Mediaspin accused of ‘Gorilla Journalism’

Confessions of a local news ape

Posted on March 24, 2012 by Bruce Wark
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No one loves the messenger who brings bad news. Bang on Sophocles, although the ancient Greek bard might have inserted the adjective “local” right before news. Ever since I reported details of a sexual assault trial on a radio station in Parrsboro, Nova Scotia, (see previous post), local Facebookians have been erupting in howls of outrage against the newcomer to town who simply told the unpleasant truth.

I am shocked, appalled and ANGRY with this piece of GARBAGE writing. That should have not be aired on RADIO !!! That man should be physically removed from that station. You call that Journalism when you air a victims testimony for all of Parrsboro to here only to shame her in front of many and during the day when there are children listening . SHAME ON YOU WARK…Your ethics are low since your retirement, but then again you can’t lose what you don’t have…

I think Bruce Wark should go back to where he came from , why would a man come to a town and make himself soo hated. Any man who would admit to being a friend of some filthy pervert should be very ashamed of himself!!!

Yes, I did say in my previous post that Ross Robinson is my friend. I met him four months ago when I began my scandalous career as a volunteer reporter at CICR, Parrsboro’s community radio station. Robinson has managed the station since it acquired its full-time broadcast licence in 2008. On January 25th, he was convicted of sexual assault in Amherst provincial court for touching a woman’s back and making sexually suggestive comments during a visit to her home last June.

I covered his trial and reported on CICR that the judge ruled the unwanted touching was sexual in nature and therefore constituted an assault. Under the criminal code, sexual assault can range from unwanted touching to violent rape. In this case, the judge described the assault as being “on the low end.” I also reported that Robinson is appealing his conviction to the Nova Scotia Supreme Court.

Radio station wars

To put it mildly, my reporting did not go over well with the outside group that is vying to oust Robinson from his manager’s job and take control of the radio station themselves. One of their favourite weapons of war is a public Facebook page that has so far published dozens of posts similar to the ones quoted above. (I cannot link to it because the page repeatedly identifies the victim, in violation of a court-imposed publication ban.) They’re also circulating an online petition that carries the headline: Stop a sexual predator from controlling our community radio.

The petition’s misleading first paragraph reads:

Ross Robinson, the station manager of the local Parrsboro Community Radio station has been convicted of sexual assault. Since that time he has used his position at the radio station to re-victimize the woman he assaulted. Obtained from court documents; the radio station aired a (selectively) detailed report on the assault and broadcasted unnecessary details of the victims past. This attitude of victim-blaming and victim-shaming is unacceptable.

That paragraph contains a number of inaccuracies and/or misunderstandings of the Canadian judicial and media systems. Here are my responses:

(1) I wrote the report on the trial with legal advice from the Amherst lawyer the board of directors of Parrsboro Radio Society hired in an effort to get the ban on publishing Robinson’s name removed. No one added a word to the report or suggested any changes. I broadcast the report myself (twice) so it is inaccurate to say Robinson used his position at the radio station to broadcast the report. My authority to broadcast it flowed from the board’s decision to challenge the publication ban in the interests of full public disclosure. As I pointed out in my previous post, we felt the station should not hide behind a publication ban. Our listeners deserved to know that the station manager had been convicted of sexual assault. We also felt it was necessary to summarize the evidence at the trial as well as the judge’s ruling so that people would know the facts rather than having to rely on town gossip.

(2) My reporting did not “re-victimize” the victim. My story was based solely on court-room testimony and the judge’s ruling. Canadian courts are open to the public and the media and, unless a specific ban is imposed on reporting, their proceedings are fully reportable. In this case, there was never any ban on reporting what happened in court, except for details that could identify the victim or the offender. Once we got the ban on the offender’s name lifted, I could identify him. But I still had to steer clear of details that could identify the victim. That is why, on the advice of our lawyer, I avoided reporting a few details that came out in court, but I did report most of what I heard, relying on both my notes and my transcript of an audio recording of the trial.

(3) The Charter of Rights guarantees freedom of the media to report on court proceedings. But Canada’s Supreme Court has ruled that sexual assault victims also have the right to privacy. These conflicting principles are resolved by imposing publication bans on naming or identifying victims, leaving the media free to report details of a trial as long as a victim’s identity isn’t revealed. For a detailed discussion of these principles see: Victim Privacy and the Open Court Principle by Jamie Cameron, Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall. (2003). Policy Centre for Victims’ Issues, Research and Statistics Division. Retrieved from the federal Department of Justice: http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/pi/rs/rep-rap/2003/rr03_vic1/rr03_vic1.pdf

(4) In Canadian Newspapers Co. Ltd. vs  A.G. Canada (1985), Chief Justice Howland of the Ontario Court of Appeal summarized the importance of open courtrooms this way:

The freedom of the press to report what transpires in our courtrooms is one of the
fundamental safeguards of our democratic society. Justice is not a cloistered
virtue and judicial proceedings must be subjected to careful scrutiny in order to
ensure that every person is given a fair trial…. Openness of the courts is essential
for the maintenance of public confidence in the administration of justice and to
further a proper understanding of the judicial system…. It gives the public an
opportunity to see that justice is done. There is necessarily implicit in the concept
of an open court the concept of publicity; the right of the media to report what
they have heard in the courtroom so that the public can be informed about court
proceedings, and public criticism, if necessary, engendered should any
impropriety occur.

(5) CICR did not air a selectively detailed account of the assault. I summarized the victim’s account as well as the offender’s, leaving out details that could identify the victim. In fact, I have been criticized repeatedly for reporting too many details of the assault, but given the huge public interest in the case, I decided to give as full an account as I could based on the evidence the judge heard. This is standard journalistic procedure where public interest is high. See, for example, the ongoing coverage of the Tori Stafford murder trial.

(6) I did not broadcast “unnecessary details” of the victim’s past. My job as a journalist was to summarize the evidence introduced by both the prosecution and the defence. In this case, it was the word of the victim against that of the offender. There were no other witnesses called to testify about what happened that day at the victim’s house. The defence sought to cast doubt on the victim’s honesty by questioning her about her criminal record. When the victim herself questioned the relevancy of her criminal record, the judge directed her to continue answering the questions. As I suggested in my report, the judge ruled, in effect, that her criminal record did not lessen her credibility in his mind and that her testimony was more believable than Robinson’s: “The judge ruled Robinson’s version of events was less believable than the victim’s…The judge said the victim readily admitted she had a criminal record, but doesn’t appear to have had any problems with the law since 2004.”

(7) I realize from her many public comments that the victim is upset and angry about my reporting. I’m sorry she feels that way. As I told Andrew Wagstaff of the Citizen-Record: “Sexual assault cases are never pleasant and this one certainly wasn’t, but I felt people should know what the testimony was and how the judge ruled.” This was neither “victim-shaming” nor “victim-blaming.” It was professional journalism. No one has challenged a single fact in my reporting and no one has shown, based on either the trial transcript or what they heard in the courtroom, that my summary of the testimony and the judge’s ruling was one-sided or biased.

Guerrilla journalism?

Enough said? Well, not quite. I think I’ll give the final word to one of my devoted fans on Facebook:

Never in a news story have I heard a victim drug through the mud like this. To say that B.Wark is a journalist is a JOKE! This style of Gorilla Journalism is a very Fox News style aproach. During the Robert Picton trials they found that the RCMP didn’t take the investigation seriousley because they were thought of as shady-ladies. So girls, no push-up bras, tank-tops, short-shorts or tight fitting jeans because that must give a man the right to oggle you or assault you. SHAME!! SHAME!! We all have a past, mine is not spotless but I always had a moral compass to follow.

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Chasing the blues with the local news

Confessions of a local news hound

Posted on March 17, 2012 by Bruce Wark
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Chase away the blues with the local news was a saying oft cited by the late CBC journalist, Tom Earle. Since November, I’ve been trying unsuccessfully to follow Tom’s advice as a volunteer reporter for CICR, the 50-watt community radio station in Parrsboro, Nova Scotia, a town of about 1,400 on the picturesque shores of the Minas Basin.

So far, it’s been the wildest ride in my 40 years as a journalist.

I’ve discovered that covering really “local,” local news is akin to wandering merrily (and unwarily) through a well-laid minefield — in this case, a minefield made even deadlier because two rival factions are waging a bitter, protracted fight for control of the local radio station.

Yes, that fight is a great story, but woe betide the hapless news hound who tries to (un)cover even one little piece of it. I stepped on my land mine after my friend, the manager of the radio station, was convicted of sexual assault.

Breaking a big-city rule

In big-city journalism, there’s a rule that if a prominent person in a news outfit is convicted of a criminal offence, listeners, readers or viewers must be told. In other words, it’s considered unethical (and unprofessional) to suppress news just because it hits embarrassingly close to home. In this case, however, CICR couldn’t broadcast the story, even if it wanted to, because a judge had imposed a ban on naming either the convicted man or his victim.

In big-city journalism, there’s another rule: If a publication ban seems unreasonable, it should be challenged. So, in the best big-city tradition, I urged the Parrsboro Radio Society to challenge the ban on naming the station manager.

Alas, there’s a third big-city rule. It states: Reporters must remain neutral in their pursuit of truth, justice and the public’s right to know. EEEEK! In January, before the general manager’s trial, I had been elected to the Parrsboro Radio Society board of directors. Or, to be more precise, I was elected to one of the Radio Society boards. Believe it or not, each faction has its own!

Board #1 (my board) actually operates the radio station while Board #2 is now waging war on Facebook claiming that, aside from his conviction for sexual assault, the station manager, with the connivance of Board #1, has been cooking the books. (In December, members of Board #2, with the support of local RCMP officers, raided the station while the station manager was away, carting off the account books and cash-on-hand. However, after vigorous complaints from Board #1, the Mounties retrieved the books and money and lodged them at their local detachment, just up the road from the radio station. Yes folks, this is a full-fledged, Royal Canadian Mess!)

But I digress. To get back to the sexual assault conviction, just imagine my big-city joy when fellow members of Board #1 agreed to use station funds to pay for a legal challenge to the publication ban. Little did I know that more trouble was sure to follow and, by gum, it did.

Sex, lies and audio tape

After the station manager’s conviction on January 25th, CICR carried a brief report that a 47-year-old Parrsboro man had been convicted of sexual assault in Amherst provincial court, but that he couldn’t be named because of a publication ban. Facebook was not long, however, in filling the news void with rumour, conjecture and a few tall tales.

Meantime, the legal challenge to the publication ban proceeded at a snail’s pace. But, it did give me time to go over the notes I made during the trial, order an audio recording of the proceedings and make a word-for-word transcription of the key testimony as well as the judge’s ruling. So far, so good.

On March 1st, after a brief courtroom hearing, the judge ruled it would be OK to name the offender, but not the victim. (That is standard procedure in most sexual assault cases.)

After the 50-minute drive from Amherst to Parrsboro, I wrote the story following yet another rule of big-city journalism: CICR listeners, who did not attend the trial, should hear a summary of the same evidence those in the courtroom heard, plus a summary of what the judge said in his ruling. At about 10 minutes after five on Thursday March 1st, CICR broadcast my story (see text below). Happily, the ends of big-city journalism had been served and the local sky had not fallen. Alas, ’twas only the calm before the proverbial storm.

Holy hell breaks loose

The sun came up right on schedule on Friday, March 2nd and, with a light step, I made my way to CICR to spin a few discs on the morning show. At 10 o’clock, I cued up my trial report for a second airing and lightheartedly pressed “play.”

The first sign of trouble came a few minutes later when the manager of the local Co-Op grocery outlet told me he had to shut the station down in his store because of irate customers complaining about my report.

Facebook once again sprang into action with denunciations of my sensational, yellow journalism. It also supplied information about how to complain to the CRTC.

A prominent Parrsboronian (who sits on the board of Radio Society #2) e-mailed:

“What you did was despicable, heartless, ugly, cruel, hateful, malicious and hurtful,” he wrote. “Your actions are a complete embarrassment to community radio.” He was especially upset that I had reported the victim’s courtroom testimony about her own criminal record.

“You may be able to do this legally but that doesn’t mean it is not morally reprehensible,” he opined.

Soon, the CRTC requested air checks of all CICR broadcasts on Friday March 2 and Saturday March 3. (There were complaints on Facebook that the station manager had made slanderous on-air remarks about the victim on Saturday, an allegation that Ross Robinson denies.)

A standard question in big-city journalism goes like this: “So, what have you learned from all this?” In this case, my answer would be something like: “I learned that chasing local news using big-city rules can bring on a really bad case of the blues.”

My reviled radio report

Text of news report broadcast on Thursday, March 1, 2012 at approximately 5:10 p.m. and again on Friday, March 2, 2012 at 10:00 a.m.

This is CiCR community reporter Bruce Wark with an update on a story we first reported in January. In that story, we said that a 47-year-old Parrsboro man had been convicted of sexual assault in Amherst provincial court on January the 25th. At that time, we could not report the man’s name. A judge had issued a publication ban preventing us from naming either the convicted man or the adult female victim.

The Parrsboro Radio Society, which operates CiCR, hired an Amherst lawyer in an effort to get the publication ban lifted. On Thursday, March the first, after a hearing in provincial court, Judge Paul Scovil lifted the publication ban on the offender’s name, but not on the victim’s. So, we can now report that the man convicted of sexual assault was Ross Stanley Robinson, the general manager of CiCR, Parrsboro community radio.

We can also tell you more fully what happened at Ross Robinson’s trial in January:

During that trial, the victim testified that Robinson dropped by her house last June and shortly after arriving, asked to use her washroom.

She said that Robinson arrived with an open beer and appeared to be feeling good. She testified that he seemed to be taking a long time in the washroom, so she followed him upstairs and when he came out of the washroom he cornered her and made a number of sexually suggestive comments including asking to see her breasts and asking her to go into the bedroom for sex.

