CanWest backs off national editorials

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This article was published 27/09/2002 (8553 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CanWest Global Communications appears to have quietly abandoned a policy that imposes Winnipeg-written national editorials on its newspapers.

Although company officials deny there’s been a change in policy — claiming there’s been nothing important to write about — critics of the Asper-owned media conglomerate have noted that the controversial editorials have not appeared for three months.

Chris Dornan, dean of the School of Journalism at Carleton University, said the disappearance of the editorials indicates a shift in policy from the Asper family and CanWest Global Communications.

Dornan said the Asper family’s heavy-handed approach to newspaper ownership didn’t sit well with their readers.

“It became apparent that (the national editorials) were more trouble than they were worth,” Dornan said.

“They created all sorts of trouble inside and outside the (newspaper) organization.”

Staff at some of the Asper papers believe a new policy will be announced shortly that will allow members of local editorial boards to take contrary positions.

CanWest Global announced last December that its newspapers would, from time to time, reprint editorials that were to be written by its corporate office in Winnipeg. The company said the editorials could run as often as three times a week and that, while journalistic freedom remained at all their papers, their papers’ local editorial boards would not be allowed to write editorials that were contrary to the national editorials.

That policy appeared to contradict a statement CanWest Global gave to the House of Commons heritage committee a few months earlier, claiming that it would not impose pressure on the editorials of its newspapers or the operation of its newsrooms.

The controversy became more intense following the Asper family’s decision in June to fire Russell Mills, publisher of the Ottawa Citizen, for what Mills said was his refusal to preview his paper’s editorials with the corporate office.

The national editorial policy soured individuals and groups across the country, who said it challenged the independence of local newspapers, ignored community interests and appeared to give free rein to the Asper family to present their personal or corporate interests as in the national interest.

CanWest officials spent months denying any malevolent intent in the policy but critics pointed to the dismissal of Mills and the suspension and firing of several of its newspaper columnists across the country as proof that the Asper family was trying to impose its will on local newspapers and the communities they served.

Murdoch Davis, CanWest’s editor-in-chief and author of the editorials, and David Asper, chairman of the firm’s newspaper division, could not be reached for comment.

But Geoff Elliot, corporate spokesman for CanWest Global Communications, denied there has been a change in policy.

Elliot said there just hasn’t been anything worthwhile to write about.

“Absolutely not,” Elliot said yesterday of a possible change in policy. “There were not enough issues that deserved treatment as a national editorial.”

Elliot said readers of Asper-owned newspapers can expect to see more national editorials whenever the company’s corporate office feels there is something important to write about.

Elliot said the public outcry that the policy created across the country had no impact on carrying out the policy.

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca