By Doug Draper
Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, once wrote that if it “were left to (him) to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter.”
Reporter and columnist Becky Day refused to let the corporate chains put her down. She has launched her own online news site called Thorold Politics
What Jefferson was essentially saying at the time – some 200 odd years ago – is that you can’t have accountable democratic government without having a free and vigilant press.
In that spirit, Niagara At Large, as a new and fledgling source of independent news and commentary in the Greater Niagara Region, will use this venue, for as long as it lasts, to stand up for journalists in this region who try against all kinds of odds these days to do their job. We are talking about journalists who too often find themselves running up against the corporate chains that own and operate too many of our media outlets, and either don’t’ provide the resources journalists need to play an effective watchdog, without fear or favour, or go out of the way to block their efforts to get at the truth.
Becky Day, a journalist in Thorold, Ont. who was about the only shining light at a pretty crappy chain-run weekly called ‘The Thorold Niagara News’, falls into the category of a journalist in that community – one that she and I happen to live in, by the way – that continues to care. The fact that she is no longer gamely employed at ‘The Thorold Niagara News’ just about says it all for that publication.
I had hardly heard of Becky Day eight months ago when neighbours down the road and others I’d cross paths with in Thorold’s downtown, who knew I was a reporter, would almost run up to me and say – ‘Have you read Becky Day’s latest column? You’ve got to read it!’ I even had people around town tossing a torn page from the newspaper, with her column on it, with a little scribbled on it – “You’ve got to read this.’
So I, like so many of them, stopped automatically taking this paper from the front stoop, along with all of its flyers, and tossing it directly into the recycling box. I began actually opening it up and looking for her weekly column, which was more often questioning why Thorold’s council meetings were running on and on like a plugged toilet, with so few resolutions at the end of a long night to show for them.
As time went on, she was questioning why key senior staff from the city, including its chief administrator and fire chief, were picking up and leaving for other government positions in the region. Could it have anything to do with frustrations around the relentless dysfunctional antics of the council of the day?
Becky Day’s columns on these and other municipal matters, including the ongoing clownery over what to do with Thorold’s abandoned city hall which just happens to be a designated heritage site falling to waste, seemed to be resonating with others in the municipality who were asking the same questions. Then one day last fall – puff – her columns and other reports on municipal affairs in that publication were gone. She was told, in so many words, that she was being let go.
“I was let go because someone didn’t like what I had to say,” Becky told me later. “I can’t prove (it had anything to do with political pressure but) I was just doing my job. … It is a tough spot to write a column and report on council anywhere, let along in Thorold (but) it was just a matter of time (before I was let go) I guess. I wasn’t even that harsh.”
I called Thorold’s mayor, Henry D’Angela, shortly after Becky’s dismissal and asked him if he, in any way, had anything to do with it. He acknowledged that he had called the paper complaining that, in his view, her coverage of his council was unfair and unbalanced. But adamantly denied saying anything to the affect that she should be let go.
Unfortunately, these days you don’t have to. If you are carrying ads in any of these small community papers now, which in the case of the Thorold Niagara News the city of Thorold is, all you have to do is call up and say your upset with the paper’s coverage to get everyone from the public and editor in chief on down to the advertising reps shaking in their boots. It has nothing to do with the traditional mission of newspapers to be a watchdog for the community any more.
Fortunately for Thorold and for journalism in this region in general, Becky Day has not let her sudden dismissal from that paper last fall stop her. She very quickly launched an online news commentary site of her own called ‘Thorold Politics At Its Best … Keeping Them Honest’ and it is already getting plenty of visits from residents because I am once again hearing people in the community talking about Becky’s columns.
You can visit her site at http://beckydayblog.wordpress.com/ or check out her site for other communication services she offers at www.niagarafreelance.com.
(If you are a subscriber to Niagara At Large and received this post through a separate email, please support Niagara At Large by taking a few extra moments to visit the site at www.niagaraatlarge.com for other news and commentary on our region. Our survival depends on your visit to the site. Thank You.)