The victim said she pushed past him and Robinson followed her down the stairs and outside. Once outside, the victim said Robinson noticed a tattoo on her leg and asked if she had any others. She replied that she had one high up on her back and testified that Robinson asked to see it. She said he also asked her to put her arms out so he could see how well her breasts stood up, inquired whether she liked sex and if he could come back at midnight after her child went to bed.

The victim added: “At one point, he did come around my side and touched my back and tried to put his hand up my back to look at my tattoo and I pulled away.”

When the crown prosecutor asked whether Robinson’s hand was under her T-shirt or over it, the victim answered: “At the bottom of the shirt, to lift up the shirt. That is the only time he physically touched me.” She added later: “He put his arm around my back and he just started to try to lift the back of my shirt up and I pulled away. So, it was like a quick brush up the back.”

The victim said that later, when she went upstairs to put on a bra, Robinson followed her and again tried to block her from going downstairs. She added: “He just stood there and I basically had to brush past him to get through. I said you need to get out of my house, like you can’t be up here, you need to get out.”

According to the victim’s testimony, Robinson followed her downstairs and once outside, berated her for smoking before he finally left.

In response to a question from the crown prosecutor, the victim admitted she had a criminal record for theft under five thousand dollars as well as a prostitution-related conviction in Ontario.

Under cross-examination, the victim also acknowledged a number of convictions in Cumberland County including for assault, possession of stolen property and several counts of theft under five thousand dollars.

She also acknowledged that in her statement to police taken shortly after the incident, RCMP constable Jordan Parsons wrote: “Robinson did not touch her or grab her, he just stood close to her.” The victim acknowledged she might have said that, but was in such a frenzy after the incident, she couldn’t be sure what she told police.

Two days later, she did tell police that Robinson touched her back when the RCMP interviewed her a second time.

When his turn came to testify, Ross Robinson said he drank a number of beers on the day of the incident, but he denied touching the victim or following her upstairs. Robinson said he asked to use the washroom and when he came out of the washroom, the victim was halfway up the stairs. He added: “She hollered, ‘don’t look in my bedroom.’ And like a fool I said, ‘have you got something to hide?’” Robinson testified the victim mentioned sex toys like dildos and seemed really upset. He added that he immediately decided to leave.

In his verdict, Judge Scovil quickly dismissed charges that Robinson forceably confined the victim or that he entered her house unlawfully. However, he did convict Robinson of sexual assault. The judge ruled Robinson’s version of events was less believable than the victim’s.

He noted that the victim herself, the police constable who testified and a female friend all said the victim seemed extremely upset after the incident. The judge said the victim readily admitted she had a criminal record, but doesn’t appear to have had any problems with the law since 2004.

Judge Scovil said he believed Robinson had touched the victim’s back.

He added: “One has to carefully consider the circumstances. In this case, there were sexual innuendoes, sexual comments that were going on from the accused throughout. His attitude of trying to get her to raise her arms, asking to see her breasts and then wanting to see a tattoo which was up her back and then trying to lift the shirt are all consistent with a sexual purpose. And on that basis, I convict him of sexual assault.”

Under the criminal code, sexual assault can range from unwanted touching to violent rape. In this case, Judge Scovil described the assault as being what he termed “on the low end.”

Robinson will be sentenced on March the 13th. In the meantime, he is appealing his conviction to the Nova Scotia Supreme Court.

For CiCR, this is Bruce Wark reporting.

———–

Final note: Ross Robinson’s sentencing has since been delayed until April 3rd.

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‘Dinner for two’ for first journalist who dares to explain Conservative ideology

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Bruce Wark
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Veteran investigative journalist Nick Fillmore sent us this piece offering a nice prize for one lucky(?) journalist

Book by Henry Giroux

Intimidated journalists in the mainstream Canadian media are being discouraged from fully describing the soulless ideology practised by the Harper Conservative government. At least this has been my impression for some time now.

Wanting to find out what journalists are really writing about the Tories and neoliberalism, I spent some time this week searching the Internet for any 2011 articles that would link the two. I felt that, if the mainstream media are involved in an unspoken conspiracy of silence to hide the evil economic philosophy of the Harper government, the public needs to know.

And if this is the case, I also want to expose and embarrass the big media corporations for their censorship of this important information – thus my challenge.

First of all, it was no surprise that several independent and alternative media – such as rabble.ca and Straight Goods – allowed their journalists to describe the Harper Conservatives’ ideology.

Searching two dozen mainstream newspapers, I found many articles describing individual Conservative economic policies, such as budget cutting and reducing the taxes on corporations, but nothing that drew them all together under the economic policy of neoliberalism and explained that these were not one-off policies but a political and economic outlook.

