Bell Let's Talk national spokesperson Clara Hughes in an interview with TSN Radio in Toronto (Bell Canada photo)

Today is Bell's Let's Talk Day, a day in which Canada's biggest telecom company raises money to help treat mental illness, and helps bring the issue out into the spotlight at the same time.

Until midnight Pacific time, Bell is donating five cents for every long-distance call and text message sent using its network, as well as every (non-robot) retweet of its Twitter account, to this charitable cause.

I was reminded of this campaign when I watched CFCF's noon newscast today. It was hard to miss it. Half of the first 15-minute block was devoted to it, with a story by a local reporter profiling someone with mental illness, and an interview with the campaign's spokesperson, Olympian (and national sweetheart) Clara Hughes.

It didn't stop there. Later, a health news story about the potential causes of suicide (probably a coincidence because the study just came out), a sit-down interview with an expert on mental illness, and a chat with reporter Tarah Schwartz about a special report on depression airing on Thursday. That's not including the commercials devoted to the subject and all the other programming that's airing on CTV, including a special at 7pm.

A year ago, I asked similar questions about this campaign, and whether the perfectly laudable cause justified the apparent intrusion of Bell Canada into the editorial decisions of CTV's newsrooms. (One could argue that many have simply decided to join this cause without being ordered to, which is possible, but there's a reason we're not seeing as much coverage of this on CBC and Global, and do we really think it would get so much airtime on CTV if this was, say, a Telus campaign?)

There are also questions to be asked about Bell's motives in this. Every large company puts profit ahead of anything else, and it makes sense for a company whose reputation is as poor as Bell's to spend millions of dollars making it seem more human. And it sends the message that if you really want CTV News to pay attention to your cause, no matter how positive it is, you need to get Bell onside.

But rather than rehash all that, I'll share an email that was forwarded to me by someone from Bell Media, who I'm guessing saw my tweets critical of the campaign today or was directed to last year's blog post. It was sent from a viewer of CTV's Marilyn Denis show, which also devoted segments to mental health today, including one on postpartum depression.

He added only: "This is why we do it."

I've redacted the person's name since it's not important.

Subject: Thank you thank you thank you

Hello Marilyn

My name is ***, mother of 4 girls 8,6,4 and 5 months.

I started my last pregnancy with depression and it is becoming a giant battle!

I feel darker and darker and the show today made feel good and thank to CTV, let's talk day. It is good to know that I will talk and search for help.

What a show thank you again.

There are a lot of thing behind my depression, I have in Canada for 17years no status, with 4 children provide a good life. Being a great mother and wife. Keeping on packing weigh. Being there sometimes became a burden etc....but I do it because I love my family.

Well I just wanted to say thank to you and CTV for this day Let's talk.

I never wrote to a show but the one today saved my life.

By the grace of God!

There are worse reasons to abuse one's power.

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The first was the revelation from La Presse's Hugo Dumas that producers of dramatic programming for TVA were being asked to not show characters using iPhones. This, apparently, because Quebecor owns both TVA and Videotron and Videotron doesn't offer the iPhone to wireless customers.

That prompted a reply from Quebecor VP Serge Sasseville that actually admitted Dumas's story was true, but said that this was simply a case of a sponsor (Videotron) wanting its products depicted in the programming it sponsors. He offers the example of Ford sponsoring Radio-Canada's series 19-2, and seeing Ford vehicles being driven in the show.

Dumas in turn replied to the reply, saying the argument seemed to suggest that Videotron sponsors all of TVA's programming, and calling that reasoning preposterous.

Interference from a broadcaster into dramatic programming for business reasons is bad enough. But as Sasseville's comparison points out, we're well past that point already.

The second story is the decision of RDS to refuse to show a commercial from comedian Mike Ward that makes fun of the Canadiens. To be precise, they refused to show the ad during Canadiens games.

Their argument, and it's a really stupid one, is that RDS is the official broadcaster of the Canadiens, and it's unacceptable that an ad that runs during Canadiens games makes fun of them.

Some have noted that RDS is now owned by Bell, which is a stakeholder in the Canadiens and owns the naming rights to the Bell Centre, among many commercial deals between the telecom giant and the hockey team.

Both of these moves are ridiculous, and both reek of giant media empires abusing their ownership powers to mold programming in one area so it matches the business interests of another.

It's not that many steps from this to each media giant having its own imaginary universe, each with its own set of maybe-true facts.

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Clara Hughes is the spokesperson for Bell's Let's Talk campaign to raise awareness about mental illness

Let's talk.

The phrase, and the face of Canadian Olympic star Clara Hughes, are all over the media today in a campaign organized by Bell Canada. It's planning to spend $50 million over five years on this program, and today it's giving five cents for every text message and long-distance call by a Bell customer to mental health initiatives.

To promote this, the campaign has pulled out all the stops, and has ... partnered ... with news organizations to spread the word. CTV, which Bell is in the process of purchasing, has devoted just about everything it can - including TSN and MuchMusic - to the campaign, forcing each one to mention it somehow. Hughes has been going crazy with interviews today. She was on Canada AM. She was on CP24's breakfast show. She was on the Marilyn Denis show. She was interviewed on CFCF. And that's just daytime. There's an entire channel online devoted to this stuff.

And, of course, during the actual commercials, Hughes appears again - over and over - in ads paid for by Bell talking about the campaign.

It doesn't stop with CTV, though. My own newspaper The Gazette has two pages devoted to this subject today, one of which has a giant ad featuring Hughes and the Bell logo. I'm sure it won't be hard to find other examples in other media.

