had access to alternative perspectives by examining the national papers. However, due to the for-profit orientation of the media industry, which emphasizes wire service filler over investigative local news coverage, it is increasingly common for New Brunswick news issues to be neglected by the national news media. When our own provincial papers are owned by the local mega-corporation it leaves us with limited options to gain another perspective.
For example, Irving Oil recently negotiated a tax rate fortheir local liquefied natural gas terminal that gave the company a 25-year cap on the tax liability of the land, which many observers say amounts to only 10 per cent of the estimated value. The story was largely ignored outside the province, though some newspapers were running headlines that stated: ``Decision to give N.B. gas plant a tax break could be based on wrong info''; and ``Hundreds protest tax breaks for Irving.'' However, the Irving-owned papers were lecturing their readers in editorials and news stories on the benefits of the deal and warning of the dire consequences that would result if the deal was rescinded. Headlines in the Irving papers included: ``Benefits justify using tax cap''; ``Scrapping deal would send bad message: Irving rep''; ``Business leaders call deal a `huge opportunity'''; ``Business owner fears impact if tax concession is rescinded.''
The decline in investigative reporting of local and regional issues by the country's national papers has also resulted in a situation where the Irving-owned media can at times act as agenda setters for the rest of the media. In these cases, theIrving-owned media's version of certain events is reproduced uncritically in the national media without reference to the vested interest that the Irvings have on a particular issue.
For example, when the 27-month strike at Irving Oil concluded in 1996 with a humiliating defeat for the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, the company required a process of ideological re-education, which was essentially a means for the company to control the hearts and minds of its now broken labour force. Returning workers at the refinery said that in reality the reorientation program was a combination ``bitterness test'' and ``attitude alteration'' exercise. Labour observers noted at the time that the Irvings were blacklisting the striking workers, and the back-to-work protocol was identified as a ``brainwashing'' exercise. The strike at the refinery was identified as a significant sign of the changing labour relations climate in North America and globally. The strike began as a result of Irving Oil Ltd.'s efforts to mimic the flexibility and restructuring of labour seen in the Southern U.S. and elsewhere as part of the changing face of global commerce. Its conclusion was seen as an example of rollback, whereby one scheme in social, political, and economic progress was being rolled back as economic instability and recession allowed for a climate in which corporate and governmental power could be more directly exercised.
Not surprisingly, the words ``brainwashing'' and ``blacklisting'' of strikers never appeared in the Irving paper's coverage of the strike. Instead, the New Brunswick papers published the names of the 37 striking workers who were fired by the company under a headline, ``Not welcome at the Refinery.'' The reorientation was described as a ``back-to- work program'' that was a ``tough transition'' for men who ``failed'' and were ``told to go home.''
It is interesting to note that the Irving's coverage of the issue was paralleled in the only national newspaper at the time, The Globe and Mail. The Globe and Mail allowed the Irving-owned media to set the agenda on the tone and coverage of the strike and its unorthodox back-to-work protocol, and presented virtually identical coverage to the national audience. It is also interesting to note that The Globe and Mail even avoided covering traditionally newsworthy elements to the story when they followed the Irving's lead, and avoided covering New Brunswick NDP leader Elizabeth Weir's attention-getting press conference, in which she suggested that the New Brunswick government should call in the Irving companies' loans if they did not agree to settle the strike. Thus, when the national news media fall into line with the Irving-owned media's account of their own controversies, no one is provided with the range of opinion and perspective that is the heart of informative and independent journalism in a democratic society.
Research on the media coverage of their own companies also reveals that the papers routinely publish their own press releases as news stories. For example, the Saint John Telegraph-Journal prints an article entitled ``Refinery Hires 1,000 for Maintenance Project,'' which is almost identical to the Irving Oil press release on that topic entitled, ``1,000 Tradespeople `Turnaround' Saint John Refinery.''
The owners of the Irving papers have also been known to interfere actively in the paper's editorial policy. The history of the Irving's ownership of the media is peppered with stories of journalists forbidden to name the Irvings as the ones responsible for oil spills, of Irving executives prohibited from speaking to the press, and a case where the editor of the Saint John paper was denied permission to report that an Irving-owned tugboat had run aground for fear that it would result in an insurance hike for the company. When Neil Reynolds left the Telegraph-Journal in 1995, after a stormy reign as editor, he told reporters that the paper's owner, J.K. Irving, called him everyday telling him what he liked, and did not like in the paper.
An incident during the 1997 federal election provides some insight into consequences of unsanctioned editorial action at an Irving-owned paper. In the weeks before the June 1997 federal election, the federal Liberal Party in New Brunswick was in electoral trouble. The province, like the region, was turning against the Chrétien Liberals. A few days before the vote, the Telegraph Journal took an editorial position in favour of Jean Charest's Progressive Conservatives. J.K. Irving, the oldest of the three Irving brothers, responded by writing a letter published on the front page on election day repudiating the editorial and arguing instead that Canada needed another majority government, and that the Liberals had done a good job and deserved another term. The Irvings, starting with their father, K.C., tended to support the Liberals, and J.K.'s son-in-law, Paul Zed, who is the MP for Fundy-Royal, was one of the Liberal incumbents who would go down to defeat later that day despite J.K.'s efforts. This case shows that when the paper's editors took a position in opposition to that of their employers, they were publicly dressed down.
Finally, the Irvings' coverage of their own empire, is particularly marked by the strategy of defeatism, where those who oppose the company are routinely portrayed as naive, foolish, and irrational in their futile efforts to challenge the Irvings. For example, coverage of the closure of the Irving-owned Saint John shipyard, and the decertification of five unions, reveals examples of this classic response.
The Saint John Telegraph-Journal's news coverage and editorial on the story was filled with phrases such as ``end of an era,'' ``stalemate,'' ``spin their wheels'' and ``going nowhere fast.'' The media stated that the Irvings' compensation package to the union ``isn't going to get any better,'' and ``like it or not, we believe they hold all the cards.''
A consequence of this discourse of defeatism is that the public, to quote Hemant Shah in Journalism in the Age of Mass Media Globalization:
...may begin to feel increasingly alienated and disconnected from the civic life of their communities. They may develop a sense that they are without relevant, actionable information and, therefore, powerless to control the course of their own lives.
In conclusion, monopoly media in New Brunswick has resulted in a situation where we are left with generic news content in which contextualized and critical discussions of important social and economic issues that affect the lives and livelihoods of neighbours and families are addressed in a skewed and self-serving manner.
The Irvings control all the English language daily papers in the province, and now they also own the majority of the weekly community papers. This gives the giant corporation an unparalleled venue to promote its own interests as well as insulate itself from inquiries and criticism.
I am not a policy analyst, but I understand that the scholarly literature on regulation of the media indicates that Canada is lagging behind most of the developed world when it comes to regulating media ownership. European countries faced with similar challenges caused by monopoly media are setting concrete limits on media concentration so that under the law no one person or company may own or control all the media in a single area. As well, companies and individuals are restricted in the percentage of the media market they can own. In some nations, whenever a merger enables a company to control a specific press market or strengthen its already controlling position, a national government cartel office is required to intervene to prevent the merger. Currently, the European Commission is proposing legislation to restrict the reach of big media corporations and control the spread of cross-media ownership. In addition, other countries have put in place press subsidy schemes, whereby diversity of newspapers, not always supported by private corporate advertisers, are provided public financing.
Unless this committee makes decisive recommendations along these lines, it would appear that the consolidation and convergence within the monopoly media will have successfully undermined our society's formation of a free and independent press, and brought us full circle back to a system where freedom of the press is for those who own one.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: Professor, you obviously have done a very extensive and historical review of the newspapers in New Brunswick, particularly the English language dailies.
This is perhaps the most difficult hearing for me, because it is so easy to be totally objective when you are in other provinces. When you are in your own province I do not know whether I tend to be less objective, but I am very interested in what you have said.
One of the things we have heard across the country, particularly in the West, was the lack of coverage of provincial legislatures by the newspapers in any given city or region. We heard this particularly in Alberta. We heard it astoundingly strongly in Vancouver. Could you comment on the coverage of our particular New Brunswick Legislature by our daily newspapers?
Ms. Steuter: That is a really important issue. I think that in general the papers are very good about covering the provincial legislature in New Brunswick. One issue that becomes apparent, though, is how an issue is defined as a local story. The papers in New Brunswick tend to identify which stories coming out of the province are related to their readers and their readers' interests. Sometimes a story that really does have implications for everyone across the province will be identified as a Saint John issue, or a Fredericton issue. Then you do not get as much coverage in one of the other papers.
For example, the tax arrangements for the Liquefied Natural Gas took place in Saint John. Even though there were a few stories across the province where everybody could watch that, in general, that was identified as a local story and most of the detailed information was only available in the Saint John paper. That meant that people, New Brunswickers, who were trying to understand where this subsidy was taking place, and what information led them to this decision, were not accessing this information regularly because it was identified as a local issue. That would be one of the concerns I would have.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: I think you have left the committee with the impression that there is a political bias with the owners of New Brunswick's dailies. I will speak about the dailies first, with the exception of l'Acadie Nouvelle. I think those coming from away would be left with the impression that perhaps the owners are Liberals.
I would like to ask you whether you think the coverage that the leader of the New Democratic Party, Ms. Weir, gets in our papers is fair? I do not mind saying I think it is fair, but I want your opinion. I have been watching very closely because we might be coming up to an election in New Brunswick sometime. We have a bare majority government. It is very interesting to watch; certainly, a majority government that is handling itself well in a tight situation. I would like you to comment on the coverage of the New Democratic Party in this province, particularly that of the leader. I would also like to ask you whether you observe in the present provincial climate, and I will limit the question to that, a bias in favour of the Liberals? I have talked to a few Liberals. I have heard a few Liberals say that they are not getting fair coverage. Then I am going to ask you a question about the LNG Terminal, and perhaps that would cover just the present scene.
Ms. Steuter: That is a really good question. Some of the examples I gave show specific examples where the Irving owners had moved in on behalf of the Liberals. Research shows that over time there has been support for the Conservatives and the Liberals, and that, besides a member of their family actively running and standing as a member of the Liberal party, it is not a clear bias. It is not as if the family only supports one of the parties. The issue tends to be sometimes of political and economic priorities. If the current government is supporting something that is in the interests of the Irvings, there will be more support towards that party if the Irvings find that they are getting the kinds of concessions they need. I would not say that there was a totally clear bias towards the Liberals. I would say that there was a bias towards those who are facilitating their agenda as opposed to those who are trying to stand in their way.
With respect to the NDP leader, I would say that the leader, herself, is a very charismatic and media savvy individual, and I think that she has been successful in her media coverage with the New Brunswick papers. The issues of the party, and the concerns that they raise across the province, however, have been of concern for many people. Issues that are often brought forward, labour, poverty, inequality, and social justice, are not issues that you would see regularly in the Irving papers. That is a concern just by the fact that the Irvings are this big corporation, and their agenda is different than that of people who are involved with the social justice movement, for example.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: I think that Ms. Weir is one of the most outspoken persons, vis-à-vis the owners. Do you think that issue gets a fair amount of play? Does it not?
Ms. Steuter: I am not so sure. I have not seen a lot of evidence of that. There has actually been more coverage now of recent Conservative and Liberal criticism so I am not so sure it has been a big part of the coverage.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: Before I ask you my last question about the weeklies, I would like to ask you, because it is very specific and very hot right now, whether you think the coverage of the liquid and natural gas deal — I will use the word ``deal'' — has been fair?
Ms. Steuter: It has not been fair because it has not provided enough information. I think that the deal was made very quickly. There are a lot of people in Saint John who are concerned about that; a lot of people on the council in Saint John who are concerned about that. The basis on which the deal was made was based on a set of information that did not really have enough time to be open to inquiry. The CBC has really outshone themselves in this case, where they contacted several of the communities in which there was a liquefied natural gas facility, and asked them, ``What is the tax deal you have?'' The information they came up with, in basically a series of phone calls, was quite different from the information that was presented to the council in the document. It is that kind of information and those kinds of issues that have not really been explored for all New Brunswickers to participate in: how exactly has this been done elsewhere and what are the long-term consequences of having a 25-year tax deal?
Senator Trenholme Counsell: My final question is about the weeklies. You live in Sackville, where you have the perfect laboratory situation to compare a weekly paper, the Sackville Tribune-Post, which is not owned by the Irvings, with almost all the other weeklies, which are owned by the family. Have you done any study of the Sackville Tribune- Post versus any or all of the other weeklies in the province for comparison purposes? We, in Sackville, have perhaps the ideal opportunity to do that.
Ms. Steuter: I have not undertaken that study. It certainly would be on my wish list if I could get the ducks in a row, and the right funding, and some students involved. I think that would be terrific, to go through the weekly papers, and take a look at the different issues, and see how they cover things. Then compare them, as you said, to the weekly papers that were not owned by the Irving family. Some people have done research on this including Kim Kierans at the journalism school at the University of King's College in Halifax. Her identification of issues with the weekly papers was that they tended to be the only place in which some very important local issues were being addressed. If those local issues also then involved the Irvings, for example, if that was where the pulp mill was located, or if that was where there was some kind of forestry debate taking place, then that issue would not get the same kind of coverage that it would in a weekly that was not owned by that same big company.
The issue with the weeklies is that there is not a lot of really small municipal town coverage in the provincial papers, let alone in the national papers. and also not on the Internet. So many times, if you want to know what is happening in Iraq, you can just go on the Internet. However, if you want to know what is happening in Sackville, there is not a whole lot except the Sackville Tribune-Post. That is the concern where there are really important local issues happening, and I do not think we necessarily get all the information we need to make informed responses as we vote, as we write to our Members of Parliament, or as we engage in public debate.
Senator Munson: Professor, your testimony tweaked my memory of when I worked at a little radio station in Bathurst, New Brunswick. I am originally from northern New Brunswick. I remember in 1966 I read a newscast, and there was a propane gas explosion, and the person had passed away, or was killed. It was suggested to me that time, by the owners, or by people, that perhaps you want to eliminate the word ``propane.'' It was my first taste of interference by owners. I cannot believe it is 40 years ago, where they were suggesting that perhaps because of the advertising, and perhaps because of a certain individual owning everything in Bathurst, that the word ``propane'' be removed. I kept it in the newscast. It is a rather scathing commentary about the Irving monopoly, and you talked about restrictions. In a perfect world, what kind of restrictions would you like to see? People have said to us that you cannot roll back the clock anymore, that people have the right to buy things, and people have the right to do what they want to do in a democratic environment. Do you see in our recommendations that you would like us to have a certain level of ownership responsibility in New Brunswick?
