CanWest controls too much media, Senate hearing told

Federal senate members heard an earful from prominent city journalists Monday
on the problems with corporate-controlled media.

Travelling Senate committee to report findings to parliament

By MATTHEW BURROWS

A creeping despair has crept into the dialogue when it comes to the state of the Vancouver media and journalistic integrity: too few people have too much control.

This was one of the hard-hitting sentiments presented to convened members of the travelling Senate committee (not a folk music group), set up to look at news media ownership in Canada.

In Vancouver Monday and Tuesday — at the Wosk Centre for Dialogue and UBC, respectively — the senators got plenty of material for a report to be released to parliament at the end of March.

The committee heard from the media union of B.C., individual journalists, the Vancouver chapter of the Canadian Association of Journalists, independent media publishers, Aboriginal media, and concerned members of the general public.

Winnipeg-based CanWest Global Communications Inc., owned by the Asper family, was raked over the coals for their "media monopoly" in the city and poor allocation of resources and editorial content. (In this part of the world, CanWest owns the two biggest dailies, the Vancouver Sun and Province; the National Post and Global BC TV, as well as about half of the Lower Mainland community papers including the North Shore News and the Vancouver Courier. Last week news hit that CanWest Global will be distributing a free 'commuter daily' newspaper in the Vancouver area beginning in March.)

On Monday morning Deborah Campbell, president of the Vancouver chapter of the Canadian Association of Journalists, questioned local media concentration and lack of staff in crucial areas.

"There is a lively ethnic press, but the papers of record are all owned by the same company," she said. She also cited the lack of coverage of the leaky condo crisis and the ongoing native land claims, adding that the two dailies have no reporter in the legislature full time, and nobody dedicated to land claims, labour issues, fisheries and forests.

In front of a larger afternoon crowd of around 40 people, journalists David Beers and Charles Campbell, who've both worked at the Vancouver Sun, turned up the heat on their former employers.

"I'm very concerned about one company owning three major dailies," said Beers, who quit the Sun in 2001 and is now editor of the online Tyee as well as an instructor at the UBC Tsing Tao School of Journalism. "Were I to be looking at monopolistic tendencies, that's where I'd look."

Charles Campbell, who worked for four years on the editorial board at the Sun, went even further.

"I invite anyone to stand up and say to me, 'The Vancouver Sun and Province are really great papers'" he said. "There's nobody who is saying that. There are a lot of good, capable people at the Sun, but as an institution, after four years I couldn't work there anymore."

Sen. John Eyton said he felt Beers was presenting a "dire and dark picture" but he and his colleagues looked surprised by the forceful delegations, and were soon left to question why CanWest had failed to send anybody to answer questions.

"We'll wait and see tomorrow whether this meeting will be covered," added Sen. Jim Munson.

As questions were taken, many continued to decry CanWest's domination of the market, and some asked for a break-up of the monopoly.

"The thing that will make the Aspers' ownership unwind is competition," added Charles Campbell.