Fighting mental illness is a laudable goal. No one with even a trace of a soul can stand up and say they oppose this campaign. I salute Hughes and Bell for their efforts, and wish the campaign success (though I'm not quite sure what that would mean - they've already said they're spending $50 million over five years, so are the donations in excess of that, or did they just estimate how much it'll cost them? UPDATE: The money from this event - more than $3 million - was in fact in addition to the $50 million they'd already pledged)

This also isn't the first time that a big, rich company has bought news for a good cause. Newspapers often have pages devoted to issues chosen by advertisers. They have various names for this, referring to them as "partnerships" or "joint ventures". "Directed content" is my favourite term. A step beyond the advertorial, the content is presented as news, it doesn't talk about the advertiser directly, and the advertiser has no say in the content of the news pieces themselves, other than their subject.

Oral B and Listerine sponsor coverage of oral care. Big oil companies sponsor articles about the environment to greenwash their image. Banks and other financial institutions sponsor entire sections on the importance of RRSPs. It is, in the eyes of the publishers and advertisers, a win-win: the news outlet gets much-needed advertising money, the advertiser gets to see its logo all over the place, and the issue gets public exposure.

The only drawback is the crumbling wall between editorial and advertising. The precedent is established that an advertiser can get all sorts of journalistic outlets to contribute to its campaign, provided it's for a good cause (or something that can be interpreted as a good cause), and that big media companies will use the power of convergence to please those advertisers, if given enough money.

Most importantly, it means that issues advertisers want to bring up - whether because they want to appear charitable or because it is in line with their business interests - get more exposure than those nobody wants to spend money on. People who want their causes to get news coverage are better off pleading to large corporations' marketing department than to journalists. And good luck getting anyone to pay attention to a cause that puts one of those big corporations in a bad light.

It's almost enough to drive a journalist to depression.

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I thought the exercise was a bit silly. I didn't think real newspapers would function in such a way. As it turns out from five years working at a real, multi-edition newspaper, the exercise was surprisingly accurate.

Working as the late sports editor on Monday night, I went through this process with a relatively minor story.

Guy Boucher is the head coach of the Hamilton Bulldogs, which is the farm team of the Canadiens. The Bulldogs play in the American Hockey League, and its players are routinely called up to Montreal to fill in for injured players.

There was a report that Boucher had gotten an offer to jump to the big leagues (even though he'd spent only a year with the Bulldogs, his first professional hockey team), becoming the head coach of the Columbus Blue Jackets. On Monday came word that Boucher had turned down that offer.

Since the Bulldogs are related to the Canadiens, and Boucher is considered one of the candidates to replace Canadiens head coach Jacques Martin if he's ever fired or quits (we don't suspect either is imminent), this story was going to become the lead brief in Tuesday's paper.

As the night went on, we received news from the Columbus Dispatch that the Blue Jackets had gone with their second choice, Manitoba Moose coach Scott Arniel. The brief had to be rewritten (it started off with "The Columbus Blue Jackets are still looking for a new head coach..."), but that was easily accomplished before first edition.

The scoop

At 10:59 p.m. Monday night, about a half hour after first edition, Rue Frontenac's Martin Leclerc published a scoop that Boucher had accepted an offer to become head coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning. It referred to three unnamed sources as confirming the news.

This news spread quickly, even at this late hour. A post on Habs Inside/Out was updated to reflect the new news, crediting Rue Frontenac. Habs-crazy broadcasters RDS and CKAC were reporting it, also offering credit where it was due.

Ironically, I learned about the story through a Canwest News Service report, also quoting Rue Frontenac. A Gazette editor later called to make sure I was aware of it.

Again, the brief had to be torn up and rewritten, starting with the latest news, but including the rest. (At this point there are three stories merged into one - Boucher turning down Columbus, Columbus hiring Arniel, and Boucher going to Tampa Bay.) An online story was also put together, crediting and linking to the Rue Frontenac report.

Few things are as embarrassing to a journalist - and a journalism organization - than having to admit you've been scooped. Because the report doesn't list its sources - and because it's late at night when usual sources are unavailable - there's no way to independently verify the report. There's no choice, really, you have to credit the news organization that broke the story. Otherwise, you're putting your organization's own reputation on the line if the story turns out to be false. It doesn't matter how respected the other organization is, if they're your only source you have to say so.

The multiplication of unnamed sources

Here's where it gets a bit tricky. Rue Frontenac is the website published by locked-out workers of the Journal de Montréal, a Quebecor publication. To say there's animosity between these two publications is putting it mildly. There appears to be a policy at Quebecor's news outlets that the term "Rue Frontenac" is never mentioned, even when they put out a scoop like this.

But Quebecor, the Journal and its Agence QMI couldn't ignore the story and let everyone else report it. So while RDS, CKAC and The Gazette prominently referenced Rue Frontenac, an Agence QMI story referred to "certaines sources". A different Agence QMI story credits the Tampa Bay Tribune for the scoop.

Except when you look at the Tampa Bay Tribune story, it credits "Montreal sports television outlet RDS". And RDS, you'll recall, credits Rue Frontenac.

Later in the night, TSN managed to get what seemed like a confirmation on the story. But by then, many news stories were already referring to "multiple sources" (say, "RDS and CKAC are reporting..."), even though all those sources led back to the same source.

That's a journalistically dangerous problem when it comes to these kinds of reports. Improper sourcing leads to the impression that news outlets have gotten independent verification of a story, which leads to more news outlets reporting on it with increasingly vague sourcing. Eventually everyone is reporting it because everyone else is reporting it, and it becomes common knowledge. Readers, viewers and listeners are left with the impression that everyone has verified the report, when in fact it's just one guy who's said something on the Internet.

In this case, it seems the story was true, so all the news outlets win their gamble. Nobody has to make any apologies for getting it wrong (and Quebecor doesn't have to say it relied on a report from its own locked-out journalist while refusing to credit him).

The next time this happens, they might not get so lucky.