Ms. Steuter: The news media are different than the regulation for a lot of other industries. If you regulate an industry, you keep in mind, where can people get that same service, or that same good elsewhere? If I decide that I do not necessarily want to have the Irving papers, I cannot just necessarily go and get a Nova Scotia paper, go on the Internet, or go to the national papers for the same information, to purchase the same commodity, because no one else is going to have that local information.
I feel that a different set of regulatory standards needs to cover the news media so that I can be an informed and educated New Brunswicker reading about my province and my issues. That might mean harsher measures than you would otherwise see in terms of regulation, and it may be possible to institute a form of regulation that says, ``This is the level of monopoly media that is going to be allowed. If your company is over that, you have this many years to divest yourself of some of your holdings because the people of New Brunswick need to have another source of information in order to have their full democratic rights realized.''
Senator Munson: You do not feel they get enough from say the ATV Atlantic Television System, CBC, l'Acadie Nouvelle, or alternative weeklies? You do not think there is enough balance with that kind of independent —
Ms. Steuter: Currently, there is not. Another possibility would be to provide more support for those groups so they could provide stronger competition. There have been a lot of cutbacks to the CBC. Right now they are a very important alternative voice for us in New Brunswick. When you want to find out some sort of parallel information to give yourself a more balanced view, that is where people go. However, they have been cutting back on the number of journalists and the number of hours they can put into the stories. The same thing is happening with the very small organizations, so if they were able to be subsidized so that they could grow, then we would have a more balanced situation. That would be the alternative.
Senator Munson: You talked about owner interference in editorial policy. Is that something indigenous to New Brunswick?
Ms. Steuter: No. I do not think it is a normal part of the way the media works. I think it is unusual, but when it does happen it really shows the heart of the problem. I think there is a breakdown in the system, in fact, when the owners have to come right out and say, ``Okay, we are going to put our editorial on the front page of the paper as a letter because you guys did not understand the message we were communicating.'' I think more often there is a climate in a workplace, and you understand which are the issues that your publisher and the owners of that company are in favour of seeing developed, and which are not. When we have this monopoly situation, we have fewer options to look elsewhere for some of the other stories.
Senator Munson: In the world of free speech, and freedom of the press, should a publisher not have the right, because he or she owns the paper, has made the investment, and feels strongly about their role in a community? I am not here to defend the Irvings. However, should a publisher not have that right to be able to counterbalance what they think is not necessarily the whole story?
Ms. Steuter: I totally agree that they have the right to put their view out. My concern is, do they have the right to be the only view that New Brunswickers have access to? I believe that they now have a situation where, just by having enough money to buy up all the papers, they are the only view in town. I would like another paper to put out their view. I would be sorry if that other paper put out exactly the same view, but sometimes that happens. They may be oriented the same way politically. They may have the same profit orientations, but at least there would be some sense that there would be two different views, from two different owners, who had two somewhat different agendas.
Senator Munson: Is freedom of the press something that belongs to the press and the media, or does it come from freedom of speech, and therefore it belongs to individual citizens?
Ms. Steuter: I believe it belongs to individual citizens. It belongs to a democratic society. In order for us to act as citizens and take our democracy seriously and engage in politics, we need to have access to full, balanced information. That right is being reduced by one owner being able to put out one point of view.
Senator Munson: We can make all the recommendations we want, but as I said before, rolling back the clock is difficult. If it continues this way, do you think what is happening is a disservice to New Brunswickers, in terms of being informed by different media companies?
Ms. Steuter: I think we are experiencing a disservice. One of the concerns is that we are going to become apathetic and people are going to become disengaged, and say, ``Well, there is no point. They own everything. They are going to run everything. They are going to do what they want.'' People are going to be left out. I am concerned about what happens in that case. I am concerned about a decline in democracy and a lack of engagement in political issues. New Brunswickers, when you know them, and certainly you two do, have a lot to say about the world that they want to live in, the world they want for their children and their futures, and they need to be able to be engaged politically. It is a big disservice.
Senator Munson: Thank you. You have set an interesting tone for the next two days.
Ms. Steuter: Thank you.
The Chairman: I want to push back a little bit against some of your assumptions to see what your response is. This will take a longer preamble than usual.
You are critical of the fact that the Irving papers supported the appointment of Mr. McKenna as Ambassador to Washington. It strikes me that it would be most unlikely that any New Brunswick paper would not. I think, for example, of the case of Bob Rae who was a one-term premier of Ontario, and was roundly defeated. However, every time he is appointed to another prestigious position, in my experience, all the Ontario papers say, ``Yes, good, this was a talented man. Maybe we do not want him to be premier again, but he is one of our best and brightest and we are glad to see that he is getting national recognition.'' It is an almost natural, instinctive reaction, and I would not have thought of that as evidence of Irving control, necessarily.
Second, your very interesting anecdote about the 1997 election took my mind back to the 1988 election, when I was an editorial page editor in Montreal. I, and virtually all of the editorial board members were strongly opposed to the bilateral free trade deal with the United States. We had campaigned long and hard, as hard and as well as we knew how, against that deal in editorials and had ad pages commissioned. Yes, longer than the Toronto Star, we campaigned against that deal. When it came time for the election endorsement, and you will recall that was the ``free trade election,'' the publisher of the newspaper, who was the only member of the editorial board who did not agree with the rest of us, wrote a front page editorial endorsing the Conservatives and the free trade deal. It said he was in disagreement with those of us who had campaigned against it. On election night, when his side won, he specifically said to me, ``Go back doing your job writing whatever you want.''
Obviously, at the time, I was upset that he had made this endorsement. In retrospect, I think that it was a fine journalistic exercise. He had actually allowed his editorial page to run with its convictions for years. You could argue that Mr. Irving did that. He allowed his paper to express its editorial board's convictions, but that his own convictions being different, he chose to express them once. I would not have thought, if he did it once, having let them do their thing, that it constituted intimidation. I am pushing back. Now, you push back at me.
Ms. Steuter: On the first issue around the editorials that were in favour of the appointment of Frank McKenna to Ambassador of the United States, my concern was about the homogeneity issue, that all the papers basically had the same view. There was a lot of concern and debate about the leadership of Frank McKenna and the values he put forward. He was a real front runner of a sort of corporate form of globalization that hundreds of thousands of people in the country are very concerned about. That agenda would now be brought to the United States where that corporate globalization agenda was being fully developed. That raised a lot of concern among a lot of people.
My feeling was that if we had the possibility of more diverse views within the New Brunswick media, someone would say, ``Is this really the guy we want to send? Is this the direction we really want to grow in?'' Somebody would put out a different point of view. It is possible that we would have had three newspapers owned by three different people, and we would have ended up with that situation, but I would like to have had the opportunity to find out if there is really nobody out there who thinks differently.
On the issue about the publishers putting their view in the paper, I think that a letter to the editor by the owner would be very interesting in the Letters to the Editors section. Everybody would notice and say, ``Did you see who got a letter into the paper today?'' The fact that it was on the front page on election day concerned me about the timing and the placement. I wonder how free some of the employees and some of the editorial leaders are in saying, ``No.'' I am not sure exactly what the culture of the newsroom is. The only way I can have a sense of it is by the people who leave. Some of the people who have left the Irving papers have said, ``We felt that we were, on a daily basis, accounting to the owners. We had basically covered interests.'' It concerns me that it is not as free as I would like the press to be. I am happy for them not to be silenced by the fact that they own a paper. However, there are different ways that they could communicate that would make people feel that there was more of an appearance of lack of bias.
Senator Munson: Is it the same editorial board for all three newspapers?
Ms. Steuter: No.
Senator Munson: They all think alike then?
Ms. Steuter: They have editorial boards, they create different editorial positions, and in some cases they take different positions. My concern is how often they are actually very similar, using very similar language.
Senator Munson: This was just a happy coincidence that they all felt the same way, without talking to each other?
Ms. Steuter: In this case, we saw a lot of homogeneity, which we see fairly often.
The Chairman: Your brief raises two questions. One is the effect of concentration of ownership of the media, and the other is the effect of ownership of the media by a conglomerate that has many other business interests, which is also an issue that a number of people have raised. You have talked about this a little bit before, but it is very hard to prove a negative. Other than anecdotally for one specific thing, has anybody done any systematic work to determine the nature of Irving media's coverage of other Irving interests? I repeat, it is difficult to prove a negative. Particularly, if a story is simply not covered, how do you know, other than anecdotally? However, is there anything in any kind of systematic professional work that has been done on this that we can look at?
Ms. Steuter: I know quite a bit about this because this is what I did my dissertation on to get my Ph.D. at York University. I worked on it for 11 years. The first thing I had to do was find out, ``Has anybody else done anything on this?''
The Chairman: Right.
Ms. Steuter: I am pretty sure I was as exhaustive as it is possible to be, and nobody had done anything, with the one exception that Dr. Michael Clow at St. Thomas University had done a short piece on the way in which nuclear power issues were covered in Canadian media. He covered media across the country, but he did focus on all of the Irving papers. I thought, ``This is a study that needs to be done.'' I could take on one only issue, and that was what was happening at the time, which was the strike at the oil refinery. It had been a two-year strike.
It was considered by labour observers across the globe practically that this was a test case, a sign of the global corporatization that was going to happen. I did a very detailed case study on the one incident. However, I know that there are people who are interested in looking at, say, environmental issues such as the forestry industry, how that is covered when the Irvings own so much of that. However, as far as I know none of those things have been undertaken in any rigorous way.
The Chairman: I am not sure this committee can do it either, but somebody probably needs to.
Senator Eyton: I apologize for being late and, therefore, I did not hear your presentation, but I have had the opportunity of scanning it. I was unavoidably detained this morning.
This committee is looking at the state of Canadian media, but by and large I think we are pretty good. I travel a great deal, and I would say there are very few countries that have the quantity and quality of media that we have here in Canada. I will even speak as in, say, my American experiences where I think I am as good here, or perhaps better, than I would be in Kansas City, Miami, or a variety of other places. However, I go much beyond that. I go to other lesser developed countries. The only place I think, that seems to me significantly ahead is the U.K., particularly in the London area, with the choices they have. I think we are relatively well off, and I think that even applies here in New Brunswick.
What I wanted to ask you about were the choices. What is happening now: In the media world in every category there is change. In radio, the formats are changing, and satellite radio is coming in. In cable, there is a whole variety of channels that we did not have before. Whether it is TV and the different programming that is now available, and of course the Internet with all of those initiatives, there are more choices, perhaps not popular choices today, but it is changing.
Looking at your material, I saw where you had conviction, particularly about the Irvings, for at least, according to the footnotes, seven or eight years and probably longer than that. I wonder if you have taken into account the changes happening in media, and the choices that are available even today; forget about tomorrow or the next day, but even today the choices that are available to people. Is that not responding at least in some way to your criticism and complaint about the Irvings? Can you comment on that please?
Ms. Steuter: I would say that on some issues we are very, very well served. As a professor, I have my students examine the media and how the different issues are covered in the United States, Canada and Europe. On international foreign affairs issues I think we are first in the world. There are an amazing number of perspectives put together in single articles. Our students could go and find out terrific information that is not going to be covered in American papers, or Indian papers.
However, as you get smaller and smaller, and you get to the local level, there is not really the cost benefit of having journalists come in and do investigative stories outside of their own backyards. In fact, in New Brunswick I feel that we are starting to become worse off than we used to be.
The weekly papers are now pretty much all owned by the Irvings as well. We are getting one really clear voice through our weekly papers and through our daily papers.
I am also seeing the cutbacks with the CBC so we are not seeing as much investigation. A couple of times I have heard people say they contacted the CBC and said, ``Look, there is this really important event taking place. Are you going to have people there?'' They said, ``We really cannot cover stuff that happens on Saturday or Sunday,'' or ``We only have one person, and that person is assigned to this other major thing.'' We do not have that so I feel that we are actually getting cut back.
There is now quite a disconnect to what is available nationally versus what is available locally. So much of the quality of our life is on what is in our water and air. What is the future of our landscape going to look like? What are the business opportunities for us and our children? Those are all locally decided issues, and we need more information to participate in those debates.
Senator Eyton: Do you think that some of the new technologies, or ways of broadcasting or talking to people, are not helping? I think there are channels that are available, now, to some degree. I suppose they are not well known to segments of the community, or not well used but I think that is changing very rapidly. I think a year or two from now, there will be a different choice again, and there will be more options to people. Do you not see that at all?
Ms. Steuter: I am concerned that it is not happening at the local level. In fact, what is happening is that there is so much electronic development in the way in which the newspapers are developed and put out, only very large companies can afford to purchase that kind of equipment and make it cost-effective to put them out. The smaller weeklies or the smaller papers cannot really have access to that so they are still doing it an old fashioned, expensive way, and they are not able to compete.
At the international level, on the Internet, in the alternative media, and in the ezines that the young people are putting out, there is so much wonderful information out there. But in a provincial local area, that is where I am most concerned that we are not following that tide at all.
Senator Eyton: Particularly in Newfoundland, but I think to some degree in Halifax, over the last couple of days, we heard about local initiatives, and your concern is clearly local information and discourse. We heard about local initiatives, and by that I mean community initiatives to publish a community newspaper, or to have a low-powered community radio station.In a sense they come together almost as a kind of co-operative, or a kind of community effort. There have been a number of incidences where that has been highly successful, and then carried on. They have served the local need. Do you not see anything of that sort? Given the new technologies and the relatively small cost of a website in Internet broadcasting, do you not see that as partly an answer to your concerns?
Ms. Steuter: In some other areas, we have a student from Mount Allison that graduated a few years ago, and that we are very proud of, who went off and created The Dominion, which is an on-line Canadian national newspaper, and is growing. It started small as a student paper and now it is becoming much bigger and it is available online basically free. He is working really hard until he has to get a real job, to create this. There are these opportunities for people who are articulate, doing their research, have a voice and are media savvy.
I am a bit concerned that we are not seeing so many of those initiatives coming out of New Brunswick. I wonder if there is a bit of a culture of defeatism, that the Irvings are the big game in town, and that they own the media, and you cannot really develop something in opposition to them. I have not seen those initiatives happening in New Brunswick the same way I am, for example, in Halifax.
Senator Eyton: I would have thought that the fact that the Irvings are as strong as they are in this area would, in fact, provoke more of the alternative media and alternative solutions.
I have seen that this certainly is a six- or seven-year effort on your part. Are you making progress? Do you have followers and converts to your point of view, or are you losing ground?
Ms. Steuter: When I speak publicly about these issues, and I release my research results, there is a lot of interest. People will say, ``I heard you on the radio.'' They will find me and say, ``It is about time somebody said that.''
However, I think that a lot of people are even unaware. Even colleagues at my own university, who would have some interest in the field, do not actually know that all the papers in the province are owned by Irvings. They will say, ``Oh, no. They do not own the Fredericton one, do they?'' I say, ``They have owned that one for a long time.'' There is a lack of awareness so some of the work that I do is just to let people know that there is actually only one voice that they are hearing.
I find that there is a lot more interest now from people interested in environmental issues. The Irvings are so involved in so many industries that have an impact on the environment that people are starting to become concerned that they are not really getting all the information before they decide whether we should have a pesticide spraying ban, whether clear cutting isreally necessary, or there is access to different pulp and paper co-operative initiatives. I think there is momentum in terms of people thinking that maybe they do not have as much diversity as they should. However, the first issue is to let people know that there is not as much diversity as they might have thought, because a lot of people are unaware.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: Madam Chair, I do not want this committee to finish this particular discussion, although of course we have two days, on record, that we have only one voice in New Brunswick. I am just wondering, because you are so interested in the availability of news and different opinions in this province, whether you have made any comparison between l'Acadie Nouvelle and the Irving family newspapers. The Acadians are very involved in their daily lives with the Irving family in many of the big businesses, the forestry industry and Kent Homes. All up through Buctouche and Kent County, there is a lot of involvement.
Secondly, have you taken the opportunity to study one paper versus, let us say another paper, or papers? Is there a difference in the voice of New Brunswickers? I do not mean language. I mean the ideas and opinions, particularly vis-à- vis issues that might involve the Irving family. I think it is important for that message to be clear from this province; whether there is a difference or not.
Ms. Steuter: I do not have enough expertise in French to do that type of a study myself. I have talked to some leaders in different movements, and asked them, ``From your perspective, are your issues getting out?'' In many cases, they will say that they have found l'Acadie Nouvelle to be much more open to, for example, environmental issues, and that they will raise more debate so that people who are bilingual, or people who speak French, have access to different information than people who are only unilingual English.
Senator Munson: We could go on all day. Just a brief question: Is your voice being heard in Irving newspapers? Is your point of view being fully expressed in Irving newspapers?
Ms. Steuter: I would say not. I did present some of my research to a council of journalists a couple of years ago, and there was coverage of what I had to say at that conference in the Irving papers, with lots of diversity of views about that included. That is one I specifically remember. In general, unless there is a fairly high-profile politician who is raising issues, monopoly ownership of the media is not an issue that you would see debated in the Irving papers.
The Chairman: I am breaking my own rule, but I have one last question.
If new media are not popping up like mushrooms, then you have the media you have. If you are not going to have them owned by the Irvings, you are going to have them owned by somebody else. First, are you aware of anybody who has been interested in buying any of them? Second, would it be a good or a not-good thing if somebody who came in to buy some of them were one of the big central Canadian or western chains, and you would lose a New Brunswick voice?
Ms. Steuter: That is a great question.
The Chairman: You have to answer it quickly, though.
Ms. Steuter: I think that people are interested in buying the papers. I think they are profitable, and the media is a profitable industry to invest in. If a big chain came in that had all of its own editorial issues, I would have new research to work on. However, as a New Brunswicker, I would be very happy to have, at least, more of a debate and more diversity, so I would take that.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, Dr. Steuter.
Ms. Steuter: I am grateful for the opportunity.
The Chairman: Senators, our next witness is Mr. Gary MacDougall, Managing Editor of The Guardian, and we owe him, therefore, a special round of thanks for crossing the strait to come to us. Mr. MacDougall, going to P.E.I. was a matter of agonized debate in this committee. It was very hard for us to decide not actually to go to you, but instead to ask you to come to us. As you may have noticed, timetables seem to be speeding up in Ottawa these days, and we just ran out of time. We apologize to you, and through you, to the people of P.E.I. for not getting there, but we are awfully glad that you made the trip to speak to us. I think you know that we asked you to make a statementof 10 minutes or so, and then we ask you questions. The floor is yours.
Mr. Gary MacDougall, Managing Editor, The Guardian: Thank you very much.
Just sitting back in the audience behind, it is a very interesting debate. Other than sex and maybe the price of P.E.I. potatoes, what is more fascinating than to discuss the news media? I think people love talking about this issue, and I guess you folks do.
I would like to thank you for the opportunity to appear here. I apologize. I am in the daily newspaper business. I am not that well prepared in the sense of speaking notes or anything, but I do not know if I have anything that profound to say to you anyway, other than I did make sure that I had approval to speak here.
The Chairman: Yes, show that to the audience.
Mr. MacDougall: Boy, I am working this crowd here?
The Chairman: Just hand it the clerk.
Mr. MacDougall: I might add, getting an audience with the brand new Pope for a Presbyterian was not easy to pull off.
I would preface my remarks by saying I have been in the newspaper business for about 35 years. That does not count when I started as a carrier. I hope to end as a carrier actually, just to get exercise and to get out. After all those years, and hearing many opinions from people on many issues, about the only thing I am sure of is that I certainly do not have all the answers. After a while you become a sponge in this business, you hear so many people telling you what is right and what is wrong.
However, I do have some opinions and I am going to share them with you. If you have some questions, hopefully I can help answer. I took some of the material that was sent to me, and I took out a few key questions. I just put my two cents in.
One of the first things was, do Canadians have an appropriate amount and quality of information? I would say Canadians, like never before in their history, have access to a multitude of media sources: some very traditional ones such as the newspapers like The Guardian in Charlottetown which has been around for well over a hundred years, and of course, many others that are birthed by the Internet and cyberspace.
Today's world is different. Times are indeed changing. We recently did a publication on the one-hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the City of Charlottetown. That is my plug for Charlottetown tourism. They are celebrating it this year. We did a special edition so we did a lot of research into the old days and I think we in the news business especially long for those days when they had those fiery rhetoric-filled town hall meetings, almost fist fights between opponents and politicians and things. Unfortunately, those do not happen anymore. Elections come and go, but those fiery town hall meetings do not seem to exist anymore.
However, today, if you pay attention, those kinds of discussions and exchange of information are happening either on the editorial pages of newspapers, on Internet blog sites, or on chat lines. The information is indeed out there, I think, nowadays, like never before. The challenge for the consumer of the news is sifting through the sources and the spin-doctoring that is taking place all around us, not to mention the hatred and misinformation that is all around us. I am certainly not going to be one to criticize people having access to information, but I think maybe a growing — I do not know if ``problem'' is the right word — ``challenge'' is that there is so much information out there now that consumers — especially if they are not that sophisticated about where it is coming from, it does not really have editors, and it is just this wall of information coming at them — have to make choices based on what they see on a screen, and who knows who sent it. One thing about newspapers, or the traditional media, is that a form of editing takes place, a certain kind of message, whereas on the Internet who knows what you are getting?
On the question of older and younger Canadians accessing information and in a different manner, I think increasingly youth, because they are young and impatient, as all youth are, are looking for an instant fix. They are not going to wait for the newspaper to come out in five or six hours, or their next radio broadcast. They want to know what is going on, and they want to know what is going on right now, and they will get it. It is on their computers, cell phones, shoe phones and toothbrushes, who knows, but it is all coming at us.
I am speaking here mainly from the perspective of newspapers. Pretty well every newspaper now has an Internet site, and usually they are popular. One of the things the newspaper industry, at least in Charlottetown, and I do not think in too many places, have figured out is how to make a buck off the Internet. I do not say that to sound crass, but news media is owned by private folks, and they need to make a dollar to stay in business. We have all rushed to get our Internet sites up there. You have heard this before, I am sure. We are all up there. Our sites are popular, but how do we make a dollar?
Making a dollar off the Internet is important because traditional newspaper readership, of course, is declining. There is no question about it. I am happy to say on the Island it is maybe not declining quite as rapidly as in other areas, but newspaper readership is under attack. There is no question about it. There is a certain downward trend in circulation numbers due to other electronic media, the Internet, loss of reader loyalty, people are just too busy, and everybody is working. The Internet is an obvious way — I am not saying it is the only way — for the newspaper industry to make a little money and remain profitable. We have not figured out how to make a dollar at it, and I think it is important that the newspaper industry and new media does. The challenge is going to be that when everybody rushed to the Internet, it was all free. How we are going to expect people to pay much for it? I do not know. Maybe they should not pay much for it.
Should existing foreign ownership restrictions be changed? In my opinion, that is an easy ``No.'' The existing rules may allow for corporate giants, so to speak, to dominate the news media in Canada, but to my mind, that is a lot better than the Canadian news media to be dominated by global giants or global interests. Better the devil you know, than the devil you don't.
When I say that old expression, I certainly do not mean to say that the news media is populated by devils: very much to the contrary, despite the fact we may not be held in much higher esteem than politicians, for instance, present company excluded. In my experience, and I have been in the news media a long time, it is populated by very sincere people. People that work in the news media are serious about their craft. They are serious about trying to help people. We are not the bad bogeymen that some people seem to think we are. We are just men and women trying to get our jobs done, and get home, and usually we are late getting home.
Despite some of these little challenges I mentioned about the Internet and different competition, I still think newspapers set the news agenda in the country, with all apologies to former television people.
Senator Munson: You have to get your news somewhere.
Mr. MacDougall: Well, that is right.
Senator Munson: The newspaper is as good a place as any to get it.
Mr. MacDougall: That is right. Most electronic journalists start the day by reading a newspaper.
On the question of CRTC, or some other government body being involved in the regulation and the supervision of the news media, you are probably not surprised by what I said a couple of minutes ago. I am not in favour of that, and here is an example. A few years ago The Guardian, in Charlottetown, was owned by Conrad Black, and there was a tremendous hue and cry around that particular time, about Sir Black, or whatever his title is. At the time I think he was just Conrad Black, but he has assumed the title. The hue and cry was that Conrad Black and his folk were going to gobble up all the country's newspapers, and he did have quite a run for awhile. There is no question about it, from your former paper, St. John's, Newfoundland, right to Victoria. He owned a lot of newspapers, and there was justifiable concern at that particular time for at least that topic to be in a discussion stage. It turns out, of course, the sky did not fall. Now, if any sky is falling it is Mr. Black's and he is running from reporters who are trying to track him down and ask him serious questions.
For awhile the free enterprise system allowed Mr. Black's star to shine, but the system's checks and balances have now resulted in a very different looking Canadian media field; a healthy one I would argue. My parent company, Transcontinental Media, is a big player indeed in PEI, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. We are a big fish in a little pond. The Irving family, as we just heard, is a dominant player here in New Brunswick. The Chronicle- Herald flourishes quite nicely in Halifax, Atlantic Canada's largest city. Quebec has its corporate owners. Ontario has the Torstar Media Group, the Osprey Group, Sun Media, others. CanWest is there too, plus they are out West. Of course the country has a multitude of weekly newspapers. I have just referred to the print side. I am not well versed in the electronic media. In other words, no one newspaper group controls the Canadian news media. If some government body exercised control over newspaper ownership, I would suggest there would have been intervention, possibly when the Conrad Black era existed a few years ago. There was no intervention, and what would have happened if somebody had stepped in and stopped some of these sales? What kind of confusion would that have caused? We survived Mr. Black, and I would argue the newspaper industry is healthy.
Other than having newspapers locally owned, corporate ownership has worked out pretty well for Canadians I think. I am certainly not against corporate ownership. In a perfect world, it would be nice, I suppose, for Prince Edward Island's leading newspaper to be owned by Islanders. It was started by Islanders in the 1880s, an old Presbyterian minister. That is my connection I guess. It evolved over the years into The Guardian. In the 1950s, it was purchased by Thompson. Then we had the corporate and merry whirlwind of the 1990s and the early 2000s when we had several owners. Local ownership has it pluses and minuses I suppose. I have never had local ownership. There is the issue of editorial independence. There is the issue of resources.
Interestingly, one of our best owners, and here I quote Elmer Fudd, was the now ``wascally wabbit'' called Conrad Black. People look at me like I have two heads when I say that, the bit about him being a good owner, not my Elmer Fudd impersonation, but it was true. Much like our present owners, Transcontinental Media, Black did not interfere editorially in the operation of The Guardian. He made a major capital investment in our facility in Charlottetown, which as you may or may not know is a mere block from where the Fathers of Confederation met in 1864 to plan our grand nation.
I do not mean to obsess on Mr. Black. I have mentioned his name quite a few times here. We do not necessarily pine for his return in Charlottetown. This is my plug for Transcontinental Media. We are quite happy with, I want to stress, Transcontinental Media. That is on the record here, I hope. That will be the headline. I am just mentioning him as an example of how corporate ownership tends to ebb and flow in this country, and the industry survives.
We have had several ownership changes at The Guardian in the last few years. I am not saying that is necessarily a great thing because it causes a lot of personal angst for employees and staffers when all of a sudden you are owned by ``A'', and then ``B'' owns you, and then ``C'' owns you. There is that concern but we have not suffered negatively to have corporate ownership.
Having spoken positively about corporate ownership, I should point out that everyone to a certain extent has to have some concerns about corporate ownership. Only a fool would say that one company or one individual should be allowed to own everything in the country. That just should not happen.
Forgive me here, my notes are a little rough.
When I speak positively of corporate ownership, along with corporate ownership, corporations have serious responsibilities. The Guardian has been operating in Prince Edward Island for well over a hundred years, and Islanders, I think to a certain extent, think they own it. In many ways they think they own The Guardian and these other corporations, or corporate people, just every once in a while run the show for awhile.
However, journalism is both very complex and very simple. Good journalism requires committed and trained journalists working under reasonable conditions. Owners must ensure the media turns out quality and timely information, and not just act as a vehicle to make money or that sort of thing. Corporate ownership also carries a serious corporate responsibility. The people of Prince Edward Island deserve their information the same as anybody does.
While I am at this venue right here, I would like to take an opportunity to plug the newspaper industry. I am sorry I am obsessing on the newspaper industry, but perhaps I know it better than others. Another great Canadian institution is the Canadian Press, and I am sure perhaps you folks have heard it discussed in your deliberations. The Guardian, like many newspapers, has had a long tradition of co-operation with the Canadian Press. It is absolutely vital to our product and our ability to tell Islanders what is happening when you get off the Island.
