Legislated oasis in a journalistic storm

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/06/2017 (3122 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s an oasis of protective calm in a desert of overheated “fake news” dust storms.

Last week, the federal Liberal government confirmed it will support Bill S-231, which affords enhanced protection to journalists seeking to shield the identities of confidential sources. It might not result in many changes in the way Canadian news media operate or are perceived by the public, but the fact that legislation that supports independent journalism is receiving all-party support in this country seems positively sane in the broader current media-hostile environment.

Bill S-231, the Journalistic Sources Protection Act, was tabled last fall by Conservative Sen. Claude Carignan in response to efforts by police in Quebec to obtain warrants for the telephone records of eight journalists, some dating back as far as five years, during an investigation of internal information leaks. The bill was also intended to address the plight of a Vice News reporter who was ordered by RCMP to turn over information related to conversations with a Canadian with ties to the Islamic State group.

The bill, which is expected to receive only technical amendments before being passed in the House of Commons, will not exempt journalists from police efforts to obtain and execute search warrants, but it would impose a higher level of scrutiny on law enforcement agencies seeking such warrants.

In introducing the bill last November, Mr. Carignan asserted that confidential sources are “essential” to the work of journalists — a stark contrast to the fast-unravelling situation south of the border, where the Trump administration is besieged almost daily by anonymously sourced reports of White House misdeeds and the president has taken to shouting “fake news!” both out loud and in all-caps Twitter tirades at any mainstream news outlet publishing critical stories or seeking to expose details of his administration’s alleged collusion with Russia during the 2016 U.S. election.

Ironically, it’s information provided by confidential sources that has pushed forward the American media’s coverage of the deepening scandal involving Russian influence in the U.S. electoral process. Mr. Trump and his supporters have been more concerned with rooting out “leakers” and stemming the flow of anonymously sourced reports than with finding the truth about Russia’s role in the 2016 election and the ongoing threat such meddlng poses to America’s democratic institutions.

As mainstream media pundits make more frequent comparisons between the Trump-Russia connection and the Watergate scandal that led to the impeachment of then-president Richard Nixon, the fractured relationship between U.S. politics and the American media can only continue its rapid disintegration. Mr. Trump might finally be undone by the fruits of investigative reporting, or perhaps he’ll triumph in his autocratic quest to silence the free press once and for all. The most likely outcome, however, resides in a rancorously uncomfortable middle ground.

Back home in quaint ol’ Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau famously once snapped at a Liberal supporter who heckled a reporter, stating that “we have respect for journalists in this country; they ask tough questions, and they’re supposed to.” It may have been, in part, pandering by a PM seeking to portray himself as media-friendly and selfie-gen cool, but the fact that his government is poised to quickly pass Bill S-231 suggests there’s still a place in this country for journalists to ply their trade without being dismissed as false or fake.

It’s a welcome bit of shelter in otherwise stormy times.