December 9, 1999
VUE Weekly Response to SEE Magazine Article
and a Letter to the Editor of SEE Magazine
Please contact us with any questions or comments you may have regarding these documents.
SEE MAGAZINE: NO ALTERNATIVE
Southam-owned Pretender Discards Journalistic Ethics
By Ron Garth
SEE Magazine have shown their true colours. Or rather, their true colour: Black.
Black, as in dirty: by printing last week’s article "Newspaper chair buys VUE Weekly" (which you can read for yourself online at www.greatwest.ca/see/issues/1999/1202/news3.htm), they threw every vestige of journalistic ethics out the window. The article claims that VUE has been bought by "B.C. newspaper magnate" David Black, owner of Black Press, Inc.
There are many fundamental problems with this article-not the least of which is the fact that its central assertion is untrue. VUE Weekly has not been bought by David Black; associate publisher Maureen Fleming and Vancouver alt-weekly The Georgia Straight each own 50 per cent of the paper, exactly as they did in May 1998 when the partnership agreement was reached.
It isn’t hard to figure out what happened here; one of the thousands of people connected with SEE Magazine, its owner Gazette Press Ltd., its owner Great West Newspaper Group Ltd., its owner Southam, Inc. or its owner Hollinger Inc., got wind that Black and Fleming were in communication, then someone at SEE Magazine jumped to a false conclusion and decided to print speculation as if it were truth. The intent of the article is clear; by claiming a sudden ownership change and by insinuating "difficult times for VUE," the article was designed to cast VUE Weekly’s future into doubt, to scare advertisers and their money away from VUE and into SEE.
Their strategy failed; VUE Weekly indeed received several phone calls from advertisers and readers who were concerned after reading the SEE article, but they were easily reassured. In fact, their plan backfired: most of the people who called ended up angry at and disgusted by SEE’s use of the power of the press to distort the truth, and even to lie. Any by lying in its news pages, which are supposed to be devoted to the truth, SEE betrayed the trust of its own readers.
As I wrote in a letter to the editor of SEE Magazine, reproduced at right, the article contravened many standards of ethical journalism. It made a statement of fact without indicating any source for this information; even novice reporters know that it is vitally important to source their articles, so that readers may evaluate the source’s credibility for themselves. Even if the source wishes to be anonymous, some assurance must be given that this information came from somewhere other than unsubstantiated gossip or the reporter’s imagination.
And the article lacks more than a source-it doesn’t even have a byline, nonsensically attributed to "SEE staff," as if everyone in the organization collaborated on it. Running items without bylines is a common enough practice in journalism, but only when the article is so innocuous it could have been written by anyone. This isn’t the first time SEE has written about VUE Weekly in an attempt to disparage us; each time, no member of SEE’s staff has had the courage to identify him-or herself as the author.
The fact that this article contravenes so many elements of the standard code of practice of journalism leads me to wonder whether it was written by a journalist at all. After all, the article’s aim was not journalistic- it made to attempt to tell the truth. The purpose of the article was driven by sales and marketing; it was an attempt by SEE to gain a business advantage at the expense of its own journalistic integrity.
When the truth will not work, SEE relies on innuendo. They spin recent events involving VUE Weekly, Verified Audit Circulation and Angus Reid by deliberately using loaded phrases like "fell into disrepute," "unable to confirm claims" and "demanded the publication stop claiming." In reality, a miscommunication between VUE’s publishers and sales department resulted in the latter using projected circulation figures in promotional material instead of present-day figures; the discrepancy was a mere eight per cent, and was corrected immediately when brought to our attention. These circulation figures were multiplied by Angus Reid’s demographic breakdown to determine precise numbers of readers in each age group, income bracket, etc. In SEE’s article-"figures the publication claimed were part of a readership survey" - the implication is that the survey itself never existed.
SEE Magazine’s true colour, as I wrote, is Black. Conrad Black, the notoriously ultra-right-wing Chairman and CEO of Southam, Inc., which owns the majority of Canada’s daily newspapers-and SEE. The very existence of SEE Magazine is predicated on a lie: they claim to be alternative and pretend to be hip and anti-establishment when in reality they are as much a part of the establishment as it is possible to be.
SEE may, by pointing out David Black’s or any potential VUE investor’s "strong ties to the corporate establishment," call into question VUE Weekly’s independence, but the fact of the matter is that we have no chain of command of profit-driven corporation after profit-driven corporation above us, watching our every move.
SEE’s claim to be alternative rings hollow when it is owned by the country’s most powerful media corporation, Southam, which also owns the Edmonton Journal. How can any newspaper be alternative when it is a business partner of the most widely read, and therefore mainstream, daily newspaper in the same city? What exactly is it that SEE Magazine is supposed to be an alternative to? Its own ownership? SEE may posture all it wants, but it cannot avoid the fact that it is a part of the mainstream corporate establishment-and in no way alternative.