In closing, in my opinion, the news media is healthy, independent and increasingly diverse, much more so than it would be with strict government regulations. My fear about regulations is that right now the news media is very fluid. It is free to run off and do what it wants, and to take on campaigns. We could start a campaign at The Guardian to abolish the Senate, and go on about it for ten years if we wanted. As long as we are fair to the other side of the argument for the Senate, what is wrong with that?
The Chairman: You would be the first in the country.
Mr. MacDougall: What, to be successful or to start the campaign?
The Chairman: To present the other side of the argument.
Mr. MacDougall: Journalistic decisions must be based, in my opinion, on journalistic reasons, and not for politics or for how that might play out.
I am afraid, humbly, that is my submission.
The Chairman: You have covered a lot of ground very cogently.
Senator Eyton: Thank you for your remarks. So far we have heard from Canadians across the land. Their concerns seem to be focussed on local coverage and local news. My first question to you is, what does your paper do in that category? You mentioned CP, which would be, I suppose, the out-of-province news mostly.
Mr. MacDougall: News from away.
Senator Eyton: I wondered what your efforts are, and how effective you are, at speaking about local events and things that are happening within your province?
Mr. MacDougall: I humbly submit, and Heaven knows we have our failings, but our slogan on the flag on top of our newspaper is, We cover the Island like the dew. That may be a bit of an exaggeration. I am sure there are days when our readers probably think that there is some dew out there that we missed, but that is our lifeline. We err on the side of local.
We are a bit of an odd paper in the sense that Prince Edward Island is an aberration in Confederation, for its geography and that. At The Guardian, we have to be like The Globe and Mail of Prince Edward Island, to a certain extent. We have to be provincial. At the same time we have to be local, almost, like a bit of a weekly. We have this odd mix. I think local news is our strength, and we err on the side of local coverage.
Some might argue we err on the side of the local to the point we may be a little parochial when it comes to some of the more national issues. I do not mean to say that we ignore regional, national, and international news. We try to do a good job on that but if we have to err, it is on the side of local, because people have other vehicles for the national news if they want it. You cannot get that much PEI news except on PEI.
Senator Eyton: Could you quantify the way in which you get local news, or comment on the reporters and perhaps the provincial bureaus that you have? For example, how do you do Summerside?
Mr. MacDougall: We have a bureau in Summerside, and we have a sister daily newspaper, an afternoon paper, there. We share. There is no editorial co-operation, other than if they want something from The Guardian, they can have it, if it has been published. If we want something from their paper after it has been published, we can have it.
We have a small bureau in Summerside. We have two bureaus in Kings County, and our head office, of course, is in Charlottetown. PEI is an aberration in many ways because of its size. We are a provincial capital so we have a legislature. It consumes two of our reporters. It is underway right now.We have all the levels of court. Charlottetown is a strange little city in the sense that — I always tell the young reporters — it is a great little place to work, because we are like a mini-Ottawa. I humbly say that, but we have all the levels of court and we have our share of federal- provincial meetings. It is quite a challenge actually. Quite a bit goes on for an area our size. There are only 138,000 Islanders, or so.
I do not think I have fully answered your question. We take the news agenda of the day. We try to cover what we think is vital and important. We have a vibrant letter section in our opinion page. Our newspapers are filled with mundane things such as public service announcements. We err on the side of local.
Senator Eyton: You mentioned that you had two reporters that cover the provincial legislature. How many other reporters do you have on staff?
Mr. MacDougall: In my newsroom, we have 26 staff in the editorial department. I think that is a fair number. I am an editorial guy, so what I could do with two more reporters. However, being fair to the owners and my publishers, I think I have the horses to do the job. It is making sure that we, as an editorial department, do our job properly.
Senator Eyton: Switching a little, we were talking about provincial coverage. Can you comment on the way in which you reach out to youth or let us say to different elements within PEI itself? I have a sense, and you can correct me if I am wrong, that PEI is less diverse in its makeup than other provinces in this great country. Can you try to describe for me how your paper is trying to address youth or minority groups within the province?
Mr. MacDougall: Starting at the other end of the age spectrum, I think we publish the best seniors' newspaper supplement in Canada. We have an editorial board made up of seniors, and they control it, edit it, write it and everything else. Then we publish and distribute it.
Going to the other end of the age spectrum, youth, we try to do a lot of stories on youth-type events. I know I am not being terribly specific here. We have a youth columnist. We cover a lot of events in schools. We try to keep our ears open to the concerns of youth, both the positive and negative ones.
Minorities, we were recently involved in an incident involving a minority, although nobody really wanted to say the word. The operators of a little restaurant called the Noodle House, which ...
Senator Eyton: We heard about that in Toronto.
Mr. MacDougall: Yes. You notice on that As it Happens interview that the race word was never mentioned. It was just this straight discussion about — I do not even know if there is a race issue. It is an incident involving this restaurant, which unfortunately seems to be the one that two or three students from two or three schools pass by on their lunch. They were hassling these owners. Anyway, there was a tremendous outpouring of response once it got in the media that this was happening. Everybody was shocked, because we care greatly what people in other parts of Canada think about us. The mayor, the police chief and the school boards went to visit this place.
I am getting a little off your question, which was what we do specifically for minorities. We regularly do features on minorities. We have a PEI Association for Newcomers to Canada. We have a couple of aboriginal communities. We do the traditional stuff; you will see the Chinese New Year in a lot of newspapers, and that kind of stuff. We always have our ears open when anybody of a minority comes knocking on our door, that is for sure. Having said that, I will be frank, our newsroom is pretty white.
Senator Eyton: Thank you for your candour.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: I have a bit of a preamble, Madam Chair.
I am delighted to see that this is probably the largest turnout we have had in the country in terms of people interested in these hearings. Maybe comments of others should be noted. I think it is, but I have not been at every single hearing. Maybe they had as many out in Vancouver.
In Vancouver, Mr. MacDougall, we were told that they had no regular reporter in the legislature. The fact that you have two is truly remarkable, and that was one of the biggest criticisms that came to our attention.
Were you with the paper during the mid-nineties?
Mr. MacDougall: I was there when the bomb went off. I have been there forever. They built the building around me.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: You have been there forever, so now I can ask you this question. This is historical, but I would love to hear you speak a little bit about how your paper covered the great debate of the 1990s, the bridge. I was involved on this side of the bridge, my home being in Tantramar. That must have been one of the great opportunities, as a newspaper and as journalists, to get involved in something exciting and controversial.
Mr. MacDougall: It was indeed. It has been a hot button issue for over a hundred years. I found a newspaper headline once from the early 1900s where they were about to built a causeway. They were about the build a causeway a lot of times of course.
How did we cover it? It was a great issue. The beauty of it was it was a passionate issue. Anytime you have a passionate issue, people are passionate about it, and there were many public meetings. There were many strong letters on both sides of the argument. Editorially we were in favour of building the bridge, mainly for economic reasons. It was a position I had a little bit of a problem with, but, ultimately if I would have had to say yes or no, I would have said yes, build the bridge. I always suspected Joe Ghiz, our premier at the time, who a lot of people credited with championing the bridge, voted, ``no,'' and he did vote ``no.'' The great Canadian champion, Brian Mulroney, you cannot say his name without ducking, because somebody throws something at you, right?
Senator Eyton: He is looking good these days.
Mr. MacDougall: That is right. That is not necessarily an editorial comment but you say ``Conrad Black'' or ``Brian Mulroney,'' then you duck because you know something is coming your way.
We covered it. I am rambling here a little bit. It was a very passionate issue. It was in many newspaper headings. We were accused a little bit by the anti-bridge side of not being fair to them. I think we ran countless stories on both sides of the issue. At the end of the day, we spoke editorially in favour of it, but we did not say you were an idiot if you did not vote for it. It was a great issue.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: I would like to ask you about another source of competition on the Island. Obviously here in Moncton, in New Brunswick, the name Irving comes up quite often, sometimes with respect and sometimes with disrespect. You have had a very interesting example in terms of the Atlantic economy of a competition; you might almost call it the potato war. Driving in my car yesterday, I heard a debate, a story, that some people were upset that a second potato processing plant was not going to be built on the Island. I know you have a lot of other aspects of your industry that are controlled by these two great New Brunswick families, the McCains and the Irvings but does the fact that an increasing amount of the PEI economy is influenced by the Irving family have an impact on your paper?
Mr. MacDougall: The short answer is no. I think the Irving family has kicked the tires of The Guardian a couple of times. In fact, I know they have. The answer is no, it does not.
In fact, we have to chase the Irvings to get them to comment on issues. A lot of times we would like to have more dialogue with the Irvings. They have a good public relations lady there now, who tends to comment on a lot of the issues that come up.
They have a large processing plant, as you mentioned. The McCains also have one. We are fortunate that we have both big New Brunswick families there.
However, that was a hot issue. The speculation on the Island is, did they decide not to build the second processing plant because the corporate tax went up, or was that decision already made? We cynics seem to think that maybe they got wind that the corporate tax was about to go up, and then decided not to build a second plant, but who knows? The short answer is no. The Irvings are not as big a player as they are here, but they are definitely a major business power on Prince Edward Island.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: Are they going to take over the newspaper?
Mr. MacDougall: They have kicked the tires but no. We operated for so many years as part of the Thomson empire. They took over The Guardian in the early to mid-fifties and owned us up until, I think, the early 1990s. Then, all of a sudden, the floodgates opened and in came Hollinger, Southam, CanWest Global, and now Transcontinental Media, who really came out of nowhere and have become a major player in Atlantic Canada. They say they are happy with us and their newspapers on the east coast, and I do not sense that we are about to be sold, but I am not generally asked.
Senator Munson: Mr. MacDougall, I am really glad you showed up today, because we were in Halifax yesterday, and we had invited The Daily News from Halifax. They are owned by Transcontinental, and their big boss, Mr. André Préfontaine, spoke to us last October from the corporate side, but we were looking for the competitive angle, sort of speak, between the family-owned newspaper and the company-owned newspaper. Transcontinental chose not to talk to us.
Mr. MacDougall: Uh oh, am I supposed to be here?
Senator Munson: I thought they lacked courage, and you have courage, because we are a pretty friendly bunch. I was in the media for 35 years but I am still a pretty friendly New Brunswicker. You said the Irvings kicked the tires. What is your overall view on monopolies? We have heard rather tough words about the Irvings owning practically everything in New Brunswick. What is your view?
Mr. MacDougall: As I mentioned in my rambling little address to you, only a fool would be in favour of somebody owning everything.
I must admit when Mr. Black was really moving upward, buying newspapers all across the county, it certainly raises your eyebrows. I do not think it is healthy that anybody, any person or organization, should own everything.
It has been my experience that competitiveness between the corporations tends to ebb and flow. My example of Mr. Black was one where there was gloom and doom. If there would have been some kind of a government watchdog or something, there would have been hearings. Hell, somebody would have put their hand up to say, ``You cannot let that man own that.'' However, there was not. I think the tide has gone out a little bit. The tide has obviously gone out a lot on Mr. Black. Now, corporate ownership is healthy.
We have good owners on Prince Edward Island. I cannot speak personally for the Irving papers, but they look like pretty good papers to me, what I see of them. Fundamentally, and I am a little prejudiced in the sense that I have had only corporate owners, but in all my years in the business there has been no direct corporate interference in the editorial positions of the newspapers. There was one little bit there when we were owned by CanWest maybe where there was a bit of a chill on the Israel issue but having said that, of course, there are different ways to exert editorial influence. You can exert it by not providing a newspaper with adequate resources to do its job. That is not the case with our owners, Transcontinental.
I do not know what the other answer would be. Am I in favour of corporate ownership? I do not see any problem with it. Should one person or organization own everything in Canada? No, but the industry does a pretty good job of just buying and selling, and spreading the wealth around.
Senator Munson: We are running out of time, but I have one question. I never worked for Mr. Black, but there are reporters in Upper Canada that would tell you that when he owned a newspaper, whether you liked him or not, he was a newspaper person, and that The National Post was a much better paper when he first owned it. He put a lot of money into journalism.
I am really glad to hear what you said about Canadian Press, CP. It is part of our study. As you know, there were forces at work that were trying to eliminate CP, or have an alternative national network. You talked about it being vital. Do you think CP is important for small-town newspapers across the country?
Mr. MacDougall: It is very important to us. We err on the side of local, and that is our breadbasket. If I send a reporter to Moncton, that would be a big trip.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: Not to shop at the Champlain Mall?
Mr. MacDougall: Islanders are drawn to the Champlain Mall but Canadian Press, then, is our window. Canadian Press and its allegiances with Associated Press are our window on the rest of Canada and the world. We also have an arrangement with CanWest where we use some of their content. Canadian Press is very important.
To my mind there are two kinds of newspaper owners or publishers. There are the old newspaper barons where they own the paper, they have something to say, and they are going to say it. It is going to be lively, and it is going to reflect their views. Then there is the more traditional one, where the owners back off when it comes to editorial control and deal with newspaper from a business point of view.
CP is very important to this country.
The Chairman: You said you had a newsroom of 26. That includes the editorial page staff? That is everybody?
Mr. MacDougall: That is everybody, yes.
The Chairman: You have been through all these owners. You went through four owners in six years.
Mr. MacDougall: I think it was four. I would have to put them down here.
The Chairman: Yes, or five, depending on whether you were bought by Southam before or after Lord Black took control.
Mr. MacDougall: One or two of the ownership shifts were seamless.
The Chairman: Anyway, you have been through a lot.
Mr. MacDougall: A lot.
The Chairman: I am trying to figure out whether there has been an impact on newsroom staff. You said Lord Black put in capital investment. Was that a new press?
Mr. MacDougall: He renovated our building mainly.
The Chairman: Okay.
Mr. MacDougall: A major renovation of our building.
The Chairman: What about people and headcount?
Mr. MacDougall: Let me just think before I speak. I do not think there has been much change at all. We might be down a body since all this stuff started.
The Chairman: You have not had to live with the burden of slashing headcount?
Mr. MacDougall: Nobody has said, ``We are now the new owners. You should have `x' number of people.'' There has been a little bit of an ebb and flow, which I think is natural.
The Chairman: Sure.
Mr. MacDougall: There has been nothing dramatic in the sense of numbers. It is pretty much the same. I think we may be down one or two.
The Chairman: Is your newsroom unionized?
Mr. MacDougall: No.
The Chairman: What is your circulation?
Mr. MacDougall: Our circulation is around 23,000.
The Chairman: Do you publish seven days?
Mr. MacDougall: We publish Monday to Saturday.