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Welcome, Becky. It’s wonderful here in the blogosphere where the truth can come out and people can hear the other side of the story. Only problem is that it doesn’t pay the bills. You’ll know you’ve arrived when other blogs start dissing you. Welcome to Club Freedom of the Press.
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Congrats on a very nice piece, Doug. Thanks for letting us know about Becky Day’s blog. And thank goodness for those journalists in Niagara who do what they can to give their readership “the whole picture” — you know who you are, and I salute you. Without you, we would be utterly lost in a fog of bafflegab and b.s.
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Great story. Congrats Becky on forging on. That whole newspaper chain has no ethics or cares of doing what is right.
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Doug told me about you, what happened when you spoke out and I express my heart felt concern knowing this is not a new scenario, it is just another control the Corporate media is exercising. I dug into the extent of this control and found the vastness of empires built to express propaganda rather than truth. Each day new independents such as you and Doug open new chapters for concerned and worried people to visit and associate with….Thus Thank God for peoples like you and keep the faith…..Amen
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When one considers that in Fort Erie, a member of Town Council is currently employed by the local paper’s advertising department, and is even published in it’s “letters to the editor” section, it indicates just how far “out of whack” objectivity (or lack of) can get.
Add to this the fact that “someone” has been paying for extensive and expensive advertisements, week after week, in the same paper that the Councilor sells ads for and support the Councilor’s position on the Bay Beach proposal, it becomes even more clear why Becky Day’s experience is, unfortunately, all too common.
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Thanks to John McCarthy for bringing to the attention of the wider Niagara public.
This is scandalous — or would be, if it wasn’t rapidly becoming the norm.
How do we fight back?
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Talk show host Daoud Sediqi, a 29-year-old Afhghan, who received asylum in the US when his life became endangered in his homeland, was on CBC radio last Thursday morning.
Part of his conversation focused on how, under the former Taliban regime, news and all media was controlled by the government. People there are intelligent, he said, and they knew they were not hearing the truth nor being allowed to express themselves through art or the news.
But I wonder how many here in North America realize that we too are rapidly losing our voices in the media.
Here it isn’t as sinister as political regimes trying to maintain control. In the US and Canada, it’s all about corporate interests being promoted above all else.
As media giants gobble up more and more news outlets the competition to survive becomes intense until we’ve reached the point where advertising dollars have become the number one goal, easily outdistancing the need to inform the public or keeping a watchful eye on the political machinery.
Until recently the local community newspapers remained above the fray but they too have come under the intense scrutiny of the bean counters in the head offices of corporate owners situated in Montreal or Toronto.
As the “community” newspaper arm of these giants purchase small community papers many promises are made to maintain the focus and integrity of this critical news source.
But under the weight of the “profit first” mentality, these promises are quickly forgotten without the slightest remorse.
The newspaper industry is in trouble and astute critics have noted they are to blame for much of their own woes. And that is true. They have all come to look similar by this focus on revenue while losing their integrity and investigative approach. These were the ingredients that gave them personality and provided readers with distinct choices. (see http://www.newspaperdeathwatch.com for more on this.)
Of course revenue is essential to survival but people will buy a good product. But there are very few of those left and so why are the owners surprised that very few newspapers are being sold?
Local readers have to be wary when the focus of local papers becomes pleasing of advertising clients or when reporters are dismissed because they hit a nerve with an advertiser. And don’t forget, some of these advertisers include politicians. How much will you really know about your government if newspapers refuse to print articles that are critical of them for fear of losing advertising dollars?
If journalists are not supported and protected by their employers there will be far more corruption in politics and business than currently exists.
Now that’s a scary thought.
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It seems to me that there are at least 2 issues here:
1. the Freedom for Journalists to report stories with Integrity from their own perspective, and
2. the ability of Journals (newspapers, TV, radio, etc) to earn Income . . . in an era of changing Economy and Technology.
Congratulations Becky Day!
Now, who has ideas as to how she and others can earn enough income to report and editorialise with Integrity? Will her blogging experiment be a new form of journalism? (Is her name Huffington?!)
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