The only use of the unmentionable word – neoliberalism – I could find in our national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, was in a column by freelancer Gerald Caplan, but there was no mention of the Harper government. The Vancouver Sun carried a short review of a book by Henry Giroux about the terror of neoliberalism.

That was it!

It is possible that I may have missed my much sought-after story, but I don’t think so.

For the entire year of 2011, I could not find one column or one article by any journalist from Canada’s 24 “leading” papers that identified and described the ideology practised by the Harper Conservatives.

Of course if I were Stephen Harper, I would want my deepest economic beliefs to be kept secret.

Evils of neoliberalism

Neoliberalism is a truly evil ideology for at least 80 per cent of Canadians. Among many things, it is robbing us of well-paid jobs, eliminating our pensions, and cheating our children out of a prosperous future. In Europe and the United States, neoliberal policies are destroying the lives of millions of people. It is nearly impossible to imagine but, in Greece, destitute families are abandoning their children.

From what I know, not once did a reporter from the mainstream press step forward at a news conference during the last election campaign and ask, “Mr. Harper, would it be correct to say that your party follows neoliberal policies?”

Hmmm . . . . I wonder what would have happened to that journalist?

I find it strange – no, disturbing – that the name and description of the political ideology being implemented by our government of seven years is missing from the tens-of-thousands of articles in the mainstream media about the Conservatives.

Clearly, individual journalists cannot be blamed for this. Most daily journalists work in an environment where they do not dare to suggest stories having anything to do with Harper neoliberalism or evaluating its impact. This is one of many taboo topics in corporate newsrooms.

The media corporations, not individual journalists, must be held responsible for withholding a full description of the Harper economic agenda.

First of all, newspaper corporations strongly support and benefit from neoliberal policies. Second, it appears that all major media companies in the country, with the exception of The Toronto Star, are on the Harper bandwagon.

Many of the dailies occasionally criticize Harper for one thing or another, but to allow any of their journalists to describe Harper’s neoliberal policies in full would enrage the vindictive Harper. It also would send an alert to a public that does not realize many of the things they dislike about the Conservatives are part of a bigger bundle.

How serious is this unspoken conspiracy? I believe it is just as scandalous as a group of companies that use the old “wink wink” method to fix consumer prices. If there ever were a need to expand and develop truly independent media in Canada, this is it.

Meanwhile, many of the big newspapers never miss an opportunity to describe – or misrepresent – the ideology and policies of the New Democrats.

Last Saturday, a column by NDP-hater Jeffrey Simpson in the print version of The Globe and Mail called the New Democrats “Dippers.” Simpson totally trashed NDP economic ideas while at the same time endorsing key aspects of neoliberalism – without using the unmentionable word.

I digress. Newsrooms at corporate media are in a sorry state these days. While dozens of columnists across the country espouse conservative and even, unknowingly, fascist ideas, I know of only three columnists who write from an independent and progressive perspective.

Incidentally, the “lefties in media” list shrank a whole lot recently when The Toronto Star, citing budget pressures, cut Linda McQuaig’s weekly column to once a month.

Reward for journalist to come forward

It seems to me that our meek mainstream newspaper folks need some encouragement to write about what our national government really stands for.

I want to offer an incentive for mainstream journalists to begin telling the entire story when it comes to Conservative economic policy. So, I hereby offer a prize of Dinner for Two at any restaurant of her/his choice (value $150) to the first mainstream newspaper journalist who writes a full article about the neoliberal policies of the Harper Conservatives.

The contest is “on” effective Saturday, January 14 2012 and will end April 30 2012.

Since I don’t have the resources to check the content of all of these papers, I am offering a “finder’s fee” of $50 to anyone who first spots the article that meets the prize criteria.

Congratulations to the winning journalist and media organization that sees the light and understands the importance of telling the truth when it comes to the Harper government and its agenda!

Nick Fillmore, previously an investigate journalist and producer with the CBC, is a freelance journalist and social activist based in Toronto. More of his work is available at nickfillmore.blogspot.com.

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Lies, damned lies and public relations

Posted on January 6, 2012 by Bruce Wark
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Marilyn More

If there’s any justice, the hottest places in Hell will be reserved for PR flacks — especially those who earn their pay by spinning half-truths and outright lies to the citizens who pay their salaries.

Case in point: Yesterday’s news release distributed by the government-run Communications Nova Scotia on behalf of Marilyn More, the provincial cabinet minister who oversees universities. More and her NDP colleagues had decided to reduce university funding by another three per cent on top of last year’s four per cent cut. But you’d never guess that from the news release which opened with this poorly constructed but positive-sounding paragraph:

A three-year memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the province and Nova Scotia’s 11 universities will ensure tuition remains at, or below, the national average, increases research and development opportunities, and invests $25 million in universities to help them become more sustainable.

