Confusion exists with human rights commissions
The Ontario Human Rights Commission has called for Parliament to form a national Press Council. The chief commissioner, Barbara Hall, is quoted as saying it “would help bring about more consistency across all jurisdictions in Canada”. Also, she admitted that, “As we saw in the Maclean’s case, we had different responses from each province, and that’s really confusing for people.”
The problem here is not with Press Councils, it is with the provincial and national Human Rights Commissions. They have the inconsistency and confusion.
Press Councils have been operating in Canada for 36 years and do so with expertise that includes knowledge of the ethics of the press, an understanding of freedom of expression, and an ability to provide the public with a fair-minded forum for hearing complaints.
They have also operated along the lines of what a CHRC commissioned study recommended. The author of the report, constitutional law expert, Richard Moon, suggested “there are many arguments for protecting freedom of expression but all seem to focus on one, or a combination of, three values: truth, democracy, and individual autonomy. He also said, “the proper scope and limits of the freedom should not be debated exclusively in legal or constitutional terms.” He argues that, “Groups within the community should have a real opportunity to expression that is not so extreme that it violates criminal or human rights laws but may nevertheless affect their position in the larger community.”
His report suggests that “To advance this end, all major print publications should belong to a provincial or regional press council that has the authority to receive a complaint that the publication has depicted an identifiable group in an unfair or discriminatory manner.”
It has been suggested recently that some Press Councils have become moribund. If that’s true, perhaps the main reason is that there is little acknowledgement by newspapers that the service exists. A former Supreme Court Judge, and former B.C. Press Council Chair, publicly criticized newspapers for not publicizing the council or telling readers how to lodge complaints. If newspapers would do this and more were members of councils, then the word “moribund” would probably no longer apply.
The President of the CAJ, Mary Agnes Welch, was quoted as saying, “a lot of journalists would take umbrage at essentially being in a federally regulated profession”. It is natural to not like one’s work being closely reviewed by outsiders but it has become normal for lawyers, doctors and police, so why not them. Welch does admit that provincial press councils “represent the only real place that readers can go to complain about stories short of the courts.”
Also quoted was a journalism teacher from Halifax, Dean Jobb. He pointed out that recourse is important for media audiences and suggested, “we should be wary of creating some kind of new complex bureaucracy.”