“Unapologetically Pro-Israel” CanWest Imposes National Editorials on Local Papers

By Saleem Khan

When Canadian newspaper columnist Doug Cuthand wrote a column that compared the plight of the Palestinians to that of North American Indians, he knew he might provoke some debate.

“I pointed out that the Palestinians had the equivalent of land claim to Israel: they had been forced off their land and placed into camps—the equivalent of reservations. The parallels are really jarring,” said Cuthand, an aboriginal Indian documentary filmmaker who has written about Indian affairs for the Regina Leader Post and the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix for 10 years.

“I didn’t think they’d like it but I didn’t think they’d pull it,” he said.

When Montreal Gazette TV critic Peggy Curran wrote a review of the documentary film that aired on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s “Witness” program, her column was spiked. Her union fought the decision and, after negotiating for several days on changes to the wording, the review finally ran.

“Usually, criticism is criticism—you’re allowed to say what you want,” said Curran. “I can’t think of another occasion when this has happened to me.”

The subject of her review? “In the Line of Fire” a documentary about journalists—particularly Palestinian journalists—being targeted and shot by Israeli soldiers.

Both columns were killed after editors at the local newspapers reportedly sent them to the newspaper chain’s corporate headquarters in Winnipeg.

The incidents are just two examples of the effects of a new editorial policy by Canada’s largest newspaper owner, CanWest Global Communications Corp., that has the country’s journalists in an uproar.

At the heart of the controversy is a decision by CanWest to run “national editorials” in 14 of its Southam chain’s major metropolitan daily newspapers. According to the proposed plan, the editorials, signed by Southam editor-in chief Murdoch Davis, would replace the local newspapers’ editorials up to 156 times a year. Other newspapers in the 135-paper chain have also received strong suggestions that they run the editorials.

“The newspapers will speak with one voice on certain issues of overarching national or international importance,” said Davis, who added that the editorials will encourage an exchange of ideas and foster debate.

Not so, says Robert Cribb, president of the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ). “The importance of editorial independence to the credibility of journalism has always been universally accepted in the newsrooms of the nation,” he stated. “Weakening that independence compromises the work journalists do and the resulting public policy debates that have a direct impact on our lives.”

The editorials, which began running in December 2001, have led journalists and media watchers to charge that CanWest and its owners—Winnipeg lawyer Israel Asper and his family—are imposing their pro-Liberal Party, pro-corporate and pro-Israel views on their newspapers and on the communities they serve.

“The newspapers will speak with one voice on certain issues of overarching international importance.”

“We want to draw Canadians’ attention to the fact that a very powerful family that controls a big chunk of the news media is abusing its power,” says Alexander Norris, a reporter at the CanWest-owned Montreal Gazette, which is the city’s only English-language daily newspaper.

The CAJ, the Quebec Federation of Professional Journalists (FPJQ), the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, the Newspaper Guild of Canada, the international writers’ freedom of expression group PEN Canada, and the U.S. National Conference of Editorial Writers all have condemned CanWest’s editorial policy and the chill it causes in newsrooms by forcing journalists to self-censor.

“Whether you know you’re doing it or not, you then start second-guessing yourself,” noted Curran.

In January, the CAJ and FPJQ jointly wrote to members of Parliament and senators, requesting a federal inquiry into the concentration of media ownership in Canada, citing “repeated instances of censorship in CanWest-owned newspapers across the country.

“We are troubled, too,” the letter continued, “that CanWest has threatened to dismiss journalists who have spoken up against these abuses.”

Since December, 77 Montreal Gazette journalists have signed a letter denouncing the Aspers’ apparent involvement in the editorial process. A December “byline strike,” in which journalists withheld their names from articles to protest the policy, was ended by management decree after two days.

Norris says he was told by a former editorial page editor that anti-Israel comment is not to be allowed in the paper after a pro-Israel editorial was sent by the head office. “The most disturbing thing is that we were ordered not to publish any rebuttals to that editorial,” he said.

What’s in a Name?

“Once they’ve made themselves known on a particular issue on that one voice, then that imposes on each of the newspapers that one editorial view—they cannot change that,” said Bill Marsden, an investigative reporter at the Montreal Gazette. “We even had an incident where a professor at a university in Canada—the University of Waterloo—wrote an op-ed piece in which he was criticizing the antiterrorism law and discussing elements of civil rights, etc. Now, that professor happens to be Muslim and have an Arab name. We got a call from headquarters demanding to know why we had printed this. So this kind of questioning goes on all the time.”

All comments from Gazette staff were made before management issued a memo that “reminded” journalists that they have an “obligation of primary loyalty to the employer” and threatened “sanctions, including suspension or termination, against those who persist in disregarding their obligations to the employer.”

Two columnists at CanWest-owned papers have resigned, others have seen their contracts not renewed, and some editorial staff have requested internal transfers.

Murdoch Davis calls the company “unapologetically pro-Israel.” Indeed, shortly after CanWest acquired the Southam chain of 135 newspapers last summer in a C$3.2 billion (approximately US$2.2 billion) deal, chairman Israel Asper donated C$100,000 to the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research, a lobby group that promotes a pro-Israel spin on news from the Middle East.

The Aspers have dismissed CanWest’s own journalists as “riff-raff” for criticizing the editorial policy, and have called media attention unwarranted sniping by competing publishers and broadcasters. CanWest has newspaper, broadcasting, Internet and advertising properties in Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Vietnam.

Saleem Khan is a Toronto-based independent journalist who covers technology and international affairs. He holds a seat on the Canadian Association of Journalists’ national board of directors, and is president of the CAJ’s Toronto chapter.