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Coverage by Canadian Press, Fast Forward Weekly, Marketing Magazine.

Shell ad in The Gazette last Saturday

Their complaint is that the advertisement, like most advertorials, tries to pass itself off as news. It's got headlines and sidebars just like a newspaper page. It's not obviously trying to sell anything, but instead is presenting information in a journalistic sense. And the word "advertisement" doesn't appear anywhere.

Instead, it's described as a "special Canwest information feature on climate change, in partnership with Shell Canada", lending Canwest's name (and, presumably, its journalistic integrity) to the advertorial.

What's interesting to me is that the Sierra Club isn't complaining to Canwest or to a press council or the Canadian Association of Journalists or Canadian Newspaper Association. Instead, they're complaining to Advertising Standards Canada.

In other words, they're not arguing that the newspaper acted unethically. They're arguing that the advertiser acted unethically, and they're appealing to the advertiser's code of ethics.

It really says something, I think, when an advertiser is expected to have better journalistic ethics than a major newspaper chain.

The Sierra Club's complaint is essentially one about labelling. It's not labelled as an advertisement or advertorial, but as a "special information feature", which could mean anything and isn't clear.

Canwest's response, to Canadian Press and others, is this:

Canwest communications director Phyllise Gelfand said the stories were printed in a different typeface and laid out in a different style than the rest of the paper. Shell's "partnership" was referred to at the top of the page.

"That's enough," she said. "The average reader would notice the difference."

I don't agree. I'm a (former) newspaper editor, and a media critic, and it's tough for me to understand sometimes what is editorial and what is advertising.

Advertisers and newspaper publishers have come up with all sorts of euphemisms to refer to advertorial content (the word "advertorial" itself, for one). Special information feature. Advertising feature. Marketing feature. Joint venture. Advertising section. Do any of these really clearly say "advertisement" to you, the average reader?

(And the argument about it being in a different typeface holds in print, but not online, where it looks like any other news story except for the byline and the Shell ad)

Of course, if clarity were the goal, it would just come out and say "advertisement". But the goal isn't clarity, it's confusion. It's for the advertiser to piggyback on the journalistic integrity of the publication and convince readers that the publication somehow endorses what's being said.

And newspapers are only to happy to comply, sacrificing their integrity bit by bit for short-term financial gain.

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I switched back and forth a bit between the TVA broadcast and an actual sporting event that actually mattered. What little I saw of the show consisted entirely of long, drawn-out American Idol-style (or, if you prefer, «Star Académie»-style) player introductions. It's one thing when you're introducing two or three people you've never met, but it gets old after the first few dozen.

Thankfully, I wasn't the only one to notice that. Le Soleil's Richard Therrien and La Presse's Hugo Dumas showed an inspiring example of Quebec-Montreal unity by panning the show and its presentation devoid of any energy. The review from Dans ma télé's Annie Fortin was lukewarm at best, with similar criticisms.

But then there's the Journal de Montréal.

Journal de Montréal - Jan. 25, 2010

I find it ironic that Quebecor's new Agence QMI put together an article (one written like a ninth-grade book report or the minutes of a school board meeting) that was good enough for both 24 Heures in Montreal and the Journal de Québec website, but the Journal de Montréal decided it needed to have one of its few remaining journalists- Michelle Coudé-Lord - write a redundant story reviewing the show (one, I should add, that was reprinted verbatim in the Journal de Québec - in fact, the latter had an identical two-page spread, only in black and white).

Then again, Coudé-Lord's story has plenty of adjectives that the Agence QMI story was lacking, and her impression was so diametrically opposed to everyone else's (including mine) that I can only conclude that she was in a different universe at the time or has become disconnected from reality:

La Série Montréal/Québec sera rassembleuse comme le fut Star Académie. On n'abandonne pas une recette gagnante. Attendez-vous à ce que le Québec se divise en deux au cours des prochaines semaines. Les joueurs sont attachants ...

Guy Lafleur a résumé fort bien ce qu'allait être cette série : «le hockey est un jeu qui nous rend heureux».

La présentation des joueurs a donné le ton. L'émotion sera au rendez-vous. Stéphane Laporte et Julie Snyder, le concepteur et la productrice de cette série, savent faire de la télévision pour et par le monde. Et encore hier soir ils en ont fourni la preuve.

Le portrait de chaque joueur nous le rendait fort sympathique. ... C'était même touchant de voir les parents applaudir dans les estrades ...

Loco Locass a interprété avec enthousiasme l'hymne national de Québec ...

Montréal commence fort avec une gardienne de but ... Ça promet.

Belle initiative de Guy Carbonneau ...

Éric Lapointe a donné du chien à l'équipe de Carbo avec une interprétation enlevante de l'hymne national de Montréal.

Une belle réalisation de Michel Quidoz ... Marie-Claude Savard, l'animatrice, fut solide et a su laisser place à l'évènement. ...

That's 16 separate praises by my count, and not a single criticism of the show. I would have reprinted the entire article here if I could do so without fear of a copyright infringement lawsuit. It's surreal.

If I ever get married, I'm having Michelle Coudé-Lord write my vows. By then she'll probably be a public relations specialist.

PR is about the only way I can explain both Journals taking two colour pages to present players from both teams.

Hell, it makes Jeff Lee (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Quebecor-owned Videotron) look tame in his video blowjob.

Despite what some conspiracy theorists might think, Quebecor-owned media were not unanimous in their praise. Roxanne Tremblay of 7 jours didn't hold back on criticisms, and followed it up with a second-day story about the show's problems.

But still, even though I'm skeptical of theories about media owners directly affecting editorial content on a day-to-day basis, I can't help wonder if Coudé-Lord's article is what Pierre-Karl Péladeau envisions for his newsroom of the future - one where unionized journalists don't stand in the way of Quebecor's self-interest with their silly journalistic ethics.