The Chairman: That is the six-day average?
Mr. MacDougall: Yes.
The Chairman: You say 23,000?
Mr. MacDougall: Around 23,000. It is over that on Saturdays, which is a bigger paper.
The Chairman: It is lower than that on Mondays?
Mr. MacDougall: Yes.
The Chairman: I think my colleagues have covered all the other things I was really interested in, so I am going to thank you very much for making the trek. You may not send reporters but you came yourself, which is better.
Mr. MacDougall: I thank you. We will have to get the Senate to try to make the bridge toll free.
The Chairman: How much is it?
Mr. MacDougall: Apparently, I am allowed back free.
The Chairman: Great.
Senator Munson: If you want more golfers it has to be free.
Mr. MacDougall: That is right. The toll I think is around $39.
The Chairman: That is a lot of money.
Mr. MacDougall: It is. That is two ways.
The Chairman: I understand but still, that is a lot of money.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: How much was the boat?
Mr. MacDougall: You have to divide it in half but the boat would be that high if it still existed.
Senator Eyton: Has real estate appreciated on the other side?
Mr. MacDougall: Yes, it has changed. The bridge has changed a lot of things, such as tourism and demographics.
The Chairman: Senators, our next witness is Mr. Philip Lee, Director of Journalism at St. Thomas University.
Welcome. The floor is yours.
Mr. Philip Lee, Director of Journalism, St. Thomas University, as an individual: Madam Chairman, I am happy to have been offered an opportunity to appear at the hearings today. I appear here as a New Brunswick journalist and as a teacher of aspiring journalists at St. Thomas University. I will direct most of my remarks to issues surrounding the media in New Brunswick and Atlantic Canada.
First, I will offer you the abridged story of my journey through the Canadian media industry so you can put my comments in some context.
I fell into journalism by accident after I graduated from Dalhousie University with a master's degree in classics, and realized I had few marketable skills other than an ability to write. There is not a great commercial demand for translating ancient Greek.
I landed a job at a community newspaper in Grand Falls, Newfoundland, called The Grand Falls Advertiser, and I learned to tell stories there and found a professional home. I moved from Grand Falls to a weekly in St. John's called the Sunday Express, which was edited by an investigative reporter named Michael Harris.
It was there that I learned how the free press can change the course of events in a community, and beyond the community, where you are working. This is when we started writing stories about the sexual abuse of children at an institution called Mount Cashel. Our work at the newspaper on that story helped prompt a public inquiry into the response of the Newfoundland governments to complaints about child abuse. That inquiry, in turn, helped to encourage changes in the Newfoundland justice system. Mount Cashel was closed. The building was demolished. The Christian Brothers went to prison and former residents of the orphanage were paid compensation. On a broader scale, our little newspaper contributed to greater national awareness surrounding issues of child abuse and institutional care.
Successive governments and the Roman Catholic Church had covered up the Mount Cashel story, always with the best of intentions, they said, and the public good in mind. The free press dragged that story out into the light of day, where we were finally able to begin the process of binding up and healing old wounds.
I left Newfoundland and returned to my home province of New Brunswick where I began working for the Irving- owned newspapers, the Saint John Times Globe and the New Brunswick Telegraph Journal. During the next decade I did every job at those papers except operate the printing press, and drive the delivery trucks. I was the city hall reporter during the reign of Elsie Wayne. There was never a dull moment, I can tell you that. I was a coffee-crazed, middle-of- the-night editor. I was the manager of newsroom staff for the city daily paper. I was the editor of the Weekend Magazine for a time. I was the Editorial Page Editor, Senior Writer, and Editor-In-Chief for a time at the New Brunswick Telegraph Journal. During the time I was there, I can say simply that the papers served the people of New Brunswick poorly, and they served the people of New Brunswick well, depending on what period of time we were in.
During my time at the Telegraph Journal, the newspaper was named The Best Media Organization in Canada by the Canadian Journalism Foundation. We flew to Ottawa and were received at Rideau Hall by Governor General Roméo LeBlanc. Our editor at the time, Neil Reynolds, remarked that he felt like the leader of a group of knights who had been called in from the countryside to receive the blessings of the king. That was certainly a high moment for us I can say.
In recent years I have been directing the new journalism program at St. Thomas University in Fredericton. St. Thomas is a small liberal arts university with an enrolment of about 2,800 students. We offer a program that allows students to graduate with a Bachelor of Arts with a major in journalism. We are trying to ensure that students study journalism within the context of a broad liberal arts education.
I have a few remarks to make about our program. We have an endowment fund in the name of Dalton Camp, the great writer and political commentator from New Brunswick. This endowment allows us to enhance our program in a number of ways including an annual fall lecture, the Dalton K. Camp Lecture in Journalism, which is broadcast on CBC Radio's Ideas, and contributes to a national discussion about journalism in Canada. Our first three lecturers were June Callwood, Joe Schlesinger, and Naomi Klein. Last fall, about 800 students and citizens in Fredericton packed into the St. Thomas Chapel to hear Naomi Klein speak of her recent reporting in Iraq and her role as an activist and a journalist. I think that shows the level of interest in journalism.
We also have a partnership with the CBC. We rent space in the CBC Broadcast Centre in Fredericton and hold classes there to allow students to study in the atmosphere of a working professional newsroom. Students also have the opportunity to work in the CBC television and radio newsrooms.
Most recently we have been working with the Irving newspaper group to create internship opportunities for students this summer. About 10 of our students have summer jobs at New Brunswick newspapers.
The Irving family has also donated a million dollars to St. Thomas to create a chair in journalism which will allow us to bring a visiting journalist to campus each year to teach. The Université de Moncton received a similar gift, and we plan to work together with Moncton to make the most of these opportunities.
Our students are the future leaders of the Atlantic Canadian media industry and I think our work at St. Thomas is helping to ensure a better future for the media industry in New Brunswick.
That is the context. I will go briefly through some of my recommendations, and I will try to stay within my preamble time.
First, on the issue of government regulation and the press, I am a believer in the free press. I am firmly in the libertarian camp on this issue, that the press should be free from government interference and regulation. I am not going to lecture you on the historical and philosophical foundations of the free press, because I see from past submissions that you have had plenty of these types of lectures.
The only thing I will say is that for me it is not abstract and theoretical, but it is real and born in the world of experience. In my view there is no real middle ground on this issue. The press is either free, subject to the reasonable and responsible limitations of the law and the Charter, or we adopt the system where governments define and regulate a socially responsible press, which, when it reaches its logical conclusions results in a media system that we see, for example, in China, which has a flourishing media industry, lots of newspapers, lots of readers of the media, but limited press freedom.
When I hear concern about media monopolies in Canada and New Brunswick, and the need for government intervention, I try to take a deep breath and a long view on these matters. First, I think the market tends to correct itself. I know that there is all kinds of talk about Conrad Black but when you see the fall of Conrad Black, maybe that is partly what happens there.
The future of all media businesses, especially in themulti-media world, lie in their ability to produce good products. Catherine Graham, the late great publisher of The Washington Post said simply that the way to ensure a profitable business was to produce a great newspaper and to practice good journalism. Here in New Brunswick, the Irving newspaper group will have to dedicate itself to producing solid products, which means works of good journalism, or it will have little business of value in the long term. A monopoly does not mean much if you have few readers, and the next generation of newspaper customers are fickle and technically savvy, and will not purchase a product that is not worth reading.
There are some things that governments can do to ensure that Canadians have the information they need to be active citizens in our democracy, which is of course the broad interests governments have in fostering and encouraging a vibrant free press. The first task of the federal government here in New Brunswick is to support and properly fund the public broadcaster.
The CBC plays a crucial role in providing quality journalism in the regions of Canada despite what is taking place in the marketplace. When CBC managers contemplate the future of regional broadcasting from their offices in Toronto, it is difficult for them to understand what is happening on the ground here. The New Brunswick CBC suppertime news programs, the CBC radio news and current affairs programming and the CBC on-line service are the only games in town. Unlike big-city markets that offer many choices for viewers and readers, the CBC is broadcasting the only New Brunswick-produced television news programs. CBC Radio is the only serious producer of radio news. The website, www.nb.cbc.ca, is the only free access local news site on the Internet. If this was the case in the Toronto or Ottawa markets, cuts to regional programming would never have been on the table. I should also note that the national newspapers have no correspondents based in New Brunswick. There are no national TV or radio reporters based in New Brunswick. There is a sense in which the New Brunswick story is not necessarily being reflected to the rest of the country, which I think is an issue, but maybe a bit of a different issue. CTV and Global News are produced out of Halifax, and there is a big difference between producing a show with a couple of New Brunswick items, and producing quality New Brunswick news.
In recent years the quality of news being offered by CBC regionally, I think, has suffered terribly by being underfunded.I may not have the number exactly right, but as an example, about 50 per cent of English television staff have been eliminated over the past decade. They are producing the same amount of news with 50 per cent less staff. This is like the death of a thousand cuts, right? One of my messages to Ottawa would be simple: Properly fund the public broadcaster in the regions. I do not think this is anywhere more important than in New Brunswick.
Another contribution governments can make is to help ensure that citizens in all regions of Canada have broadband Internet access. The Internet is changing the face of journalism in the free press. This is really a revolution. We no longer need a printing press to publish a news sheet. If you consider the way the Guttenberg press changed the course of history, now we have a world where all citizens potentially have a press in their own home. Citizens with high-speed Internet access can read news from an eclectic mix of sources from all over the world.
To give you an example — everybody is involved in this type of world — I checked my e-mail before I left home this morning, and got an e-mail that said there is an interesting link to someone who is doing a blog in Shanghai, an American person, and I am interested these days in things that are happening in China. I click the link and go there, and there is an extremely well-developed multi-layered, news thing called the Shanghai Diaries, from an American living in Shanghai. He is doing wonderful writing, publishing this, not as a commercial enterprise, but it is just a way of getting his writing out there. This has been the big change since I have been in the media industry.
My students use the Internet as their primary source for news retrieval, and they publish an on-line news magazine from our classroom at the CBC and update their news magazines from their dorm rooms and apartments. The news magazine includes television, radio and print stories. This is why a newspaper monopoly in New Brunswick, or a large media conglomerate in Canada, means less than it once did in the marketplace of ideas. I certainly welcome the revolution, and I think we need to do everything we can to keep Canadians on the cutting edge.
The difficulty in the regions, and certainly in more rural areas of Canada, is that in this new age if you do not have broadband Internet access in your community it is like having seasonal dirt road access to the outside world. It is getting to the point where it is not really an optional service for a functioning democracy. You do not want poor people, or people in rural communities, to be shut out of the public debate in Canada. That is an issue that government certainly can address.
Finally, governments can support the education of journalists. Every year I meet young people at St. Thomas who have talent, passion, and a determination to make a difference in the world. Well-educated and well-trained journalists are more important than ever in the digital age where we are flooded with information.
What role will journalists play? Lewis Lapham, the editor of Harper's Magazine, says that they will tell stories that tell us about ourselves. He writes:
Some stories are true. Many are false. Some stories are more complicated or more beautiful than others. Homer told a story. So did Shakespeare. So did CNN and Donald Duck. But to concede the shallowness and ignorance of the news media doesn't diminish their usefulness. The data are always fugitive and insufficient, but they amount to the best that can be said in a small space on short notice. People like to listen to stories to settle the wilderness of their experience with the fence post of a beginning, middle and an end. How else in the blurred and imperfect images of the morning paper and afternoon television summary, can the labour leader, the ballerina, or the police detective, form even a distorted image of one another? The news media possess no therapeutic value, better able to diagnose, than to cure or recommend. They present their audience with a rough measure of the distance between what they know and what they wish to believe about themselves.
Journalists are storytellers, and these stories help us understand who we are as a people. What we need is the freedom and opportunity to tell them.
I have one final story to tell you and then I will take your questions. Earlier this month, the president-elect of theSt. Thomas Students' Union, was being run out of office by a group of political opponents. My journalism students turned out en masse at a meeting where there were plans to impeach this young woman. The motion was withdrawn in the face of such a large contingent of student reporters. Then my students faced a grave dilemma. The student weekly newspaper, The Aquinian, had run out of money and had published its final edition of the year. Another council meeting was scheduled, and impeachment was on the agenda. What was their response? They continued to report on the story and published updates on their on-line news magazine. As I speak here, they are still filing updates long after the end of classes, and the end of any obligations they have for grades or submitting portfolios. To borrow the words of Harold Ross, the legendary editor of The New Yorker, ``I am encouraged to go on.''
I can stop there and take questions.
Senator Eyton: Mr. Lee, you probably said it but I need to get better organized, can you relate again your history withSt. Thomas University, in particular with the School of Journalism? First of all, relate your experience and then relate it to the school itself: when was it begun; the number of students; and that sort of thing.
Mr. Lee: I am the Director of the Journalism program atSt. Thomas. This program that I was describing, a Bachelor of Arts with a major in journalism, is new. It is about three years old. I have been at St. Thomas about four years. Before I arrived there, they had a journalism education program that was done in cooperation with the Community College system in New Brunswick. We still do that, but that is very much a sideline. Our main focus now is this new BA program. We limit the number of students to 20 each year. We have a competitive system to get into the program, and so we have about 50 applicants for 20 spots each year.
Senator Eyton: They are drawn mostly from the province, or does the reach go beyond that?
Mr. Lee: It goes beyond that. Most of the students who come to St. Thomas are from Atlantic Canada, but we have students in our journalism program from all parts of Canada. Also, we have some international students. We have students from Japan. We have a student from Latvia. It is becoming more diverse.
Senator Eyton: You say that program has been in place for about three years?
Mr. Lee: The Bachelor of Arts with a major in journalism has been in place for about three years.
Senator Eyton: We have heard about the ills of Irving press concentration here in the province, and I was intrigued to hear that they are funding quite a large grant. I heard $1 million. Is that dedicated to the university as a whole, or is there some focus on journalism?
Mr. Lee: It is specifically for journalism. It is for a chair in journalism. Our plan is to use that funding to bring in a visiting journalist each year. One of the challenges of running a journalism program in Atlantic Canada, as opposed to being in Ottawa or Toronto, is that you cannot call up The Globe and Mail newsroom and have people come into your classrooms every week, and an important part of journalistic education is to expose young people to working journalists. In the best of all worlds, over the course of a four-year education students would be exposed to four different journalists from different backgrounds and get that kind of —
Senator Eyton: Can you tell us who is occupying that chair currently?
Mr. Lee: We have not filled it yet. This is a new gift. We will be working on that this spring.
