It’s been a curious and troubling week in the News.
For many years daily Newspapers have hosted Newspaper in Education programs where young students learn about local News. It is a generous program meant to help teachers demonstrate to students that good citizenship involves being informed.
A corollary to seeking and gaining knowledge through this program is students are better able to understand cause and effect.
In Waterloo region, the public elementary school teachers have been asked by their union to boycott The Record as a teaching aid in the program, because one of the Newspaper’s columnists demonstrated, in their opinion, “teacher bashing” and “anti-teacher rhetoric.”
Instead teachers were encouraged by the local union head to use the Toronto Star, presumably a more teacher friendly publication, to teach students about local issues.
The irony of teaching critical thinking to students without a diverse array of opinions and facts on which to form their own opinion is compelling.
In a very real sense, the union by its action is making a statement it may want to rethink. Programming the populace, in this case children, is simply not cool. It flies in the face of what most of us expect in education circles.
The attitude that opinions are valued as long they mirror the opinions of the educators is nothing really new. But in this case, it is troubling that such a public statement has been made.
As if that case weren’t bad enough, an editor colleague south of Wellington was filling us in on a recent roundtable with police officials to discuss better communications. In a telling moment, the impression was laid bare on the table, that really, the police didn’t need the “media” (TV, radio, Newspapers, etc.) anymore because they had access to social media tools.
Instead of working with these media groups as they have for decades or, in the case of print, centuries, emergency service people figured with Twitter and Facebook, they could easily disseminate their message. The implied message, whether intended or not, was these communicators would not need the inconvenience of being second-guessed or asked questions.
This country’s legal system relies heavily on the notion of innocent until proven guilty and civil rights. Embracing those concepts, it would be a rare day that a journalist worth their salt would be content running press releases or re-tweeting verbatim “News” from a communications officer. Journalists ask the next question or questions that make sense of the News.
More recently, we were taken aback to see a budget story written by a county councillor and published as a front page News article in a local weekly Newspaper. It mimics the columns that most Newspapers run as a way for members of parliament or councillors to communicate with citizens.
While we don’t have an issue with the councillor involved per se, there are ethical issues with this kind of News presentation. It’s not good, but reflective of the times in which we live.
So, if those in our industry are willing to overlook the most basic of journalism principles and stand idly by while government bodies get into the “News” business, tough times lie ahead.
Regrettably, it will be the public and our democracy that pay the price.
