Wednesday, August 31, 2005
CBC 44: Something we can agree on, the Worthington audit
There is apparently one small something both sides in this can agree on: My call a couple of days ago for an independent audit of the accuracy of statements of reported fact in columns by Peter Worthington in the Toronto Sun.
At least this agreement is at the working manager level.
I arrived at the fairly dry Toronto Broadcast Centre this morning to snap pictures of gloomy people walking around under grey skies. (Katrina has passed on)
I took the memory card back to the Canadian Media Guild office to file for the newsletter, then returned to the picket line. On my way back along Front Street a person I did not recognize, a manager wearing one of those new blood red ID badges, quickly said to me, "Hey great idea about Worthington, wish I'd thought of it," and then passed by.
Later I got a chance to talk to someone else who told me that the CBC has been trying for at least a decade to get the Toronto Sun to issue corrections of inaccurate statements in columns by Peter Worthington. The Sun has consistently refused.
This is Sun policy. A few years ago, a senior editor from the Sun agreed to be put on the hot seat at the annual convention of the Canadian branch of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association. This editor said, and those present had to agree, that the Sun is usually scrupulously accurate as it can be in its reportorial coverage. (Its AIDS coverage in the 1980s was among the best in the Toronto papers) But it has been Sun policy since it was founded in 1971 that columnists are free to say anything they want; Sun policy that columnists could say anything about the gay community, whether or not it was accurate; Sun policy that columnists can say anything they want about the CBC, whether or not it is accurate.
As I said in my earlier blog, this attitude is no longer acceptable in most daily newspapers in the United States, even with the growing political polarization south of the border. Columnists as well as reporters have been audited for their accuracy and if found to be grossly inaccurate, disciplined by their employers.
Worthington is free in our society to hate everything the CBC broadcasts and hate everyone who works for the CBC. But if he is to be a credible journalist, he must base his arguments on verifiable facts.
I asked my contact if the senior managers would join this idea and simply write on CBC letterhead requesting an independent audit of Worthington's work.
I was told they are probably too busy. What are you doing in there for all that bonus money?
I am sure someone can take half an hour to draft a letter and the senior NCAN management could take a moment to sign it after one those "news in a minute" casts.
(After all the CBC always responds through the Ombudsman, why shouldn't the Sun, whose columnists are always accusing the CBC of bias, not be held to the same standard?)
Here is the address
Pierre Karl Péladeau
Le président et chef de la direction
Quebecor
612, rue Saint-Jacques
Montréal (Québec)
H3C 4M8
CANADA
Technorati tags
writing, journalism, CBC, blog, news, lockout,
CBClockout,
Toronto Sun
12:39 PM posted by Robin Rowland
Permanent Link
Links to this post
At least this agreement is at the working manager level.
I arrived at the fairly dry Toronto Broadcast Centre this morning to snap pictures of gloomy people walking around under grey skies. (Katrina has passed on)
I took the memory card back to the Canadian Media Guild office to file for the newsletter, then returned to the picket line. On my way back along Front Street a person I did not recognize, a manager wearing one of those new blood red ID badges, quickly said to me, "Hey great idea about Worthington, wish I'd thought of it," and then passed by.
Later I got a chance to talk to someone else who told me that the CBC has been trying for at least a decade to get the Toronto Sun to issue corrections of inaccurate statements in columns by Peter Worthington. The Sun has consistently refused.
This is Sun policy. A few years ago, a senior editor from the Sun agreed to be put on the hot seat at the annual convention of the Canadian branch of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association. This editor said, and those present had to agree, that the Sun is usually scrupulously accurate as it can be in its reportorial coverage. (Its AIDS coverage in the 1980s was among the best in the Toronto papers) But it has been Sun policy since it was founded in 1971 that columnists are free to say anything they want; Sun policy that columnists could say anything about the gay community, whether or not it was accurate; Sun policy that columnists can say anything they want about the CBC, whether or not it is accurate.
As I said in my earlier blog, this attitude is no longer acceptable in most daily newspapers in the United States, even with the growing political polarization south of the border. Columnists as well as reporters have been audited for their accuracy and if found to be grossly inaccurate, disciplined by their employers.
Worthington is free in our society to hate everything the CBC broadcasts and hate everyone who works for the CBC. But if he is to be a credible journalist, he must base his arguments on verifiable facts.
I asked my contact if the senior managers would join this idea and simply write on CBC letterhead requesting an independent audit of Worthington's work.
I was told they are probably too busy. What are you doing in there for all that bonus money?
I am sure someone can take half an hour to draft a letter and the senior NCAN management could take a moment to sign it after one those "news in a minute" casts.
(After all the CBC always responds through the Ombudsman, why shouldn't the Sun, whose columnists are always accusing the CBC of bias, not be held to the same standard?)
Here is the address
Pierre Karl Péladeau
Le président et chef de la direction
Quebecor
612, rue Saint-Jacques
Montréal (Québec)
H3C 4M8
CANADA
Technorati tags
writing, journalism, CBC, blog, news, lockout,
CBClockout,
Toronto Sun
12:39 PM posted by Robin Rowland
Permanent Link