Compare that with the Halifax Chronicle-Herald’s headline — “Province slashes university funding” — backed up by this lead paragraph:

The province will cut university funding by three per cent in the coming year and again allow tuitions to rise by up to three per cent, Advanced Education Minister Marilyn More announced Thursday.

The Herald also reported that a government-mandated review of tuition fees could result in increases of more than three per cent in coming years. (The minister herself said she “couldn’t commit” to the three per cent tuition cap after 2012-13.) The government news release papered over that politically awkward news with vague generalities and fashionable buzzwords:

The memorandum also outlines areas where new approaches are needed to ensure excellence and sustainability. They include: …– A review of tuition-related policies to ensure fair and competitive tuition that remains at, or below, the national average.

The government’s claim that the Memorandum of Understanding “invests $25 million in universities to help them become more sustainable” is a noteworthy example of Orwellian doublespeak. Over the next three years, Nova Scotia universities will be expected to compete for a slice of that $25 million — money that will supposedly help them find ways of cutting costs. The news release, however, magically links cost reductions to “excellence” and “innovation”:

A key element of the MOU is a $25-million investment by the province in a new University Excellence and Innovation Program. That program will operate over the life of the MOU to help support efforts to reduce costs and foster innovation.

Nova Scotia’s NDP politicians are taking flak for implementing hacking and slashing policies they condemned when they were in opposition. But, it’s unlikely the politicians themselves came up with the deceptive, positive-sounding language they try to use to sell those policies. For that they depend on wordsmiths or PR professionals many of whom are members of the Canadian Public Relations Society governed by a code of ethics which states:

A member shall practice the highest standards of honesty, accuracy, integrity and truth, and shall not knowingly disseminate false or misleading information.

In other words, if the member sees through the buzzwords she generates, she’s headed straight for the hottest places in Hell.

For doublespeak connoisseurs, here is the full text of that NDP news release dated January 5, 2012. Note how artfully it buries the news of that three per cent funding cut:

LABOUR/ADVANCED EDUCATION–Province, Universities, Build Sustainable, Innovative Post-secondary Education
—————————————————————–
A three-year memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the province and Nova Scotia’s 11 universities will ensure tuition remains at, or below, the national average, increases research and development opportunities, and invests $25 million in universities to help them become more sustainable.

A key element of the MOU is a $25-million investment by the province in a new University Excellence and Innovation Program. That program will operate over the life of the MOU to help support efforts to reduce costs and foster innovation.

“Nova Scotia’s economic future depends upon a strong university and college system and we’re committed to working with our partners so they can continue to provide a first-rate education,” said Marilyn More, Minister of Labour and Advanced Education. “The new agreement will keep university education affordable for Nova Scotian students while making sure we all live within our means in order that Nova Scotia can continue to deliver key services like health and post-secondary education.”

The memorandum also outlines areas where new approaches are needed to ensure excellence and sustainability. They include:
– An updated formula to allocate the provincial operating grant among universities that better reflects program cost variations and enrolments
– More collaboration by universities to reduce costs while maintaining or enhancing program quality. This could include things such as shared data services
– A review of tuition-related policies to ensure fair and competitive tuition that remains at, or below, the national average
– Improving credit transfer to make it easier for students to have completed courses recognized at other universities
– Enhancing research and development, and contributions to economic development. For example, the Halifax Marine Institute links academic and public sector research with ocean industries and works to generate long-term economic benefits for the province and region

A partnership will also be established to monitor the progress of the new approach to sustainability and ensure it continues to support goals of the agreement.

The memorandum caps possible annual tuition increases at three per cent. This, along with the province’s investment of $42.5 million in student assistance as part of the 2011 budget, will keep tuition for Nova Scotia students at, or below, the national average. Students enrolled in dentistry, law and medicine, and international students, are excluded from the cap.

Ms. More also announced the provincial operating grant for 2012-13, which will be $324 million for the universities.

“We advised the university presidents and the MOU negotiating committee last fall that the operating grant for 2012-13 would be reduced by a further three per cent, so they would have enough time to plan their respective budgets,” said Ms. More. “I want to thank the presidents and student leaders for respecting the confidentiality agreement these past few months and for their diligence in reaching this agreement.”

The universities must also absorb any possible inflation costs without additional funding.

An memorandum of understanding is a commitment to work together on an agreed objective. It often lays out terms of a co-operative agreement.

For a full copy of the memorandum, visit www.gov.ns.ca/lae/ .