I am curious to find out whether SEE will do the right thing: publish a retraction of its article and print the letter to the editor we sent them-in its entirety. A copy of this letter appears here; pick up SEE this one time and see if they have decided to finally begin to act responsibly, ethically and honestly.
By the very definition of the term, there is no way SEE can be alternative-to act with integrity is now its only viable alternative.
Letter to the Editor of SEE Magazine
VUE Weekly
#307, 10080 Jasper Ave.
Edmonton, AB T5J 1V9
December 6, 1999
SEE Magazine
#222, 8625-109 St.
Edmonton AB T6G 1E7
Att: Gord Nielsen, Publisher; Richard Cairney, News Editor
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
The article "Newspaper chain buys VUE Weekly," which appeared in the December 2-8 issue of SEE Magazine, was rife with factual untruths and misleading innuendo. It is an egregious example of the most unethical business practice a newspaper is capable of, and was clearly motivated by competition rather than by truthful, responsible journalism.
There has been no change in the ownership of VUE Weekly. The opening sentence of your article, "B.C. newspaper magnate David Black has bought VUE Weekly," is entirely incorrect. VUE Weekly is at present jointly owned by Maureen Fleming and The Georgia Straight, exactly as it has been since May 1998, notwithstanding your assertion that "It's the second time in the last 18 months that ownership of [VUE Weekly] has changed." While it is true that VUE Weekly is in negotiations with several parties-including Black and The Georgia Straight-to purchase Ms. Fleming's shares, at this time there has been no change of ownership.
A basic principle of ethical journalism is accountability, yet you quote no source whatsoever for your allegations; instead, you print blatant falsehoods as if they were fact. Another basic journalistic principle is balance; in other words, giving the subject of a story the opportunity to speak for him- or herself. Although you state that "neither Black nor Georgia Straight publisher Dan McLeod responded to requests for interviews," you made no such request to VUE Weekly-the subject of your article. But of course you were not interested in getting our side of the story-we would have told you the truth and obliged you to print it.
It is obvious to VUE Weekly and to SEE Magazine readers that the motivation to print this article had nothing to do with journalism and everything to do with competition. This article was a transparent and unethical attempt to use your ability to disseminate news in order to call into question the financial viability of your competition-and this attempt was predicated on a lie.
It is telling that this article did not have a byline, its attribution instead reading "by SEE staff." Obviously, no journalist wrote the article (to begin with, even a novice journalist would have looked at VUE Weekly's masthead to verify Maureen Fleming's name, which the article misspelled twice) or even wanted his or her name associated with it. Ironically, by ascribing the article to your entire staff, you call into question the ethics and abilities of everyone involved with SEE Magazine.
It is also ironic that you attempt to cast aspersions on VUE Weekly by claiming David Black "has strong ties to Canada's corporate establishment." This is a most conspicuous example of the pot calling the kettle-well, Black. Whatever corporate ties David Black might have, they pale in comparison to those of Conrad Black, Canada's largest "media magnate," who owns the majority of the country's daily newspapers-and SEE Magazine. It is unsurprising that you are so ready to print falsehoods, for the claim you print on your cover every week-to be "Edmonton's alternative news and entertainment weekly"-is equally untrue. You are a member of Canada's largest and most powerful media empire, and as such are part of the mainstream press. No matter who ends up owning VUE Weekly, we will always be an alternative to Southam, Inc.
When any newspaper knowingly prints a lie, it damages every newspaper, colleague or competitor. The public will be less likely to believe anything they read, regardless of the reputability of its source, in the future.
I and the entire staff of VUE Weekly hope you will not choose to employ such ill-advised and dishonest tactics in the future. The pages of a newspaper should be devoted to news and to the truth; business, profit and competition should be left to the free market. Let the quality of the product you present to the public be your weapon in the warfare of business competition; by printing profit-motivated prevarication in the guise of journalism, you lower the quality of your publication and ultimately defeat your own purpose.
According to the Alberta Press Council's Code of Practice, "It is the duty of newspapers to avoid publishing inaccurate or misleading statements, and further, it is the duty of newspapers to correct promptly, and with due prominence, significant inaccuracies or such misleading statements." You have already failed in your duty in the first instance; please live up to the rest of this principle by printing this letter in its entirety-and by publishing a retraction of the falsehoods you knowingly printed.
Ron Garth
Publisher
cc: S. Fisher, Executive Secretary-Treasurer, Alberta Press Council
cc: Duff Jamison, Gazette Press, Jamison Newspapers Inc.
cc: Linda Hughes, Publisher, The Edmonton Journal
cc: Don Babick, President and Publisher, The National Post; President and
COO, Southam Inc.
cc: F. David Radler, Deputy Chairman and Associate CEO, Southam Inc;
President and COO, Hollinger Inc.
cc: The Hon. Conrad M. Black, Chairman and CEO, Southam Inc.