Asper answers CanWest’s critics

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This article was published 07/06/2002 (8665 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CanWest Global’s president and chief executive officer, Leonard Asper, defended his Winnipeg-based media empire yesterday against an advertisement that attacked its controversial national editorial policy.

Full-page ads signed by 40 former Southam Newspaper executives — published in the Free Press, the Globe and Mail and the Halifax Chronicle-Herald — demanded the public and the federal government do more to protect freedom of the press from media monopolies like CanWest and its subsidiary, Southam Inc.

Asper returned fire yesterday by saying federal action to curb media monopolies would be “draconian measures that would truly threaten freedom of the press in Canada.”

Responding to harsh criticism from his company’s former executives, Asper said Canadian newspapers are actually more diverse now than in the past.

“Those who are recommending fiddling with tax policies to influence editorial policies are standing on its head the basic principle of freedom of the press — they are asking that journalists be free from editing, but that newspapers be subject to government intervention,” wrote Asper.

Yesterday, a Who’s Who of Canadian journalists, former newspaper publishers and corporate executives drew national attention to the debate that had been largely confined to Canadian newsrooms.

The 40 former Southam bosses called on the public to lobby their MPs and their regional press councils to complain about media concentration. The critics — such as legendary publisher Clark Davey and Southam’s former president and CEO William Ardell — also urged federal tax breaks for companies that maintain a certain level of independence.

Southam has been under pressure to reverse a policy mandating that 14 of the chain’s biggest dailies run once-a-week editorials written by head office.

Wilson Southam, former director of Southam Inc. and the architect of the ad, said the fuss over national editorials points to a deeper problem: the lack of local and independent control over newspaper content and opinions.

“We need to act on the larger issue, on the structural problems,” said Southam.

Carl Morgan, former editor of the Windsor Star newspaper and a signatory to yesterday’s ad, said it’s not likely CanWest will listen to its former executives alone.

“What will get CanWest to change? Maybe if we keep grinding away at them, but they’ve already dug themselves in,” he said.

The “Aspertorials,” as they have become known, began running late last year and are matched with a policy prohibiting contrary views in the column normally reserved for the anonymous opinion of the newspaper’s editorial board.

Carleton University journalism professor Barbara Freeman agreed that it will take a broad public effort to alter both the national editorial policy and the trend toward media convergence.

“As long as people are buying the product, they probably don’t have to worry about what former directors are saying,” said Freeman.

Stock market analysts said the brouhaha will have little effect on the company’s stock prices. Public controversy rarely trumps financial considerations in the valuation of stocks, they said.

“Do you think fewer papers are going to be sold because of it?” asked one analyst, who did not want to be identified.

maryagnes.welch@freepress.mb.ca