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I don't blame TMZ, though. They're filling a demand, just like all the other gossip mags. Instead, the blame rests squarely on the people who consume this content: You. If everyone was as disinterested in celebrity gossip as I am, TMZ and its ilk would have no readers, no revenue, no money to pay photographers, stalkers and other scoop-chasers.

In fact, I respect TMZ. There are few worlds as cut-throat as celebrity gossip, and that brand appeared out of nowhere to suddenly own it. It broke the Michael Jackson story, it broke the Brittany Murphy story, and a bunch of lesser-known ones as well.

Love it or hate it, when the Jackson story broke this year, everyone as frantically reloading TMZ.com looking for an update. And its record has brought it to the point where it can report something and mainstream media will re-report it, citing TMZ as their only source.

It was just a matter of time before TMZ would fall face-first into its own pile of crap. And it happened Monday morning on what it thought was a huge exclusive story: A photo of John F. Kennedy, taken before he became president, partying with some naked girls on a boat. The significance, it argued: If the photo had come out in the 1950s, it would have sunk Kennedy's presidential campaign and probably "changed history."

TMZ went through due diligence in authenticating the photo. It got a forensic photo expert to say that the photo showed no evidence of digital manipulation, and said other unnamed "experts" also looked at the photo and said it appeared to be authentic. The story focused heavily on the authentication process itself, partly to convince people it was legitimate, and partly to leave open the possibility that it might not be.

Early comments on the story argued about whether or not it was fake, discussing everything from shadows to 1950s fashion. Most called people who disagreed with them names, and complained that they were not experts.

Within hours, The Smoking Gun, another website that has built a reputation for itself of being thorough researchers, posted a story saying TMZ had fallen for a hoax, that the photo in question is actually from a 1967 Playboy photo spread, and that the man in the photo was an actor, not JFK.

TMZ later posted another story, saying questions had been raised about the photo's authenticity. Later it confirmed what The Smoking Gun had said, and concluded the man in the photo was not JFK.

Soon, the mainstream media was piling on. Google News lists 766 articles, including one by the New York Times, which points out that both TMZ and The Smoking Gun are owned (through different subsidiaries) by Time Warner.

Quoted by the Times, TMZ executive producer Harvey Levin said "We’re not happy about it, but this is part of journalism."

He's right. Journalists get suckered like this all the time. And TMZ was right about the photo not being Photoshopped - Photoshop hadn't been created when the photo was taken. It's just that nobody bothered to check old issues of Playboy.

Comparisons with "Rathergate" - the Bush document scandal that got Dan Rather knocked off CBS - are apt here. Both involve documents that were authenticated but later turned out to be fakes. Both were good-faith, well-researched stories (that would probably be protected under a recent Canadian Supreme Court decision on libel), but both ultimately failed because the drive for a controversial story overpowered the need to get it right, and because a journalist interpreted an expert's opinion that they couldn't find anything wrong with a document as some sort of guarantee that the document must be authentic.

Still, TMZ will recover from this embarrassment. It will continue to break stories, and while they may be more cautious, or include more disclaimers, the mainstream media will keep re-reporting them.

My only major gripe with TMZ, though, is that the original story is still there, with no update, no correction, no indication at all that the story has been exposed as a hoax. I realize that failure to update old stories online is a problem in print media (Craig Silverman mentions it often), but even the most technologically-inept of publications knows that if you put up a story that turns out to have been false, you have to update it to say so.

Fix that, and my respect grows back a bit.

But no matter what, I still hate TMZ.

UPDATE (Jan. 19): Basem Boshra has similar thoughts in his Gazette column.

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The reason, of course, is simple: poverty doesn't pay.

It's one of those unfortunate realities of the media that, no matter how many barriers you put up between editorial and advertising, there will always be pressure for the latter to affect the former, and a tendency for that wall to slowly crumble.

One prime example of this (and it's not a recent development) is so-called "special sections". Long ago, some newspaper advertising department genius discovered that you're more likely to attract advertising if the editorial content appeals to the advertiser.

Because automotive companies have among the largest advertising budgets, special sections related to cars are among the most prevalent. In fact, most newspapers have multiple automotive sections every week, even now despite their shrinking sizes. Other attractive topics include sports, employment, real estate, investing, travel, health, home electronics and fashion.

In some cases, the idea of editorial freedom is chucked out the window completely and the section designated "advertorial" (or the more nuanced "special advertising section" or other euphemisms for such). In others, that wall between editorial and advertising is maintained, and the advertisers have no say in the content, except, of course, that it be on a certain topic.

And that's the problem, because not all topics have big-money advertisers willing to bankroll newspaper sections. Books sections are disappearing from newspapers because book publishers don't have large advertising budgets. Poverty doesn't have a financial backer, which is why you never see special sections about it. Homeless shelters don't have large advertising budgets (that won't change no matter how many people subscribe to this blog), and neither do so many issues that don't involve people buying expensive things. Forget reporting on international issues, human relationships, political corruption, the food industry, philosophy, science or other matters that don't involve excess consumption. Instead, they all have to share space in the cramped, overworked general news section, along with the political horse-race stories and cop briefs.

The environment is a bit of an exception to this. A lot of advertisers are pushing green initiatives, either because they think they'll make money off of it or just because they're trying to drum up some good cred. But otherwise, money is a more important factor than importance. That's why there's no special section on science but two on RRSPs and one on golf.

The problem is only getting worse as newspapers cut back. Choosing between a books section that loses a lot of money and an automotive section that pays for itself, newspapers will keep the latter.

Contrast the special sections in commercial newspapers with the special sections in student newspapers and the differences show clearly. The student paper I worked for had special sections on gender, sexuality, disability, poverty, and all sorts of other topics that don't usually get special attention in the mainstream media.