Senator Eyton: I assume you were part of the discussion with the Irving family on the terms of the funding as it relates to the chair?
Mr. Lee: I was involved in a lot of discussion leading up to that. I was not actually involved, however, on some of the finer points.
Senator Eyton: Were there any restrictions that you are aware of in terms of the chair?
Mr. Lee: On who would fill it? No, absolutely not.
Senator Eyton: I guess the Dalton Camp foundation is something different.
Mr. Lee: That is something different. We started that endowment after Dalton Camp died. We felt we needed to do something in his name, so we started raising money for the Dalton Camp endowment. That is a separate source of funding for us. We use that to support the Dalton Camp lecture, and we also support student scholarships from that, and some other programming.
Senator Eyton: You do not need to answer this, but I would be curious to know if there were any Irving family members in the audience when Naomi Kline was speaking in this year's lecture? You do not need to comment. It is just a curiosity.
I take your broad point about the market or market forces, public appetite, public demand change, and therefore making change. Time is a great healer. You did mention Mr. Black's ownership, which was then considered almost a monopoly in Canada, and of course that is gone.
This is true of every endeavour, but I want to underline that things change over time. Things are always changing, particularly when you are free of government regulation or intervention.
I will recite a few names in the business world that I think underscore that point. One may think that forces are omnipotent or irresistible, but Conrad Black inherited the Argus Corporation, which was considered a monopoly at one time. Other examples are the Reichman family in the real estate business, the Eaton family in the marketing business, or even the Thomson family, and they of course exited what I call the conventional publishing field to go into, as it turns out, a very profitable electronic niche. Theirs was a free choice to say, ``I think we will go someplace where we can make more money.''
All this is to underscore your point that time and technology bring with it massive change, and that some of the concerns we have today quite naturally disappear, free of artificial support, government regulation or intervention. That is my little comment. I realize I am not a witness but I was picking up on your point that things change with time.
A final question: There is concern that we have heard repeatedly, and you would have heard the earlier sessions we had here this morning, concerns about some parts of our broader community that are not well serviced, in particular the local community, and I wonder if you can comment on that? I gave some examples earlier. Perhaps you have heard about smaller initiatives that are taking place in Newfoundland and in parts of Nova Scotia. I wonder if like movement or initiatives are taking place here in New Brunswick?
Mr. Lee: Could you fill me in on the background of this question?
Senator Eyton: You were not paying attention.
Mr. Lee: I was not here.
Senator Eyton: We were talking about low-power radio stations in communities. Often, we hear people commenting that the local communities are sometimes left out within the larger enterprises; that they are not properly covered, and there is not proper discourse about community events or developments. On that score, we heard of some initiatives in Newfoundland, and partly in Nova Scotia, dealing with low-power radio stations and community newsletters or newspapers that came together. Some of those have been successful, and are continuing. Are you aware of anything like that in New Brunswick?
Mr. Lee: I am aware of some initiatives of that sort, and I do think this is a pretty rich area of opportunity; things such as campus and community radio stations. This whole world of creating low-budget on-line publications can certainly add to the diversity of voices in a community. I think that competition in the media and competition among journalists is a good thing. You are certainly better served by a diversity of voices.
I know that the campus and community radio station on the UNB campus, which my students are getting more involved in, is extending its reach now, and it is a tremendous opportunity to really start having an influence in public affairs.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: I have jotted down a lot of questions but I thought I might bring some of them together in this question. You made the statement — I am paraphrasing this — that the Irvings would need to demonstrate that they can produce solid products in order to merit the place they have in journalism and in the media in New Brunswick. I was thinking to myself, if they are known for anything, it is solid products; everything from diapers to dailies. What might you choose as the two or three criteria for judging whether the products are solid?
I wanted to ask you specifically whether you have found much time to study the weeklies? There has been a big turnover and a big conglomeration of the weeklies over the last two or three years.
Also, as a more specific question, how would you rate this solid product in terms of the coverage of the LNG Terminal in Saint John? That has been one the biggest issues I have watched for a long while. Of course, the name of Wardell and the past has been dug out in this debate. In terms of a solid product in the New Brunswick scene, what will you look for?
Mr. Lee: While I have it on my mind, I will address the issue of the weeklies. There has been a concentration of ownership in the weekly newspapers in New Brunswick, and I see those newspapers sometimes. I do not see all of them all the time, so I am not sure. I have mixed feelings about it, because I think, generally speaking, a lot of community newspapers, regardless of who owns them, tend not to serve their communities particularly well. They tend to be run on shoestring editorial budgets.
I have worked at these papers so I know what they are about. I started my career at the Grand Falls Advertiser, where we had an editorial staff of two, I think. I wrote pretty much every story in the paper, and the editorials, and I used to paste in the pictures or the copy on the page with my little knife after I finished writing my story.
That does not necessarily serve communities well when you have very thin editorial staffs. In some cases, I think the quality of the papers has gotten a little bit better. Certainly there has been a bit more focus on editorial matters.
When I talk about a quality product, I think it is not a great mystery that you need to put out a good newspaper that has good stories that are well-written and well-researched. A good newspaper is not the great mystery that everybody seems to make it out to be. I think you do good writing and good stories. You try to cover your community well. You try to reflect the character of your community in your newspaper. The way to do that is by recruiting good people and building your newsroom around a good solid editorial staff, and paying attention to editorial matters. That is the product. It is the editorial side of the newspaper, in my view.
The coverage of the LNG Terminal in Saint John is an interesting debate, and there has been a lot of talk about that, certainly in media circles. There were some good and courageous things in the way that the paper covered that story. Their editorial position, if I remember correctly, was that they felt the tax deal should be reviewed. They did not think it should stand the way it was. They had some difficulties with that. I thought some of the coverage was good as well.
The new publisher of the Telegraph-Journal, Jamie Irving, who is an acquaintance of mine, a friend of mine over the years, apprenticed as a reporter when I was working as an editor at the Telegraph-Journal. He is interested in editorial matters. He cares about newspapers. He is well educated in the media world. He went to Columbia School of Journalism. He went to Carleton and studied at the graduate level. He knows something. He cares about newspapers, and I have a lot of confidence in him to do a good job. I know he has hired a very good editor, Mark Tunney, who is the new editor of the Telegraph-Journal. He is a very good journalist who has worked for me and has worked for years at the CBC. He is a person of great integrity and a really good journalist.
I think they handled that well. I have been in newsrooms covering stories that relate to the business interests of the owners. That happens quite often obviously when you work for the Irvings in New Brunswick. In the newspaper world, you have stories land in you lap that relate to the business interests of the owners, and I think they covered that story. They went ahead and covered the story, and tried not to be looking over their shoulder.
When I first came to the Telegraph-Journal and the Times Globe, in the newsroom there were never any directives from head office saying, ``Do not do this story; take this angle on this story.'' However, there was a lot of self- censorship that went on; people worrying about how the owners might feel about a particular story as opposed to any kind of direct intervention. I would watch my editors get very worried and fuss over these things, because they were worried about how the owners would feel. I think the best thing is to have editors who have the confidence of the owners and have confidence in themselves that they will cover the story and cover it fairly. I do not know if that helps.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: I am sure that you must take a historical perspective to all of this. Maybe not as much as the professor did from Mount Allison University although I was surprised that she did not go back further. Would you care to make any comparison between the days of Michael Wardell and Jamie Irving? It is a huge gap, but his name has come up repeatedly with regard to the LNG crisis. I do not know whether my colleagues in the Senate know what this is all about. Yes, they do but would that have been considered a low point? I will just ask you to comment on it.
Mr. Lee: I have not heard the comparison that you refer to, necessarily. That would be one way of looking at this, to take the long view and say, are we better served now than we once were when the New Brunswick papers at various times have been terrible, politically partisan and racist. In some ways if you take the long view, you might say, ``We have come a long way.'' I do not see the coverage of the LNG terminal as being any kind of a low point.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: No, I did not mean that. I meant the Wardell-Robichaud period.
Mr. Lee: Yes, I have read some of that material from those eras and that certainly was a low point.
It compares favourably to that. There certainly is an attempt to provide some sort of balance, and to be objective and what not.
Senator Munson: You were talking about the endowment fund. Senator Atkins tries to hit me up every second day for money.
The Chairman: You have a very faithful supporter in the Senate of Canada.
Senator Munson: Yes.
Mr. Lee: Yes, I know. He has been wonderful.
Senator Munson: I keep telling him I am just a poor guy from Northern New Brunswick. I do not have that kind of money.
This might be a delicate tightrope for you to walk. You have worked in the golden days of Neil Reynolds. At that particular time, you talked about a national newspaper award, and I can recall covering this part of the country at that time as well. There seemed to be a great deal of excitement with the various exposés and the investigative journalism, and here you are at St. Thomas University and you have worked for the Irvings. There is an Irving endowment program. You are an individual journalist in your heart. You were not here early this morning, but there was a pretty tough commentary from a professor from Mount Allison University about the monopoly here. Is there any appetite in New Brunswick for somebody with money, or to make an investment, to have alternative news media here, not just the ones that we see in some of the street boxes, to compete against this monopoly?
Mr. Lee: You mean an appetite among readers?
Senator Munson: Yes. If we are hearing from both sides of the fence, there must be some people who are probably getting a wee bit tired of hearing ...
Mr. Lee: I think probably there is an appetite among readers for a good newspaper war, let us say. There is nothing better than that. When I was in St. John's, when we had our upstart weekly, The Sunday Express, we were certainly at war with The Evening Telegram, which was a tired old Thompson paper. The reading public loved what we were doing. It created a lot of excitement so yes, absolutely. If you started a new daily in Fredericton, I think there would be a great appetite for it. You would need a financial investor with some courage, because it would be a tough fight. There is a pretty entrenched business there.
Senator Munson: Would New Brunswickers be better served by having that sort of competition?
Mr. Lee: Whenever you have competition, and whenever you have newspaper competition, I think readers are better served. Canada, on the national newspaper scene, was far better served when the National Post came on the scene, because I think it woke up The Globe and Mail. The Globe and Mail is a far better paper, in my view, than it was before the National Post came on the scene. The immediate response would be that, yes, I think you would see better journalism.
Remind me of the second part of your question.
Senator Munson: I am a journalist. I have already forgotten it: just the overall view of the remarks that were made about the Irving empire.
Mr. Lee: Yes, I was going to comment on that. I did not hear the earlier presentation, so I am not responding directly to that.I work at a university so I hear a lot of criticism of the journalists in general and a lot of hand-wringing and griping about the Irving press in general. Because they are owned by the Irving family, and because there is a media monopoly does not mean necessarily that they have to be bad newspapers and not do good journalism, meaningful journalism. Wherever I have worked it seems that we go through periods when we have good papers and we do not have such good papers. We did have a good paper for a time with the Telegraph-Journal when I was there. I am not saying that was the only time the Telegraph-Journal was good, but when I was there we did have a good paper, and the owners were good owners. Also, when we went to Rideau Hall with Neil Reynolds, one of the comments he made was that J.K. Irving had been an excellent owner in every way, that he had supported him, and that he had supported what we did. We did not always make them feel comfortable, but I think at that time, something good was going on, and we did some good journalism.
Senator Munson: Time is running out, but I wanted to agree with you on your comments on the lack of national news coverage of New Brunswick. I know it is nice to sit in Halifax and I was guilty of doing that too. I believe that CTV, Global and CBC should have national reporters based in New Brunswick. I also believe that you cannot go back to the days of Lionel Television and the Home of the Lobster that my grandparents used to watch in Baie Verte. ATV is a fine news organization, but I wish in New Brunswick there would be a separate entity. I also agree with you on the CBC that regional cuts are horrible because I was a judge about ten years ago in Atlantic Journalism Awards, and the other judges were CBC local Fredericton, CBC local Halifax and CBC local St. John's. There was tremendous documentary investigative reporting. I just thought I would put that on the record.
The Chairman: I was interested that the journalism program involves, you said, a major within another faculty. It sounded to me as if that meant your graduates are not just getting skills training, they are also getting some insistence on a broader intellectual range. Is that the way you want to keep it, or do you want to have a whole separate faculty of journalism that will be along a more traditional mode?
Mr. Lee: No. We would like to stay within what we are working. It is a deliberate decision that we would offer a major, as in any other liberal arts major. Essentially you can major in journalism, English, or history. We think that allows students to have a broader, diverse liberal arts education. St. Thomas University publishes its goals of a liberal arts education, which are to encourage independent thinking, clear writing, clear thinking, questioning and all these sort of things. It really describes what a journalist is and should be, so we offer some training in teaching them to use technology to tell stories, but it primarily it is to emphasize storytelling in a liberal arts education.
The Chairman: You obviously work very hard to make the students literate, not just in the narrow sense, but in the broad sense. Does your program include making them numerate? It has been my experience that journalists really are not trained in anything involving numbers, from science, to statistics, to business.
Mr. Lee: We need to work on that.
The Chairman: Yes.
Mr. Lee: I would agree that journalists generally decided to go into journalism because they could not do math. At St. Thomas we have changed our liberal arts curriculum in recent years, a couple of years ago. We introduced a mandatory science component now.
The Chairman: They cannot escape it altogether.
Mr. Lee: No. They have to take so many credit hours of science so they cannot just go through taking humanities and social sciences. They have to take science and technology, and also fine arts so they have some artistic literacy as well, so yes, I agree. The things that are often wrong in news stories are numbers.
The Chairman: I speak as one who came out of modern languages and all that stuff, and had to learn the hard way.
Mr. Lee: Yes, I would agree.
The Chairman: On another topic, you talked about noticing when you were working in Irving papers — I guess it was the Telegraph-Journal — noticing a tendency to self-censorship in the newsroom, and that certainly rings true. One can recognize that tendency. Was there, or is there, any formal statement by the Irvings, any statement of principles, anything that says anywhere as The Washington Post does, for example, that the newspapers will cover the company's other interests in exactly the same way they cover the rest of the world? They will not give any special favour to them.
Mr. Lee: Not that I ever heard. I think that was one of the difficulties perhaps. When I talk about self-censorship, I really encountered it when I first came to the Irving papers. The senior editors there censored themselves.
