THE LAST WORD

“The difference between burlesque and newspapers is that the former never pretended be performing a public service by exposure.” — I.F. Stone, 1952

Investigative journalism. I’ve never liked the term. Shouldn’t journalism involve investigation?

Is there such a thing as non-investigative journalism? Perhaps
not. But reporters know that some stories the product of more poking and prodding than others.

Open newspaper or turn a newscast. The stuff of daily journalism there: articles based on news releases studies, reports from hearings and press conferences.

Sure, these agenda-driven stories need to covered.

But how often do we see — let alone produce real journalism, the kind that inspired us to into this business in the first place? A story demands lots of shoe leather, confrontational phone calls, digging through dusty archives, sleepless
nights and even a willingness to place oneself danger?

Covert Entry: Spies, Lies and Crimes Inside Canada’s Secret Service, by Andrew Mitrovica, the result of such gumshoe grit.The book, published by Random House Canada, tells the story of John Farrell, a disgruntled former operative of Canadian Security Intelligence Service who he stole special postal keys, illegally intercepted the letters of Canadians and electronically bugged mail worker.

Covert Entry also discloses alleged corruption within the spy service — from the smuggling contraband liquor, to the use of secret observation posts for steamy trysts.

Sounds pretty scandalous, huh? The sort thing that might get people excited, maybe even mad.

After all, isn’t this the kind of activity that led royal commission and disbandment of the RCMP Security Service? Don’t we depend on CSIS more than ever following the terrible events of Sept. 2001?

Throw an embattled cabinet minister — since-departed Solicitor General Lawrence MacAulay — into the mix, and you’ve got a pretty juicy news item, right?

Think again. In the first week of its release, single word about the book appeared in the Globe and Mail, National Post or Toronto Star. CTV’s Canada AM did a brief hit.But viewers saw nothing CBC-TV or CanWest Global stations. Radio?
Nada. There were no indignant letters to the editor, not a single outraged question in the House Commons.

In the interests of full disclosure, allow me note that I cover the security and intelligence beat for Southam News.And I’ve counted Mitrovica colleague and friend for a number of years.So views are undoubtedly coloured by these
associations.

Finally, a word about Mitrovica. He’s worked for top-shelf media outlets including CBC, CTV and, most recently, the Globe and Mail, winning several awards for his reporting. He’s made some friends in the business.But his sometimes-irascible
style has rubbed a few people the wrong way.

All that aside, events which followed publication of Covert Entry only helped confirm some things I had already come to believe about Canadian media:
- Organizations are reluctant to acknowledge work of other journalists,no matter how compelling timely their efforts may be.
- Complex stories, particularly ones involving little-known institutions, are often ignored.
- Intelligence issues — even in the post-Sept. 11 era — are seen as something of a curiosity from realm of James Bond rather than legitimate topics debate in the arena of public affairs.

I’m as guilty as any reporter, at least when comes to the first two points. But I’m still puzzled to why spies get such scant attention from the country’s media. Canada’s intelligence agencies have millions of dollars,highly intrusive powers and roles in key global alliances. But the prevailing attitude seems to be,“Spies? In Canada? Pffft!”

I wrote a news story on Covert Entry for the Southam papers,having been provided an advance copy by Random House.The publisher had offered the Globe and Mail first crack at the book.When the Globe dithered,Random House agreed to send me a copy.

My story played on the front pages of the Ottawa Citizen and the Calgary Herald, and on the inside pages of a couple of other papers. I thought this might spur other media to report on the book.Not so. The Canadian Press didn’t pick up my story. Among major print outlets, only Sun Media followed up immediately.

Interestingly, Covert Entry attracted attention from credible players beyond the daily news stream:
Maclean’s magazine and the French-language L’actualité, each ran excerpts. The alternative Toronto weekly Now did a piece. Left-leaning Web site rabble.ca published a lengthy interview with Mitrovica. And TVOntario’s public-affairs show
Studio 2, as well as a Toronto cable program hosted by former CTV reporter Dale Goldhawk, aired segments featuring the author. In the second week, talk-radio shows picked up the trail.

But the major daily news outlets were still slow to bite.

The response reminded me of words written more than two decades earlier by another chronicler of the Canadian intelligence world.

In the 1970s, Vancouver Sun reporter John Sawatsky revealed the conspiratorial origins of a break-in by the Mounties — that the constable involved was under direction from superiors and that RCMP headquarters in Ottawa knew about
the event shortly afterward.

In his subsequent exposé of the RCMP Security Service, the 1980 book Men in the Shadows, Sawatsky described the story as “the first public evidence of a Watergate in Canada”because RCMP management had for the first time been implicated in methodical illegal activity.

“Canadian Press refused to carry the story,”he recounted.“ A question was planted in the House of Commons and not one reporter in the Parliamentary Press Gallery reported it.”

In more ways than one, Mitrovica has inherited Sawatsky’s mantle.