Mainstream media, that is, except Le Devoir. That's why it's so small. It could make a lot of money filling its pages with advertiser-friendly fluff, but it has chosen to build a stronger wall to protect its editorial side. Either that, or it's just being particularly hoity-toity about the type of content it produces.

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Oh wait, she's not the latest. Looks like that's Sue-Ann Levy, the Toronto Sun city hall journalist who's running as a provincial Tory (causing some panic on the other side of the aisle). Her column is "on hiatus" during the election campaign, which I guess means she'll go back to being a journalist if her life as a politician fails.

The list of journalists who have turned politician is so long I could spend days compiling it. But among the highlights:

• Bernard Drainville, former Radio-Canada host and journalist, now a PQ MNA
• Mike Duffy, former CTV News political anchor and now a Conservative senator
• Joan Fraser, former Gazette reporter and editor and now a Liberal senator
• Peter Kent, former Global News anchor and now a Conservative MP
• Christine St-Pierre, former Radio-Canada political reporter and now a Quebec Liberal MNA

The stories all sound the same. The journalists - usually on the politics beat - decide that they can do more in office than as a sideline commentator. Party leaders, desperate for some semblance of integrity and trustworthiness, prey on the journalists in order to suck out as much of it as they can in an election campaign.

In each case, there were (or should have been) serious questions: did the offers come with strings attached? Did the journalists go easy on the parties they would later join? Will they leak sensitive government documents to their journalist friends? Will they back away from critical comments they may have made about the parties they have now joined?

When I was in university, reporting on the student union for the student newspaper, I was drafted into a political position. The student union was in the middle of a political crisis and had no executive at the time, so someone thought it would be fun to appoint me as a vice-president. (I attended more council meetings than most councillors, and probably knew the issues better, so I'd be good at the job, they reasoned.) I didn't consent to the appointment, but they didn't seem to care. As my journalist colleagues wondered what the heck was going on, I was handed an executive key by the president, who asked for me to stay on. I didn't. After peeking around at a few things I now had access to for the first time, I returned the key.

I've always thought journalists have more freedom than politicians. Compare what Bill Maher gets to say to what Barack Obama gets to say. Though it's tempting to ponder what might happen if you actually had the power to change the system for the better, the freedom to call a spade a spade has always appealed more to me. I'm not sure which would help society more.

Of course, my job as a journalist isn't permanent yet, and my industry is in a death spiral. So just in case, I should probably say some nice things about our political parties here.

Only I can't think of any.

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The media concentration outrage of the week (Hitler comparisons and all) concerns Matt McCann, an intern at the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal who wrote an article about teachers' reaction to the University of New Brunswick giving an honorary degree to premier Shawn Graham.

You'd think such a thing would be a conflict of interest, an academic institution presenting an honour to the man responsible for the government that funds them, but apparently UNB does this as a matter of routine.

The story made the front page. It included quotes from professors and students (none of which were anonymous) who were upset at the move. It quoted a university spokesperson who explained the policy and made counter-arguments, as well as a note saying that Graham's office did not wish to comment. In all, a fairly standard newspaper political conflict story, and a pretty good one for an intern.

After the story was published, the newspaper fired him.

According to McCann, he was told his story was "seriously unbalanced and severely underplayed the university's side of the story" and that "the newspaper has worked hard to establish a good relationship with UNB and that I had damaged that relationship". The newspaper refused to give its side to the CBC, so we have only McCann's word on this.

On Saturday, the Telegraph-Journal, which had refused to comment because it was a "personnel issue" (a policy many companies have to avoid lawsuits and such), decided that policy has a scandal-annoyance exception clause to it, and published an unsigned Page 3 story with an inflammatory headline that falsely accuses the CBC. (Thanks Josh) In it, the paper said McCann was fired because he misspelled a name, got a title wrong (his "university secretary" was actually a "university secretary" ... wait, what?), and didn't correctly list the premier's degrees. It also repeats that that McCann didn't "adequately portray" both sides of the story and "did not seem to fully grasp the seriousness" of his errors.

Bullshit.

Are we to believe that the Telegraph-Journal has such absolute integrity that minor factual errors lead to immediate dismissal? If it was, why haven't the errors been corrected on the original story online? Is balance in stories so important that a 149-word rebuttal to a 368-word argument is so outrageously biased it constitutes an error in judgment? (And just what part of the university's argument did McCann leave out of his story?) Shall we go through Telegraph-Journal stories with minor factual errors and where the word counts of both sides of an argument don't exactly match and demand those journalists be fired too?

This isn't just wrong, it's cartoonishly-evil wrong. The kind of stuff you see on TV and scream "that wouldn't actually happen in real life." It's so bad, in fact, that Premier Graham took pity on the kid and asked for his CV. Even Graham, who the newspaper considered the victim of McCann's "reckless" reporting, thought the punishment was too severe.

This is an abhorrent act and needs to be condemned in the strongest terms. Other than the minor factual errors, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that story.

A little context is necessary here: The Telegraph-Journal is owned by the Irving family, a very powerful family that owns almost all news media in New Brunswick (the exceptions are a Transcon-owned community paper, L'Acadie Nouvelle and sister francophone media, bureaus of Global Halifax and CTV Halifax, CBC/RadCan stations, private radio music stations and small community publications). Of note is the fact that outside of CBC New Brunswick, there hasn't been any original reporting of this story. Not only is this kind of monopoly unique in Canada, but unlike Canwest or CTVglobemedia, the Irvings also have non-media corporate interests, including big-money forestry and oil businesses. Their media holdings have been repeatedly accused of being soft on the Irving empire.

And now a young reporter has been dismissed because he made the premier look bad.