When Neil Reynolds came and transformed things for us all, that was a big relief in a way that he said, ``We are doing journalism. Our loyalty is to the story and getting the story right, and that is what we are here for.'' I think one of the difficulties always was that the owners were hesitant to become involved in the papers at all. There was never really a clear direction that this is the kind of paper we want. If you own a paper, you can create whatever kind of paper you want. Theoretically, they could put out a paper that had only good news stories about Irving companies. No one would buy it, but they could do that. They own it. I think what helped, for example, why The Washington Post was great, was you had a publisher/owner who had an editor and said, ``This is the kind of paper that I want. Go do it.'' During the time I was there, there was often a lot of turmoil at the publisher level, a revolving door with a lot of different people in there, and a lot of different messages about what kind of paper we were supposed to be producing. One of the advantages of perhaps having Jamie Irving at the Telegraph-Journal now is that there will be a clear direction that, ``This is the kind of paper I want you to put out. This is the paper that we want to do.''
The Chairman: Often when there are revolving doors in the publisher's office, it is a signal that the financial end of things is not going as the owners would wish. You were there in the Neil Reynolds era. He was the editor, not the publisher. Neil Reynolds is one of the most famous editors of the century in Canada. Journalists have followed his career with awe and admiration but do you know what happened to circulation in those years?
Mr. Lee: I can tell you what I know. Someone else may say I have the numbers wrong.
The Chairman: Yes.
Mr. Lee: I do not know what precise numbers there are. I know the circulation went up during his time, when we were there. We were aggressively selling circulation, and we were trying to push it into rural communities and rural routes that had not been open before. I know that circulation went up and I would say that in terms of the numbers of papers being sold, and the number of readers, it was significantly higher than it is now.
The Chairman: Were you ever in a position to know whether the papers profitability improved, stabilized or declined?
Mr. Lee: That question would probably be better for somebody else. That would be beyond my area. I do know that having seen circulation numbers, it was a period of circulation increase. I can say too that there was a huge response from people in the province to what we were doing. People looked forward to getting the paper. They were excited about the paper.
The Chairman: That is, of course, the object.
Mr. Lee: That is the whole thing right there.
The Chairman: It is, for any working journalist.
Mr. Lee: You want to be read. You want people to be looking forward to your material. We did some interesting things in those days. They were good times.
Senator Munson: I want to ask you about cross-media ownership and the diversity of news that Canadians are getting. Do you have views on cross-media ownership? For example, in Vancouver, CanWest owns almost everything. Concentration comes in different forms.
Mr. Lee: Yes, globally, we see it with CNN, Time Warner and Disney.
It is difficult in the sense that if you have a variety of different media sources all preaching the same message, it can influence what people think are important. I was thinking more about Time Warner. If Harry Potter is on the cover of Time Magazine, and then it is the top story on CNN, and suddenly they are telling you this is what we should be most interested in that is happening in current affairs right now, it certainly can influence the public debate, I think.
Diversity of voices is important, and when you get cross-ownership it becomes even more critical because it hits you from different angles.
The Chairman: Thanks very much. If we had more time I would have come back at you about who will actually provide the news that all the electronic sources are supposed to be feeding us but that is maybe for another day.
It has been extremely interesting. Thanks a very great deal.
Senators, we are pleased now to welcome Ms. Jackie Webster, who is a long-time journalist both in national media and in New Brunswick media.
Please proceed.
Ms. Jackie Webster, as an individual: I think everything I have to say you will have already heard.
The Chairman: Perhaps you could give us a brief description of the main points that you would like to focus on, and then we can ask you some questions.
Ms. Webster: It is a pleasure to welcome you here to New Brunswick. Before we start, I brought a memento to the members, from Fredericton. Since you were not going to Fredericton, I thought I would bring you a little something.
The Chairman: This is not a brown paper envelope full of cash?
Ms. Webster: No, no.
Senator Munson: You should not have.
Ms. Webster: You come to the cottage at Youghall Beach this summer, and I will tell you things I am not allowed to say.
The Chairman: This is a photograph.
Ms. Webster: It is a memento of Fredericton. It is a national historic site in downtown Fredericton. Unfortunately, it is not one you are likely to see in the local dailies. It is owned by the Irvings. I just thought I might mention that. You are welcome to take that with you.
The Chairman: Thank you.
Ms. Webster: We have had quite a good time with that.
I am welcoming you to New Brunswick. I do wish you could have come to Fredericton, but since you cannot, it is nice to see you here.
I had to make some notes because I tend to get carried away. I have said this: I congratulate you on the task you have undertaken and wish you well. I am here to offer my perceptions of the one facet of your wide mandate on which I am well versed, the concentration of English language print media in New Brunswick in the hands of one family. You have heard that over a hundred times, I am sure, or you will before it is over but it is a serious matter.
The first thing I came upon in your interim report was this. It says:
No real democracy can function without healthy, diverse and independent news media to inform people about the way their society works, what is going well and, perhaps most important, what is not going well or needs to be improved.
That is the whole point of what I would like to say here today as my message: unfortunately in New Brunswick we do not have an independent media except for the CBC. When you have all the English language dailies in the hands of one family, and all the weeklies except three little tiny ones in the hands of one family, and the last one or two that are still independent are on their last legs, well then you cannot have an independent press. I would like to address that a bit. I do not know if there is anything you can do about it or not, but I have some suggestions.
At the outset, when I say how concerned I am about that concentration in one family, bear in mind I have no vendetta whatever against that family. There is a corporate entity and there are persons in it. Some of those people in that family are good friends of mine, in particular, Jamie Irving, the new publisher. He is a fine young man, and I am hoping he will do well. He is very sanguine. He thinks he will do well, but some of us who have been at this an awful longer than Jamie Irving, know full well, that he will not go very far in getting beyond what the Irvings consider proper coverage.
They operate all by themselves. Best to say that New Brunswick is a fiefdom of the Irvings, no question about it. When you have one corporate family with in excessof 300 companies, and all the English language media,and $4 billion in assets and a ranking of one-hundred sixteenth in the ranking of the wealthiest people in the world, those people, of necessity, are going to be an entity unto their own. They are not going to brook questions, criticism, or what have you, from the likes of these little journalism people who come along and ask questions. It just is not in the cards.
I had better get back to this, or I will get carried away.
When I speak of the Irvings, it does not mean family members, but rather the giant corporate empire and all its facets, all those companies and so on. I think that the newspapers are not one of their most profitable enterprises. As a matter of fact, some of their family members have said that, ``I do not know why we have those newspapers. We make our money in forests and trees, and so on.''
However, they keep them and expand them, and I think somewhere along the line it has been borne out that asA.J. Liebling said a great many years ago, The only way to have freedom of the press is to own it. That is what we have in New Brunswick.
In all those properties, no matter how they acquired the newspapers, they have them, and the question of your committee is: Is New Brunswick well served by this monopoly? I submit that it is not.
True, media concentration is an international phenomenon. However, in every case of such concentration, except in New Brunswick, the owners are public companies, with annual reports there for the reading. Not so the Irvings. Theirs is a private company or companies, and how they conduct their affairs is something between themselves and God.
Investigative journalism is an honourable profession, and no newspaper worth its salt is without one or several investigative journalists. They know where to look and what to look for. They hear rumours and follow them up. With more than 300 Irving companies and a host of rumours about their management style, an investigative journalist could have a field day in New Brunswick, but to what end? Their efforts will not see the light of day in the English language media.
Who can fault the owners? It is ingenuous to suggest that they hire people to tear down their structure. It does not make sense, so the answer is somewhere along the line, we must have alternate press. That is the only answer because they are not going to change, and New Brunswick is certainly not being well served.
Speaking of investigative journalism, I have spoken well of Jamie Irving. I think very highly of him and Bob Jones. In speaking of investigative journalists in New Brunswick, Bob Jones is one who works with CBC and does excellent investigative work. Given the financial strictures that bedevil the CBC, he has done excellent work.
He recently explored the question of heating oil prices in New Brunswick, which are considerably higher than in Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, and Maine. The Irvings, who provide much of that competing oil, were outraged, I am told. Complaints have been lodged, umbrage expressed. The message to those who might challenge: ``Do not mess with the Irvings.'' They have made great fuss about this. Bob Jones sticks by his facts. The CBC will have to verify and do all the time consuming work necessary to prove him right, and the Irving lawyers have a lot more money than the CBC.
There is a wealth of anecdotal information about the newspapers and their various shortcomings. A recitation could keep us here all day, but I may be permitted one. Questions were raised in the media outside New Brunswick about the ethics of then federal minister Allan Rock visiting the famed Irving fishing camp. The Irvings responded that there was no breach of ethics there. Allan Rock was just a family friend and the visit was strictly social.
Later, on November 21, 2002, at a joint meeting he chaired with other cabinet ministers, Mr. Rock presented an incentive plan to aid struggling shipbuilders, of which the Irvings are the largest in Canada. In June of 2003, the Department of Industry gave the Irvings a $55-million grant to help convert an idle shipyard in Saint John for other uses. On October 16, Robert Fife put a story in the Ottawa Citizen with this headline, ``Rock disregarded ethics ruling to advance Irvings' cause.''
There may or may not be a story there, but we are not going to hear it in New Brunswick if there is. This is the sort of thing where we are indeed short-changed.
It is true that many other cities in Canada are served by one newspaper, but I suggest that whether it be CanWest or some other conglomerate that publishes those newspapers, the owners do not have the same relationship with that particular province, as the Irvings do with New Brunswick. CanWest does not have 300 or more companies operating within say, Saskatchewan, that are out of bounds to journalistic inquiry.
No matter that there are other worlds of communication out there at our finger tips, New Brunswick is deprived of in-depth local news, of which there is a dearth. We never really know the inside story of labour disputes, strikes, mill closures, lay-offs, firings, management practices and things such as that. The aggrieved have no public forum, and that is wrong.
That will not change in the present climate. No newspaper tycoon can challenge the Irving monopoly for many reasons. For one, we do not have the population to warrant investment, and who in their right mind would mess with the Irvings?
There was a hope one time long ago that the monopoly might be broken up by government action, in the Kent commission in 1980, which suggested something to that effect. Nothing happened. That hope has long since faded and the Irving media influence has grown stronger.
I have a suggestion. If the federal government has not the means to break up the monopoly, it could do for New Brunswick, what Mr. Rock did for the Irvings. It could provide a subsidy, a grant sufficient to fund an independent newspaper for those areas not well served, as is New Brunswick, much as the CBC is presently funded. It already has a precedent in New Brunswick. Because the French language daily was deemed essential, a trust fund was set up to aid that operation. I suggest an English language daily is equally essential to New Brunswick, and I suggest that whatever steps are required to bring that about should be taken. Such an independent publication would be considerably more worthy of federal funding than a $55 million handout to a corporation rated as one-hundred-sixteenth wealthiest in the world.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: It is wonderful to be here, Ms. Webster. I was one that insisted we at least urge you to come. I remember the days when on the page opposite the editorial page you were in the centre and Dalton Camp was on the right. Those were great days for journalism in New Brunswick. I can still see those pages. We see your name occasionally, but not enough, and of course we have great memories of Mr. Camp.
I want you to speak a little bit about women in journalism because we have talked amongst ourselves about this. We did have the very fine example of Ms. Dennis in Halifax being the publisher of a paper, but mind you it is her family's paper so it is easier for her than it has ever been for you.
I would like you to comment on the situation in New Brunswick more generally.
However, I wanted to ask you a very specific question because I know how sharp you are. What was your reaction when Brunswick News, or whomever on the scene, bought the little paper that was on the streets of Saint John. Was it called Here?
Ms. Webster: Here.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: What about in Moncton?
Ms. Webster: Here.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: They have both been bought?
Ms. Webster: They bought the one in Fredericton as well.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: How do you react to that?
Ms. Webster: I react very strongly for a number of reasons. One is that they had good writers. All of them had very good writers.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: These three distributions, or alternative —
Ms. Webster: Yes, they were little alternative papers and they did a great job. They had good writers. What happened was, first, the Irvings have the economic power to stress little publications like that, as they did with one of the weeklies in Woodstock. They wanted that paper and they got it eventually. The then owner said he simply could not struggle everyday against the kind of competition they were pushing at him, so he sold it to them.
With little Here, those three newspapers could not stand up so the Irvings bought them in each case. Then, the minute they had them they presented them with the same kind of contract that took Dalton Camp and me out of the Irving newspapers.
To write for the Irvings you must sign an absolutely Draconian contract. For instance, everything they own belongs to the Irvings. There is a little bit in the contract that was interesting. It said, the owners can sell it in media now in existence, or which may hereafter be developed.''
The Chairman: Did they say throughout the universe?
Ms. Webster: They did not add that but I presumed that was what they meant.
Of course I would not sign it, nor would Dalton Camp. Seven of us would not sign it, and one of the people, Mr. Pichette, is here today. Seven, I would like to think, of their best writers could not sign, would not sign.
They did the same thing with Here and the people who had enough financial autonomy to object would not sign either, so they have lost those people. Little papers are still going but not with the same quality of coverage.
Eventually they will close because they did the same thing in Fredericton. There was a brisk little paper across the river called the Northside News, and it was a good little paper and there were good journalists. They bought that and closed it down.
I was dreadfully upset when they bought Here, because the young man who was then editor has since gone with the CBC. He landed on his feet, as it were, but you cannot buck it. That is all there is to it, and that is a tragedy.
That it is not going to change so I think, subsidy maybe is not the right word, a newspaper fund should be set up. I know there are all kinds of objection to this but an arm's length funding so a newspaper and alternate newspaper could survive, and could bring on journalists.
As an example, Philip Lee is doing a great job. He is a good editor of the newspaper, and he is turning out all of those journalists. Where are they going to work? They are going to work for the Irving papers, or they are going to leave the province, which is very sad.
It depends on how they feel about that contract. I would not sign their contract. I would not on principle but there is also a very good economic reason. They do not pay very well. I did a column for them every week. I was paid a very small sum, but I sold that column two or three other places, and I made five times as much in all out of that column. It was not worth writing a column like that for just that one publication at what they were willing to pay.
Journalists will come out, but where will they work?
On the matter of women journalists, there are some good ones here in New Brunswick. Maybe the good ones survived. The Telegraph-Journal has Lisa Hubley, and Kathy Kaufield, and there is Heather McLaughlin at the Daily Gleaner. There are quite a few good ones.
I do not know whether women are disadvantaged. I have never found it so. I was the first woman in the newsroom in Saint John, and I demanded a beat of my own. The then editor got tired of me asking for it and said, ``Well, what do you want?'' And I said, ``What have you got?'' He said, ``Down at long shore, the waterfront,'' and I said, ``I will take it.''