—————————————————————–
FOR BROADCAST USE:

A new memorandum of understanding between the province and

Nova Scotia’s 11 universities will ensure tuition will remain at,

or below, the national average, and increases research and

development.

The MOU also establishes a 25-million-dollar fund to help

universities to reduce costs and foster innovation.

Labour and Advanced Education Minister Marilyn More says the

province’s economic future depends upon a strong university and

college system. She says the new agreement will keep university

education affordable for Nova Scotian students while making sure

we all live within our means.

-30-

Media Contact: Pam Menchenton
Labour and Advanced Education
902-424-0011
Cell: 902-719-4950
E-mail: menchepm@gov.ns.ca

 

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Persistent media bias against public spending

Posted on December 19, 2011 by Bruce Wark
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Media critic Brooks Kind swung into action last week after hearing an on-air comment by a CBC Radio news reader in Halifax. During a news update with Information Morning host Don Connolly, newscaster Sandy Smith mentioned the Nova Scotia NDP government’s decision to get into the road paving business.

Kind fired off this e-mail to Smith:

Yesterday on the lead-in to Infomorning you described the Dexter government as “extending its tentacles” into the road paving business. Doesn’t the use of such a dramatic and tendentious metaphor to inculcate a bias against government involvement in road paving violate CBC Standards and Practices? Wouldn’t your audience be better served by reporting on why the government got into the paving business in the first place, and by taking a critical look at the practices of Dexter Construction in keeping rates uncompetitively high?

The next day, an e-mail from Smith acknowledged that he shouldn’t have used the words “extending its tentacles.” Smith added that the rest of the CBC coverage was not only fair and balanced, but also provided context for the paving story.

Media bias and political power

In the overall scheme of things, Kind’s complaint may seem minor, but it does point to a persistent media bias against public institutions. Yes, the mainstream media do have a role to play in calling attention to abuses of power and the wasting of taxpayers’ money on the part of politicians and bureaucrats. But, over the last three decades, relentless news media propaganda against public institutions has coincided with the steadily rising power of big, multinational corporations.

As social critic Ursula Franklin points out, corporations have transformed their struggle for commercial and economic dominance into a new form of warfare called globalization. The Wikipedia entry on Franklin summarizes her ideas this way:

This economic warfare defines the enemy as all those who care about the values of community. “Whatever cannot be merely bought and sold,” Franklin writes, “whatever cannot be expressed in terms of money and gain-loss transactions stands in the way of the ‘market’ as enemy territory to be occupied, transformed and conquered.” A main strategy in this kind of warfare is the privatization of formerly public domains such as culture, health care, prisons and education to generate private profit. Franklin contends that the new economic warlords or “marketeers” aim, for example, to transform “the ill health or misery of our neighbours into investment opportunities for the next round of capitalism.” She argues that marketeers have become occupying forces served by “puppet governments who run the country for the benefit of the occupiers.”

Mainstream media reporting does not seem to have noticed this fundamental shift in political power. The obsessive media focus, for example, on deficit spending and public debt is one of the main pillars of pro-corporate propaganda against the welfare state. Unfortunately, most journalists seem unaware that they are spreading propaganda. For them, government deficits and public spending itself have become political evils even if they are sometimes necessary ones. See my earlier post Media cheerlead for government cuts.

The media bias is everywhere — a constant drumbeat against politicians and political institutions. Last Sunday, for example, a Halifax Chronicle-Herald headline informed readers that “Bluenose MPs beat national average on expenses.” In his regular political column, reporter David Jackson summed things up this way: “In total, Canadians paid out a whopping $133 million to cover our federal representatives’ parliamentary and constituency duties.”

Yes, $133 million is a big figure. But the adjective whopping grossly overstates its significance. This year, total federal spending will be about $276 billion. So, the expenses for members of Parliament represent a minuscule .05 per cent of federal spending.

Besides, the real question — a question that Jackson does not ask — is whether constituents and taxpayers are receiving good value for that $133 million. The default position for mainstream journalists and the right-wing, pro-corporate think tanks they like to quote is that politicians are profligate and so, if they’re spending a “whopping” $133 million on their expenses, a lot of it must be wasted.

Jackson begins his commentary with these telling paragraphs:

Defence Minister Peter MacKay was raked over the coals last week for staying at a couple of pricey European hotels last year, but the MP’s office expenses compare favourably to those of his Bluenose colleagues.

MacKay ranked ninth among the 11 Nova Scotia MPs ringing up $394,334 in 2010-2011 expenses for staff, travel to Ottawa and elsewhere in Canada, office expenses, advertising, mailouts and hospitality, according to a report all MPs file.

Jackson clearly believes that the less MPs spend, the better. Thus, MacKay compares “favourably” to his Nova Scotia colleagues. But how well did MacKay serve his constituents? And, does that even matter?