New Brunswick needs a media revolution. The Irvings' control over the province needs to be pried off with a crowbar.

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The Telegraph, which doesn't confirm nor deny the rumour (usually an indication that it's true), throws in this quote (emphasis mine):

“One of the great rules of journalism is that you don’t discuss your sources, so long as you establish the information is reliable and in the public interest,” said Benedict Brogan, assistant editor of The Daily Telegraph, in an e-mailed statement.

Is that really a rule of journalism, much less a great one?

I don't think so. Some sources require protection, the Deep Throat-like ones who come forward with important information but can't be identified because they could lose their jobs or worse for leaking something to the media. But recently the granting of anonymity has become commonplace, given to random people on the street giving their opinion about things because they just don't want their full names in the paper. (Not that knowing their names really changes anything, mind you.)

Not discussing where you got your scoops isn't a great rule of journalism, it's an unfortunate consequence of newspaper competition, and one of the places where journalism takes a back seat to self-marketing and self-congratulation.

I'm not necessarily saying that the Telegraph shouldn't have paid for the information, provided it treated it with the highest amount of skepticism. Nor am I necessarily saying it shouldn't disclose who or what sold them the information (though a discussion of their motivation would certainly be helpful). These are grey areas of journalism ethics.

I'm saying that when the Telegraph hides this information from the public, it shouldn't be proud of it.

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It was underhanded, mean-spirited, even arguably discriminatory. CTV executives decided to air the raw tape of an interview between ATV host Steve Murphy and then-Liberal leader Stéphane Dion in which Dion has trouble understanding a grammatically confusing question. The network said it was because it had news value, but in reality it was because it wanted to make Dion look bad.

The move backfired, with public opinion turning against CTV. And now the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council has agreed, with two separate rulings that the network violated the Canadian Association of Broadcasters' Code of Ethics. (Two panels were actually convened, one regional panel to deal with the CTV Atlantic airing, and a specialty channel panel to deal with the Mike Duffy CTV NewsNet rebroadcast later that evening.)

Coverage from CP and Canwest. Still waiting for a news outlet that actually bothers to link to the decisions. Also no peep from CTV so far.

The decisions basically rule that Murphy's question was poorly worded, that the network should not have aired the outtakes after promising not to do so, that airing them was unfair to Dion, and that his restarts were not newsworthy enough to justify their airing.

I find myself mostly agreeing with the analysis of the council, though their analysis of Murphy's grammar is thorough to the point of absurdity.

The specialty channel panel wasn't unanimous, with two members providing a dissenting opinion that favoured CTV. CTV's arguments shouldn't be dismissed here - they argue that restarts like these are rare, even in live-to-tape interviews like this one, and that it should be up to CTV, not the council, to decide what is newsworthy, especially when it comes to the most important interview a newscaster can give - a candidate for prime minister during an election campaign.

One argument that CTV didn't make which I'll add is that the question Dion was asked is textbook to the point of being cliché: What would you have done as prime minister? And politicians with even a moderate amount of public exposure should know how to bullshit their way to the next question if they don't understand it (or don't have the answer). Had Dion just picked an interpretation of his choosing instead of asking for clarification multiple times, this would never have happened.

But that doesn't change the fact that CTV said it wouldn't air the outtakes, and acted in a way that made it clear to Dion they wouldn't be aired. Dion took advantage of an opportunity, and then got a knife stabbed in his back for his trouble.

UPDATE (June 2): ProjetJ looks at the differences between the CBSC and the Quebec Press Council. The latter has been losing members who also belong to the former (arguing they shouldn't have to belong to two organizations that do the same thing). It also suggests the press council is more secretive, making its decisions anonymously.

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Some of the rules make sense, like not using fake names, not expressing partisan opinions, and not engaging in epic flame wars with those who would criticize you. Some other ones are the kind of stuff you might not think of off the bat, like not Facebook-friending anonymous sources.

And then there's the cover-your-ass boilerplate that sounds like it's meant more to build a wall between journalists and readers than to ensure journalistic integrity: "Let our coverage speak for itself, and don't detail how an article was reported, written or edited. Don't discuss articles that haven't been published, meetings you've attended or plan to attend with staff or sources, or interviews that you've conducted."

Meanwhile, Bloomberg has issued orders that employees are not to write blogs that discuss work, aren't allowed to link to competitors or even discuss them.

It's unfortunate that even with the rise of the Internet, major news organizations still fear true transparency. They're all about using Facebook and Twitter for marketing and finding that man-in-the-street source that turns an issue story into a human interest story. But the news media want to project an image that they are without flaws.

Steve Proulx explored this issue in a recent post, pointing out that they're particularly awful when it comes to reporting bad news about themselves.

Quebecor, Canwest, CTV and others will dutifully report on the press releases issued by their parent companies, but when it comes to analysis, you have to seek out their competitors who are more free to explore the issues.

An exception to this is the CBC, who - probably because they're a public broadcaster and are ultimately responsible to politicians instead of corporate shareholders - follow a culture where employees can be critical of management and don't have to clear every Twitter post through corporate PR.

These are generalizations, of course. There are probably many middle managers at the CBC who believe in silencing dissent, just like there are some at private media who believe in transparency.

But when in doubt, many media err on the side of keeping embarrassing information to themselves, or at least trying to bury it.

That's unfortunate, because it builds resentment among honest journalists, and mistrust among news consumers. Neither of those is healthy for a news organization.

We all have flaws. Some of them are embarrassing, others less so. Most distill down to something more complex than "we're evil" and would probably be understood - even if not agreed to - by the audience.

Building a culture of honesty by putting one's flaws out there for people to see gives people the impression that the news outlet they're dealing with is like them: human.

