|
26 February 2004
Gazette settles freedom-of-speech grievance
with unprecedented affirmation of rights
PACT LIFTS MONTREAL GAG ORDER
Montreal Newspaper
Guild | TNG Canada Local 30111
OTTAWA — Montreal Gazette journalists,
silenced more than two years ago after they led an uprising
against CanWest Global's assault on editorial independence,
were officially ungagged today.
A landmark arbitration settlement between
the Gazette and the Montreal Newspaper Guild affirms the
journalists' fundamental freedoms, including their right
to "contribute to and participate in open public debate" over
the paper’s newsgathering policies, its editorial direction
or any other subject.
The Gazette imposed a gag order on its
journalists in December 2001 after they withheld bylines
and publicly opposed a plan by CanWest Global Communications
Corp. to run "national editorials" – largely
written at headquarters in Winnipeg – in its major
Canadian dailies. CanWest extended the gag order in March
2002 to all of its print and broadcast newsrooms across Canada,
in the wake of protests against censorship at the Regina
Leader-Post.
The Montreal settlement applies to the
Gazette only. It resolves two grievances filed by the Guild,
one protesting the initial gag order and another objecting
to a formal warning issued to reporter William Marsden after
he participated in a public debate on media concentration.
Ironically, the Montreal Guild's stunning
victory in the battle for freedom of expression has enshrined
for Gazette staff more explicit rights than those granted
to other Canadian journalists by other media employers.
Arnold Amber, Director of TNG Canada/CWA,
hails the settlement as "a great end to what has been
a very difficult time for journalists at the Gazette. They
can now talk about their issues to the public they serve."
"I certainly hope that the settlement
in Montreal will now be extended by CanWest Global to all
of its newspapers and television stations across Canada,
and by other media owners to their staff," says Amber. "This
is an acknowledgement by CanWest Global that everybody who
works for it is entitled to these freedoms."
Jan Ravensbergen, president of the Montreal
Newspaper Guild, says the settlement "reaffirms fundamental,
bedrock principles and allows us to declare an end to more
than two troubling years of newsroom chill."
A now-unrestrained Marsden notes: "The
public is not in a position on a daily basis to recognize
where the interests of media owners may have interfered with
an independent and free newsgathering process. Journalists
are, and must fight any abuses. Otherwise, they are not journalists,
but merely propagandists."
Freedom of expression and freedom of the
press are two of the basic principles underpinning the Guild-Gazette
agreement that "will govern their relations and the
future employment conditions of journalists" at the
CanWest newspaper, where 350 employees in several departments
are represented by the Guild.
The pact declares that managers and Guild
members who produce the newspaper “have an obligation
to serve the public trust” and that “both journalists
and The Gazette should work to ensure freedom of the press
and freedom of expression.” It adds that “all
publishers must preserve and defend those rights,” as
enshrined in the federal Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Amber says the battle has been a test of
endurance for the Montreal members: "I salute the Gazette
journalists for taking a strong, principled stand throughout
this conflict. I believe that what they did exemplifies the
spirit, the philosophy and determination of the Guild throughout
its history."
This is a second
major victory for the Montreal local on the press-freedom
front: In October, a Quebec arbitrator ruled that Gazette
journalists have the right to withhold their bylines "as
they see fit."
The journalists had, in early December
2001, removed their credits from work published in the newspaper
to protest CanWest's national editorials policy.
The Gazette rebels established a protest
web site and penned an open letter of dissent published by
French-language newspapers in Montreal, the Globe and Mail
and other media.
Gazette management's squelching of its
journalists' uprising led, eventually, to condemnation at
home and abroad of CanWest censorship and editorial control
of the content of the chain’s newspapers. Until that
point, the chain’s papers had been editorially independent.
"This series of arbitration decisions
and settlements are a complete victory for freedom of the
press and the public at large," says reporter Marsden. "They
serve notice to all media owners that journalists will not
be silenced while owners push aside freedom of speech and
freedom of the press in favour of their own political, cultural
and commercial agendas."
"These decisions also serve as a warning," adds
Marsden. "If we as journalists don't fight every attempt
at censorship and thought control, this country will gradually
lose its democratic freedoms."
The gag-order settlement resolves two grievances
filed in 2002, which were to have been heard in coming months
before separate Quebec labour arbitrators.
One grievance was over the far-reaching "advisory" issued
by Gazette management to newsroom staff on Dec. 14, 2001.
Threatening possible suspension or termination if it were
violated, it specifically restricted Guild members in the
newsroom from such activities as “producing written,
spoken, visual or web site material, whether as news or commentary,
that violates employee obligations of primary loyalty to
The Gazette and its proprietors.”
The second grievance concerned a formal
warning later served by Gazette management against Marsden.
It cited the original advisory and a subsequent gag order,
also threatening suspensions and possible dismissals, issued
to all CanWest employees in March 2002. The warning to Marsden
referred to comments he made during a public debate on media
concentration and CanWest's control of editorial content,
at an April 2002 meeting in Ottawa of the Canadian Association
of Journalists.
The Marsden settlement declares the
warning against him nul ab initio, meaning it
is considered to never have existed or been in effect.
For more information:
|