Today’s Herald editorial pounds away at what has become a favourite journalistic theme (again in line with the message from pro-corporate think tanks). In bemoaning the size of the Nova Scotia deficit, the Herald concludes: “Fundamentally, Nova Scotia needs a more dynamic and competitive economy that is better at generating jobs. And that will require more than some budget fine-tuning. We have to finally tackle the unsustainable cost of having too many layers of government for our size.”

Translation: We can no longer afford all those politicians draining the treasury while stifling private-sector dynamism and competition. The fewer political representatives we have, the better!

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Flaws in media coverage of aboriginal peoples

Posted on December 7, 2011 by Bruce Wark
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Peter Mansbridge

It’s heartening to see the mainstream media’s sudden interest in the multiple crises facing Canada’s aboriginal peoples. Federal politicians, including the prime minister, have been forced to react to the graphic reporting from Attawapiskat First Nation in northern Ontario where people have been huddling in unheated tents, condemned housing and portable trailers in sub-zero temperatures. Media reports have made it clear that many Native reserves face similar crises. It’s also clear that the desperate conditions endured by Canada’s aboriginal peoples represent a massive failure of public institutions including the mainstream news media themselves.

Thus, it was interesting to watch Peter Mansbridge Monday night introducing updates to previous CBC reports. Reporter Reg Sherren revisited the Wasagamack First Nation in northern Manitoba. In the year 2000, Sherren reported on the lack of clean water and sewage disposal; sky-high food prices; an epidemic of Type 2 diabetes and a chronic shortage of adequate housing. On his recent return, Sherren found that “life hasn’t changed a lot in the last 12 years.” The biggest change was that everyone suffering from diabetes who appeared in his first story had since died. A shot of white wooden crosses in the local graveyard underlined that sombre point.

Meanwhile, Duncan McCue’s return to Gilford Island, B.C. was, in his words, “deja-vu all over again.” Six years ago, McCue reported that Gilford Island was facing a water crisis and that many homes were full of toxic mould. Today, there’s a new water plant and a few new homes, but federal bureaucrats seem to have abandoned the village. “We’ve been forgotten,” Chief Bob Chamberlain told McCue, “and we’re halfway towards the solution.”

It may have been unintentional, but Sherren and McCue’s updates aptly illustrated the CBC’s fitful interest in conditions on aboriginal reserves. Why did it take nearly 12 years, for example, for the CBC to send Sherren back to Wasagamack?

Part of the answer lies in the routines of mainstream journalism. Journalists think they need a “peg” for the stories they tell, something that makes those stories newsworthy. In this case, the state of emergency in Attawapiskat provided a peg to hang similar stories on. To someone not versed in the strange standards of mainstream journalism, that might seem weird. If a reporter files a story on a crisis facing a Native reserve, wouldn’t it make sense to check back periodically to see if conditions have improved? Well, not without a “good, solid peg,” it wouldn’t.

Lessons from Ipperwash

I first became interested in how standard journalistic routines inhibit the coverage of aboriginal peoples in August 1993 when The National carried a report from Ipperwash, Ontario where Native people were occupying a military camp. “Tense situation tonight at a Canadian Forces camp in southern Ontario,” a younger-looking Mansbridge told viewers. He added that the occupation had been going on for three months, but that someone had fired a shot at a military helicopter. Bingo! There was the “peg” that made the story newsworthy enough for national attention.

Reporter Paul Hunter had been despatched to Ipperwash where he talked to two of the Native occupiers as well as a military spokesman. The Natives said the military had taken the land from them temporarily during the Second World War and now, after more than 50 years of waiting, they wanted it back. Major Brian Hay insisted the military had purchased the land from the Natives. “This is a bought and paid for public site that has been here for 50 years.”

Hunter obviously did not know that a year earlier, a Parliamentary committee had unanimously called on the military to “rectify a serious injustice” and hand the land back. So, he covered himself by quoting “both sides” and leaving it at that. The National let the story lie for more than two years before another “peg” compelled the CBC to return to it — the police shooting death of Dudley George, a young native man, in Ipperwash Provincial Park. Only then did Mansbridge tell viewers that the Native occupiers had been right all along — the military were supposed to return the land after the Second World War. For an account of how The National covered the Ipperwash story over a 10-year period, see CBC Ipperwash coverage.

Yes, it is encouraging that the mainstream media are focussing once again on the deplorable conditions that Canada’s First Nations are forced to endure. But past practice also shows that journalists will stick with the story only if they think it can be hung on a newsworthy peg. As long as the political uproar continues in the House of Commons, for example, this story will continue to be told. But when the politicians move on, the media are likely to follow.

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