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The situation is somewhat nuanced, so let me explain:

The council only acts based on complaints. In this case, a reader who has a beef with Dumais accused him of being biased in favour of corporate software and against free software, because of these free junkets he went on. The complainant also accuses Dumais of censoring his comments on Dumais's blog. The council rejected both of these complaints, failing to find any bias in Dumais's work and ruling that Dumais has the authority to moderate his blog as he sees fit.

But the council did give Dumais a slap on the wrist for accepting free travel sponsored by the companies he writes about, without fully disclosing the trips to his readers. He hasn't hidden the fact that he gets these trips for free, he even wrote a blog post about it in 2006, but since not all readers will have seen that post, he should disclose it whenever there might be a conflict of interest.

Paid travel is listed as an example in the council's section on responsibilities of the press to avoid conflicts of interest:

Preventing Conflicts of Interest

The Press Council recommends that media enterprises develop clear policies to prevent and deal with conflict of interest situations. Those policies should apply both to reporters and opinion writers. All situations that risk compromising the independence and impartiality of journalists should be addressed. Examples include paid travel, privileges and gifts, as well as awards and prizes offered by any group whose main purpose is to promote something other than journalism.

It acknowledges that there might be exceptions (reporting from war zones or other far-off places where commercial travel is unfeasible), but that there must be full disclosure in those situations.

Of course, these are all guidelines. The council has no official power. It cannot fine or discipline journalists for violations, and participation in the council is optional.

So a body with no power has mostly cleared Dumais of wrongdoing, only saying that he should disclose where the companies he writes about give him free travel to their junkets. Simple, right?

Obviously not, because Dumais is pissed. And I must be missing something, because most of his readers are too, and even fellow journalists.

Dumais's argument is also nuanced. First of all, he's not on staff at La Presse or Cyberpresse. He's a freelancer, which means he basically has to look after his own expenses.

He also trots out that well-worn of excuses that everybody else does it, so that makes it okay.

Finally, he adds that in no way have these junkets affected how he reports, and requiring disclosure on every piece he writes would give people the false impression that these companies are paying him for his opinion.

But none of these excuses justifies accepting all-expenses-paid trips from software companies, much less deciding not to disclose them fully.

First of all, as any ethics expert will tell you, it's not just about conflict of interest. It's about the appearance of conflict.

Second, if these junkets truly had absolutely no effect on how journalists report, they would not exist. These giant software companies aren't morons. They know if they give you free food and free travel, you're a lot more likely to talk about their product. There might not be any direct quid pro quo, but they know you're a lot more likely to say something positive about them. And if you have a reputation as someone who bashes the products promoted on these junkets, you won't be invited to them in the future.

Finally, Cyberpresse should not be exploiting freelancers as a way of getting around paying expenses. Dumais is right that if he billed Gesca for all these trips, he wouldn't be allowed to go on them anymore (an argument that makes it clear these trips are of value to him). But if we accept that journalists should not get free travel, then even freelancers should have their expenses paid for, no questions asked. This judgment is as much a stain on Gesca as it is on Dumais.

Dumais says he doesn't have a choice in this matter. That's bullshit. He can refuse these junkets. He just doesn't want to, and neither does Cyberpresse, because they both (indirectly) profit financially from them.

Dumais and Cyberpresse must put an immediate stop to this, and stand up for journalistic integrity. These junkets should be outright banned, Dumais's previous articles online should be edited to add disclosure statements to them, and a policy should be setup to ensure that freelancers do not feel they have to deal with their own expenses when they write original pieces for Gesca-owned properties. Other media organizations should follow suit with similar policies, including full disclosure of any gifts, sponsorships, favours or expenses paid for by companies seeking favourable coverage.

Someone must stand up for ethics, even if that means he stands alone.

If Frank Zampino is getting raked over the coals for accepting a yacht trip that he paid for, why should Nelson Dumais be allowed to accept trips that were provided for free? Do we expect stronger ethics in politicians than journalists?

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The full schedule (in PDF) is here.

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National Post technology reporter David George-Cosh learned that the hard way today when an expletive-filled argument he had with a source on Twitter was publicized (and republicized and republicized), making him (and the paper) look pretty bad.

The result, mere hours later, was an apology posted to the Post's Editors blog (which doesn't name the reporter it's apologizing for, nor the person it's apologizing to, nor the nature of the conduct, but who needs specifics for these things?). (Via Regret the Error)

Reporters are human, and like everyone else they'll have off days and they'll get into arguments. But when they happen online, those arguments can easily become public, and this is probably not the last time we'll see apologies for personal conduct of people associated with media.

In this case, the reporter's actions were in a professional capacity (which makes it the paper's problem), but I wonder when the time will come where reporters, columnists and other public figures associated with a publication's brand will have clauses in their contracts about what they can post to their Facebook profiles, personal blogs or other public and semi-public forums online.

UPDATE: April Dunford, the victim of the tirade, has similar thoughts on her blog.

UPDATE (Feb. 12): More reaction from Roberto Rocha and a let's-attack-the-victim post from ZDNet's Jennifer Leggio (which gets its basic premise wrong). Additional commentary from Mathew Ingram and the Telegraph's Shane Richmond.

UPDATE (May 25): Three months later, George-Cosh writes about the "incident" on his blog, saying he's learned some hard lessons, though he still makes excuses for his behaviour.

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The Gazette did something similar a while back.

Editors deal on a regular basis with tough ethical decisions, and must choose between publishing something or holding it back. The Star gives some examples, at least some of which were based on actual events which were published in the paper and got complaints.

Most are unfortunately a bit too easy to answer for me.

As holiday filler for this blog a public service, here are my answers to the quiz and the explanations for them:

1. A Toronto woman is struck by a bus and dragged beneath its wheels to her death. Some witnesses on the scene told your reporter that the woman was decapitated. Do you publish this fact in the article and headline?

