Every day,the Saskatoon StarPhoenix carries the following quote from The Supreme Court of Canada on its editorial page: “Democracy cannot be maintained without its foundation; free public opinion and free discussion throughout the nation of all matters affecting the state within the limits set by the criminal code and the common law.”
The nation’s press, in the form of its daily and weekly newspapers, provide a forum for public opinion and discussion.
Part of that discussion is in the form of the editorials ,which every good newspaper carries. Editorial freedom is considered to be a tenet of our democracy, something that sets our press apart from that of less democratic countries.
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Over the weekend, one B.C. publisher of a chain of about 60 weekly newspapers, David Black, shocked people when he stated that all of his newspapers will editorially oppose that province’s recent land deal with the Nishka people.
Letters to the editor and news reports will, he said, continue to express other points of view. Editors will not be forced to write editorials which go against their views; those editorials will be written for them.
To think that owners of newspapers, whoever they may be, do not influence editorial stances is to be naive. In this case, Black is merely doing it in a more blatant manner than is usual.
In these days of mass communications, people seldom rely on one medium, be it newspaper, television, radio or even the internet, for their news and views.
Given this fact, Black’s actions are not the threat they appear to be.
The real danger is that, while promising that opposing views will be published in news stories, knowing how the boss feels about the issue might well intimidate some reporters and cause them to be less than zealous in reporting completely and fairly both sides of the question.
The problem, if indeed one exists, is not that Black is exercising his right as the owner of a business to decide what the policy of his business will be; the problem is rather chain ownership of our media outlets which restricts a diversity of opinion by allowing for the concentration of several outlets in one set of hands.
This is not Black’s problem, it is society’s. If we don’t like what is happening, the answer is a concerted lobby effort to change the rules. Until that happens, Black and other newspaper owners are free to set the editorial paramaters under which their papers operate.