I did the waterfront in Saint John for two years. I had three teenage daughters, and during that time when people asked them what their mother did, they said she worked at the boats.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: We have heard a lot about the other papers, but going back to Here, why would the owner sell that? Was it because the price was so good, they could not say no. I would have thought that someone who is so idealistic — and I do not know the person at all, I have no idea who was publishing it — would have had a ``not for sale'' sign on it.
Ms. Webster: Economic strictures: They go after their advertisers. One of the lines they have used, and I know this to be so because I know an advertising manager who must do this exercise, is go to the advertisers. First of all they say, you can advertise with us for much less. They point out that if this little paper folds, as eventually it will, they will not take them on as advertisers.
That threat, I have been told, was an idle threat, because the ad man who talked to me said they are not going to turn down money. Nevertheless it scares people off so when the paper's advertising dries up and they do not have independent means, they have no choice but to sell it. They really have no choice.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: Through all the years with Dalton, I know that you knew the situation very well. You are suggesting that an independent paper come in. Has that been actively pursued at any time recently in the last decade or two, or is it just your idea and your belief that it should happen?
Ms. Webster: That is my belief of what should happen, and it has never been explored. I have several friends who are wealthy. I am not, but they are. I suggested, why do you not do something good and invest here in New Brunswick, because they are people who have roots here in New Brunswick. They have given it some thought, but they concluded it is throwing money down a rathole. Eventually they will drive us out.
All they have to do is lower their advertising, and they can do it. I think they could make life so miserable for a paper unless it is government-funded or funded in some manner that is consistent and steady, and it is going to stay there for a long enough term so that it gets on its feet and can fight these people.
I hate saying ``these people,'' because as you know, I have friends in the Irving family of whom I am very fond. However, friends are one thing and the Irving empire is another.
The Chairman: A corporation, as you say, may be populated by individuals, but it has its own existence. What you describe in terms of advertising tactics sounds to me like predatory pricing. Is that what you are talking about?
Ms. Webster: Yes.
The Chairman: If you have evidence or names that you could provide to this committee, either now or later by communicating with the clerk, that would be important for us to have. What you say before a Senate committee is protected, but it is very difficult for us to pursue something when we do not have more factual evidence to go on. If you can provide us with some, that would be very helpful.
Ms. Webster: I have one friend who was sorry that he had to do something else, and could not come with me this morning. He is one of the people who did work for the Irving corporation, and sold ads for them, and he has given me this information. I feel sure he would be prepared to back it up. When I go back to Fredericton, I will contact him immediately and tell him what has been said, and then I will contact you people and let you know if he is willing to do that. I hope he is. I cannot see why he would not be, because I know he feels very strongly about it.
Senator Munson: Are the contracts that you call Draconian still there today, in 2005?
Ms. Webster: They are still there.
Senator Munson: What is in them? What do they say?
Ms. Webster: I cannot remember it now, but the main thing is that they own everything, and they can sell the product, now or forever, and make any use of it they wish. I should have brought the contract with me because I have one somewhere.
Senator Munson: So you are not allowed —
Mr. Robert Pichette, As an individual: May I refresh your memory, Jackie?
Ms. Webster: Oh, yes. Robert Pichette would have the same contract.
Senator Munson: This is New Brunswick.
[Translation]
The Chairman: You are?
Mr. Pichette: I am a retired public servant.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: A man of Lord Callaway.
Mr. Pichette: We were colleagues at the Telegraph Journal and the Globe and Mail also.
[English]
Jackie is referring to the infamous clause 9 of that contract, which is forever etched in my mind. She is right, seven out of 11 columnists refused to sign that. The operating sentence of that contract, which was just one page, was that New Brunswick News, the corporation, reserves to itself the right to publish whatever we wrote as it saw fit. Obviously, there was a matter of principle here.
Senator Munson: It is the whole copyright? Forever?
Mr. Pichette: No, we were given the copyright, but we could not publish it anywhere else.
Ms. Webster: At the very end, after we had nothing left that was of any use to us, there was a little line which said copyright remains with the writer.
Mr. Pichette: What do we do with it? It is a perishable matter. The last column we wrote it is always the best one but people forget it an hour after having read it. It was not marketable really, but it was that particular clause that upset us and Dalton Camp very much.
Ms. Webster: There were seven of us.
Senator Munson: Do other newspapers across the country have this kind of contract? Do you know of any?
Ms. Webster: No. Other papers that I wrote for, I asked for their contract, and I did get contracts from some of them. They all have contracts one way or the other, and I do a lot for the CBC, and they are much simpler. There are none like that.
Ms. Webster: Thank you for coming to my aid, dear.
The Chairman: You can stay at the table, Mr. Pichette.
Ms. Webster: Do stay because his pitch is much the same as mine. We agree on mostly everything.
Mr. Pichette: Except politics.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: Madam Chair, I was expressing regrets when Mr. Pichette was not going to participate. He said, ``I have nothing to say.'' I suspect it was quite the opposite, ``You have too much to say.''
Ms. Webster: I have two stories to pass along.
A few years back, we had a great staff at the Daily Gleaner, then a really top flight staff. They wanted to form a union. When the word got out, they were fired summarily, the whole crew, one Friday. Of course they all got very good jobs, but they decided to sue their employers. They were journalists that took themselves very seriously and they were dismayed when the action started and they found out that their employer was a tugboat company. They worked for a tugboat company. They were distressed with that.
The other comment is that the Irvings will move if one puts enough pressure on them. Perhaps one of you may remember the occasion. Off Baloney Point in Bathurst, one of their oil tankers went adrift, and wound up on the rocks with 19,000 tonnes, or whatever, of Bunker C fuel oil in the hole. So it sat. The Irvings took the view that it was, ``Not our responsibility. The insurance people paid us, and just like a car, they own it.'' The insurance companies said, ``No, no, no. It does not work like that at all. They own it.'' There it sat. The fishermen were upset and they made presentations, and there was all kind of action. Nothing happened until a group of us that had worked for the Irvings started a little newspaper. I worked for them, I did not start it. We were old Irving employees, and we decided we would get that thing out of there.
I was instructed every Monday morning to phone the Department of Fisheries, Department of this, Department of that, and every time I got the same story. ``We are looking into it.'' I kept it up, and do you know what? Finally the Irvings said that for a dollar, they would pump it out. It turned out they could not pump it out because it had all solidified but they did burn it out. On an afternoon with some great friends of one of the senators in tow, we all went down and witnessed the burning.
Senator Munson: This is getting awfully close now. Do you want to go out for a beer after, an Alpine?
Ms. Webster: Then we left. They burned it out, but the hulk still sits there. Don Connolly and the rest us went in different directions, and the hulk is still there. Sometime, when I get old enough to retire, I will go back up there and start up an agitation to get that hulk out of there. I think it could be done.
The Chairman: It sounds to me that if anybody will get it done, it will be you, Ms. Webster.
Senator Munson: A couple of little questions: We heard testimony all morning here, and we probably have to come to some kind of judgment or recommendations after we are done our hearings in the next few weeks or so. However, you said, who in their proper mind would mess with the Irvings? Who in their proper mind would start a new alternative weekly press? Everybody says there is change all the time, but it does not seem that anything in a hundred years from now will change in New Brunswick.
Ms. Webster: No.
Senator Munson: No matter how much people talk here, how much people praise the Irvings, or how angry they are with the Irvings, we can talk all we want, and I have —
Ms. Webster: It is not going to change, and why would it? The only option, as I see it, is to have a funded newspaper; some sort of fund, at arm's length fund. I do not like government regulation anymore than anyone else, but some sort of fund is needed that is there, and can be used — it does not have to be $55 million, like they got for the shipbuilding — a fund that would maintain a paper, say for five years.
Senator Munson: Journalists always tell us that the last thing they want to see is money from government to be involved in a newspaper. Some people would say, you will be a voice piece for the government from where you got the money. I do not know about a trust fund from the government or a trust fund from a philanthropist. I do not know how a company could be operated independently.
Ms. Webster: I do not know the mechanics of that. I do not know how it could be set up so that it would be independent, but I think it is necessary. Does l'Acadie Nouvelle not have a fund? It is not very big, but they get interest from it.
Mr. Pichette: With l'Acadie Nouvelle, it is quite different. There will be representatives from l'Acadie Nouvelle here this afternoon, so they can explain that to you. It is quite complicated, and the trust fund does not go to the newspaper as such but only for distributing the newspaper, but it is better to ask them the question.
Ms. Webster: Yes, that is a good idea. When you say that journalists themselves would object, I think there are a lot of journalists who are distressed by the fact that they, indeed, must leave New Brunswick if they want a real career in journalism now.
Senator Munson: I left New Brunswick. I worked for theSaint John Telegraph as a paper boy from 1955 to 1960 in Campbellton, but I did not leave for any other reason. The pay was not bad then.
Does New Brunswick have a press council?
Ms. Webster: They subscribe to the Nova Scotia Press Council, as far as I know. New Brunswick does not have a press council of its own.
Senator Munson: There is not a group that sits together and goes over all these arguments, and tries to come up with a common position?
Ms. Webster: No. When you make a complaint, the complaint goes to Nova Scotia, becauseI have lodged several complaints against the Daily Gleaner, and the way it was run.
The Chairman: We heard yesterday that the Atlantic Press Council, which I think is the one you are talking about, had basically become inactive. Do you know if that is true?
Ms. Webster: I would say that they are pretty well inactive. They do not do very much.
The Chairman: They have not responded to our invitations to appear before this committee, which may or may not be indicative of something.
The Chairman: On the matter of the freelance contract, when was this obviously spectacular event of seven writers —
Ms. Webster: When was it, Robert?
Mr. Pichette: I think it was closer to modern times than that. When was it? It was five years ago.
The Chairman: Dalton Camp was still alive.
Mr. Pichette: It was about five years ago.
The Chairman: We have heard representations in the past year from groups such as the Periodical Writers Association of Canada that CanWest, and maybe another company, have brought in a contract that sounds very similar. It was not a joke. That is why I asked if they used the phrase, ``throughout the universe,'' because in its most famous version, this new contract has that phrase. CanWest told us, incidentally, that the contract is only one of hundreds of versions of freelance contracts. I wondered if you knew anything about that one and how it compared to the one that you referred to here.
Ms. Webster: No, I do not know anything about that. I have written for CanWest, but not in the last two or three years. I have a piece there now, and they have never asked me to sign a contract, thus far. Maybe I do not write often enough but I have not seen their contract. At the time that we were dealing with the Irving contract, I sent out and got contracts from the CBC and various other places so we could compare them. None of them were as Draconian as the Irving one.
The Chairman: How much cross-fertilization or influence is there between French language media and English language media in New Brunswick?
Mr. Pichette: There is not enough. Until recently I was an editorial writer for l'Acadie Nouvelle. As you know, in French we sign our editorials, and there is a photograph of us which means that when we go to Sobeys, we are easy prey. In my opinion, and I could be passionate about this, there is not enough cross-fertilization between the anglophone press and the francophone press.
Incidentally, the Irvings are now buying more and more French weeklies, some of them very old. Le Madawaska in Edmundston, where I come from, is nearly 100 years old. It is now an Irving newspaper. They have started one in Miramichi, and I believe they have bought one in Campbellton. There is also a francophone one, l'Avion. Bit by bit, there are not all that many.
In terms of cross-fertilization, for lack of a better word, there ought to be a lot more than is going on. It was fine during the golden years with Jackie and a number of us, the Neil Reynolds era, of course. However, there has to be more.
I would like to talk to Philip Lee, for instance. Invite us. We are not ready to throw in the towel. We can maybe be useful. I was lucky enough to teach journalism last year at Université de Moncton for a semester. Nobody had told me that you need three hours of preparation before a course.
That point is very important. There ought to be a lot more. The mechanisms could be found. There is a good school at St. Thomas University. There is another one at l'Université de Moncton. If only they could get together and organize meetings, a lot of good would come out of this.
The Chairman: Mr. Lee did say to us that in connection with these $2-million grants from the Irvings, one to each, that the two universities were hoping to have some cooperation in the way they use those. It is a beginning.
Mr. Pichette: Maybe there is a future there because there has to be. New Brunswick is a small province. We have a very small population and we should be talking to each other.
I used to be Louis Robichaud's executive assistant. That is a long time ago now but we have come a long way. We have come a hell of a long way since Michael Wardell was ruling The Daily Gleaner.
Senator Munson: Just a clarification on the Miramichi: Are they buying the Miramichi Leader, or are they buying something to compete?
Mr. Pichette: They have bought it, and they have created a French one.
The Chairman: Thank you both very much.
Now, nobody is allowed to move, because we promised some television photographers that at the end of our proceedings they could come and take pictures and we would look spontaneous as if we were still engaged in a hearing.
I will use this opportunity to note for the record that we have heard a number of critical comments about the Irving enterprises this morning. For all I know, we may hear more as this day goes forward, but tomorrow we will hear from Brunswick News. We could not have come to New Brunswick without hearing from them, and we will. I think it is important to note that.
I would also remind members of the public who are here that at the end of our proceedings today, scheduled for 4 o'clock, we will have opportunities for members of the public to come forward, give short statements and answer a couple of questions. That is always an interesting part of our proceedings wherever we go.
I should probably also say that this trip to New Brunswick is part of this committee's effort to travel across the country. Indeed, the Atlantic Provinces are the last region we are visiting. We have been to the west, we have been to Central Canada, and we delayed coming here, not so much because of weather fears in New Brunswick, but because of weather fears for Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, where fog as you know, can play havoc with schedules.
Senator Munson: You knew you would get the final word here.
The Chairman: We knew we would get a wonderful reception and very interesting times in the Atlantic Provinces in general, and in New Brunswick in particular.
Ms. Webster: The sad thing that affects us here in New Brunswick, because our English language daily papers are so dull, they cover things but they are not exciting. Because of that, the outside coverage we get is less.
When I knew the senator on your left, I was writing for The Globe and Mail. I covered New Brunswick for The Globe and Mail, and I worked very hard. I was on the road every day. I worked 15 hours a day. The Globe and Mail wrote a great many stories about New Brunswick. Then, of course, they have had economic strictures too. The interest has waned. Now in the Atlantic edition you do not see many stories about New Brunswick.
The stories are there. There is a marvellous story at the moment, if somebody would like to write it, about the boats that go in on the North Shore, at Belledune, and cart boatloads of lobsters out. Then they destroy them because they cannot be eaten. The lobsters are contaminated by lead, zinc, mercury or whatever, from that contaminated soil around Belledune. There is a great story there.
The Chairman: It does sound like a story.
Ms. Webster: Yes, it needs to be told.
The Chairman: Thank you very much.
The committee adjourned.