Yes, but only if you can verify this from the official police report.
No, why publish such graphic details that will further distress the woman's family?

My answer: Yes, but only if you can verify this from the official police report.

I'd leave it out of the headline, though, and I certainly wouldn't make it a major part of the article. But there's no reason to hide the information.

2. The Canadian Press reports that a 77-year-old man is dead after a tombstone presumably fell on him while he worked on his parent's grave. Do you publish this headline: "Couple's devoted son victim of grave misfortune."?

Yes, it's a clever play on words.
No, it's insensitive here.

My answer: Yes.

Normally you want to play it straight with stories about deaths. You certainly don't want to sound like you're having fun with a headline at some dead person's expense. But the pun here is benign enough that I'd let it through.

3. A mother calls the Star seeking to talk to a reporter about "death threats" at an Oakville high school. She says her son told her that graffiti on a washroom wall indicated that "teachers will be gunned down." and the "shooting would make Columbine look like a joke." The call comes near deadline and the reporter can't reach police or school officials to verify the mother's report. Do you publish this story or hold it for further reporting?

Yes, publish. A death threat in a high school is news and the mother's call is evidence that the community is already talking about this.
No, hold it. A newspaper must verify facts, not report rumours.

My answer: No, hold it.

It's most likely a hoax. Call the police instead and have them negotiate. There's no way that publishing this information is going to save lives, but it's very likely it would cause unnecessary panic.

4. A photo in the Sports section captures interim Leafs GM Cliff Fletcher surrounded by three young women as he makes the draw for a horse race. Do you publish this photo caption: "It's a tough job but someone has to do it. Interim Leafs GM Cliff Fletcher is flanked by a trio of fillies yesterday as he makes the draw for Woodbine Oaks"?

Yes, it's a humorous cutline.
No, what year is this, 1962?

My answer: No.

I learned long ago that comparing young ladies to horses gets you into trouble.

5. Your photographer covering the Olympics captures a shot of kayaker Adam van Koeverden bent over with the dry heaves after his eighth place finish in a race he was favoured for a medal. Do you publish this photo?

Yes, it's a dramatic, gripping photo that captures an Olympian's despair.
No, it's mean-spirited and offensive.

My answer: Yes.

I wouldn't make it the main photo, but I'd publish it. It happened on a world stage. It's embarrassing, but no more so than coming in eighth place out of nine in a race you were expected to win.

6. A Reuters photographer captures this photo of Hillary Clinton in March on the campaign trail during the height of her race against Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination. Do you publish this on the front of the World section?

Yes, it aptly illustrates the headline, "It's do or die for Clinton"
No, it's a highly unflattering photo that's unfair to this candidate.

My answer: Yes, if you have nothing better.

Looking through wire photos, you see pretty quickly that photographers love to take these kinds of shots of Hillary Clinton (or their editors like to send them out). I have nothing against publishing a photo (candidates who worry about looking unflattering in the press shouldn't be candidates for high office), but it's not very good.

7. A judge rules against banning the media from naming several women who are to testify in the sexual exploitation trial of a former NHL agent. The women, between the ages of 24 and 28, were teenagers at the time of the alleged sexual incidents involving former hockey players and have told the court that publishing their names would humiliate them. The names of the hockey players are banned from publication. Do you publish the women's names when they testify?

Yes, it's legal to name them.
No, some evidence suggests the women were coerced into the sex acts and the Star should not stigmatize them.

My answer: No.

I honestly can't imagine this actually happening. (Did it?) Courts almost always err on the side of protecting the identities of minors who are victims of crimes (or even when they're the perpetrators). The only exception to this rule I can think of is when they consent to being identified after they're adults.

Not knowing the court's reasoning behind this decision, I'll err on the side of not publishing their names unless a compelling case can be made that there's a reason the public should know who they are.

8. Three young Toronto men are killed in a car crash in Muskoka when their car rips through a guardrail and plunges into a river. A few days later, your reporter examines public court records and learns that the driver, 20, was in danger of losing his licence and that the two passengers who died had also faced charges under the Highway Traffic Act. Do you report these facts?

Yes, this is a matter of public interest because reckless driving was likely a factor in this tragedy.
No, it's heartless and insensitive to the grieving families.

My answer: Yes.

I would definitely try to determine if driver error had something to do with the cause of the crash. Failing that, I would report the information but stress that we don't know what caused the crash.

9. An earthquake devastates China's Sichuan province killing thousands of people. An AP photo captures an anguished mother cradling her dead daughter. Do you publish this photo on Page 1?

Yes, though the Star rarely publishes photos of dead bodies this photo conveys the impact of the human suffering.
No, the photo is too graphic for a family newspaper.

My answer: Yes.

People die. You don't want that information, don't read the newspaper. The photo in question doesn't show anything obviously gruesome, so I'd let it in. If it was someone whose head was blown away, I'd probably keep it off of Page 1.

10. The mayor of Vaughan is under fire for her expenses, which include thousands of dollars for meals. The Star investigates meal receipts and learns she spent $300 for lunch for three at an Italian restaurant. You send your restaurant critic to review the restaurant. His review includes stereotypical descriptions of the restaurant patrons that read like a scene from The Sopranos. Do you edit these references from the review?

Yes, these descriptions are unfair, offensive stereotypes about Italians and the Star should hold to a higher standard that doesn't perpetuate stereotypes of those of any race, religion or nationality.
No, reviewers are entitled to their opinions and the reviewer reported on what he observed.

My answer: Yes.

Racism is bad, mmm'kay? The fact that Italians might go to an Italian restaurant is not news.

That's my take. Anything you disagree with?

UPDATE (Jan. 13): The Star summarizes responses. Most are in the form of "readers said don't publish; The Star did; The Star was wrong"

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