First Word

Poor moral and corruption 
The Vancouver Province’s newsroom is not a happy place these days; while journalists overseas are learning how to become better investigators

By David McKie 

All is not well at the Vancouver Province. The byline war that unfolded this past February was the mere manifestation of a deeper malaise that has forced morale to plunge to new depths. In his story about the woes at the tabloid, Marc Edge, a former reporter with the paper, quotes staff members who complain of heavy-handed and politically motivated editing. Last year, the B.C.’s press council received a complaint from un-named Province reporters who bemoaned the use of "partisan criteria to edit the news." To be fair, the Province is not the only newsroom to experience morale problems. However, it is rare to find such a frank discussion about staff problems. One 23-year veteran, who is now a union official, summed up the newsroom environment this way: "There isn't a meaningful level of courtesy between the managers and staff in the newsroom. It's a very miserable place to work. It's atrocious."

For its part, the World Bank has been concerned about the development and increased professionalism of newsrooms in the developing world. The bank is bankrolling an initiative to teach journalists in developing countries to investigate their governments and institutions more thoroughly. The venerable bank figures that investigative journalism is one of the best ways to keep regimes honest. To this end, Gazette investigative reporter, Rod Macdonell, has been trying to teach journalists in places such as Africa some of the basics of the craft. However, his students encounter many obstacles. Macdonell writes: “The notion that the public has a right to know and a right to be informed does not sit well with many rulers in emerging democracies who chafe and rage at the thought that they are accountable for their actions.” And when they are not encountering opposition from public officials bent on retaining power, journalists are confronted with temptations within their own ranks. "The Tanzanian reporters also told us that investigative journalism was not always feasible," Macdonell continues, "because when media owners were not blocking publication of stories to protect their cronies, editors were alerting subjects of pending investigative reports, then receiving payoffs to spike the pieces."

Journalists in Cambodia encounter obstacles of their own. We learn about their challenges through the eyes of Marsha Barber, who teaches journalism at Toronto’s Ryerson Polytechnic University. She found that the journalists were unskilled in many of the rudimentary aspects of the craft such as interviewing and writing. Like Macdonell, she encountered a Fourth Estate marred by a lack of professionalism and a profusion of corrupt practices.

"Some take unreliably sourced newspaper articles and read them verbatim on air. That doesn’t help their professional reputations. Nor does the fact that some reporters find blackmailing subjects can be a reliable source of income," Barber explains. "As the Cambodian saying goes, ‘Small people take small bribes, big people take big bribes.’ Corruption is a way of life even if most Cambodians say they want to stamp it out.

"Government officials told us they hoped training would help journalists become more professional. But this was not the only reason we were teaching the course. Foreign aid dollars are often tied to allowing trainers into the country."

In the story by Leanne Yohemas-Hayes, we learn about training of a different sort. Juggling outside activities with work is nothing new to many journalists. But when that extra curricular endeavour happens to be one of the most physically demanding sports on the planet, then it becomes intriguing to understand how Yohemas-Hayes, now a freelance broadcast and print journalist living in Calgary, managed to train last year for the king of triathlons: Hawaii’s Ironman competition. She swam for four-kilometres; rode her bike for 180-kilometres and, to finish things off, ran a 42-kilometre marathon. "Many colleagues and friends think I’m crazy spending my time this way," she writes. "A co-worker once joked that beating myself up with a baseball bat would probably be less painful. For those who quiz me about my passion, the question after ‘Why do you do it?’ is ‘How do you do it? How do you balance work at your day job and training for such a gruelling event?’"

Our photojournalism spread for this edition is the result of an effort that began 20 years ago when Citizen photographer Rod MacIvor took pictures on Parliament Hill for United Press International (UPI). MacIvor’s photographs of the late Pierre Trudeau remind us of the vigour with which the former prime minister performed his duties and lived his life. Because Trudeau died of cancer, the pictures are being used to raise money for research into possible cures.

And finally, the last word is devoted to the topic that has journalism professor Barb Freeman angry: the propensity of newspapers such as The Globe and Mail and National Post and news magazines such as Maclean's to apply the adage, sex sells. Freeman writes: "Obviously, breasts in the news have something to do with marketing newspapers and magazines to men, not women."

We hope that that this magazine’s content will be its major selling feature. So happy reading, and please feel free to tell us what you think about the stories in this or any other edition of Media magazine. You can contact me by email at davidmckie@home.com or david_mckie@cbc.ca