Complaints Report: 1994

Thirty eight complaints were received in 1994 compared with 37 in 1993. Up to the end of 1994, the Council had received 389 complaints and held 31 hearings.

Two hearings were held in 1994. Reports of the mediations appear below.

COMPLAINT STATISTICS:

ABOUT:

AGAINST:

DISPOSED OF:

Two Formal Hearings:

REFORM PARTY vs. THE VANCOUVER SUN

Vancouver - The B.C. Press Council has partially upheld a complaint from two Vancouver members of the Reform Party that a political cartoon in the Vancouver Sun went too far in likening them and the party to the Klu Klux Klan.

The council met in Vancouver on April 15 to hear the complaint from Fred Cavanagh and Gordon Shreeve that the editorial cartoon published in the Vancouver Sun on Oct. 20, 1993, just days before the federal election, was "not fair comment" and that it was "unfair, inaccurate and irresponsible." The Vancouver Sun maintained that the cartoon was "fair comment."

The cartoon in question, drawn by freelance artist Ingrid Rice, showed the cutout figure of a white-sheeted KKK member against a screen. The cartoon was titled "Reform Party Screening Process." A sign pointing to the cutout figure reads "Step This Way." In the complaint, Mr. Cavanagh said he felt he had "been specifically libelled by the cartoon which indicated as the head of the Candidate search committee that he and the committee would require a potential candidate to fit the mould of the KKK as depicted in the cartoon." Mr. Shreeve, the Reform Party candidate in Vancouver South, complained similarly that "his standing in the community has been jeopardized by the implication that he is, or ever had been, or would be in the future in sympathy with the racist Klu Klux Klan."

Sun senior editor Patricia Graham, appearing on behalf of the paper, defended the papers traditional right to publish satirical and sometimes "savage" cartoons on pertinent political topics. She noted that the cartoon had been prompted by the news event that a Toronto Reform candidate, John Beck, had resigned almost immediately after making racist remarks to the news media. In her written submission to council, Ms. Graham referred to the Beck episode and said "that factual nexus certainly allowed the cartoonist to express the honest opinion that the screening process must have some large holes in it if a racist like Mr. Beck could get through."

Ms. Graham emphasized that the use of the KKK cutout was only "symbolic of racism and bigotry," and was not to be taken literally as proof that only Klan members or persons with such leanings should seek to be Reform candidates. To illustrate this point that the KKK outfit is a commonly understood "visual symbol for racism and bigotry," she offered five cartoons by Bob Krieger which had appeared in the Province newspaper in the past year, all which employed the Klan outfit to make points about racism and bigotry.

At the hearing, and in her submission, Ms. Graham maintained that the complainants had wrongly "personalized" the symbolic nature of the cartoon to themselves and pointed out that the cartoon contained no personal or direct reference to either Mr. Cavanagh or Mr. Shreeve, thus neither man had suffered any personal harm or embarrassment. In her defence of the cartoon Ms. Graham referred to several high court decisions that had upheld the right of political cartoonists to use allegory, caricature, parody and satire to make their point. "Cartoons should have impact," she said, "and they do not need to be polite, nice or in good taste. They are essential to lively public debate - which is why they may, even if found to be defamatory, be protected by the defence of 'fair comment."' The Ingrid Rice cartoon was in that tradition, she said, an honestly held opinion in picture form on a matter of public interest. Fair comment.

Ms. Graham, in her written submission, said that when the complainants "chose to associate themselves with the Reform Party, they voluntarily assumed the risk that political criticism might follow."

Mr. Cavanagh agreed that while some criticism was justified, "the cartoon was not." To support his position he pointed to the Oct. 23, 1993 column by Sun Editor-in-Chief Ian Haysom, in which Mr. Haysom wrote that editorial cartoonists sometimes "cross the line. Certainly, Rice's cartoon dangled one foot across it."

ADJUDICATION

The complaint is upheld in part.

Text of the adjudication:

"The imagery of the cartoon suggests potential Reform Party candidates who hold the views of the KKK could get through the party's screening process. There is no substantiation for this opinion. The KKK image conjures up more than racism and bigotry. It includes violent acts arising from those beliefs such as: murder, rape, lynchings, etc.

"While conceding that exaggeration is a common and accepted characteristic of political cartooning, the image and reality must ultimately achieve a point of convergence.

"Nothing in what Mr. Beck has said, or any Reform Party candidate even approaches the history and reality of the KKK.

"The Vancouver Sun could and should have found another means of conveying the point that potential candidates with racist opinions had made it through the screening process.

"The complaint therefore is upheld in part, by the majority of the council members present, in that the cartoon was reprehensible in terms of its divergence from fact.

"However, while we find that Mr. Cavanagh and Mr. Shreeve saw themselves as being personally maligned by the cartoon, we do not. Their appearance at a televised protest outside the Pacific Press Building linked them firmly to the Reform Party and the cartoon. And this part of their complaint is therefore dismissed.

"The council also wishes to go on record as saying that this decision is not to be seen or interpreted as a definitive statement on the merits or acceptability of political cartoons, but only on this particular case."

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JOAN GADSBY vs. THE NORTH SHORE NEWS

The B.C. Press Council has dismissed a complaint by a former member of North Vancouver District Council that a reporters rating of her performance on council had cost her her seat.

The Press Council met in Vancouver on Sept. 22 to hear the complaint of Joan Gadsby, a former North Vancouver District councillor against the North Shore News. She daimed that a Report Card rating the performance of herself and other incumbents which appeared in the News on Nov. 12, 1993 was grossly unfair and amounted to a personal "and cowardly attack." The Report Card, written by freelance contributor Martin Millerchip, gave Ms. Gadsby a D, the lowest grade in the story.

Ms. Gadsby was upset because the Report Card appeared a week before the election and she said she did not have time "to recover from the blow. It was terrible. It contributed to my defeat..." She said she had topped the polls in other elections and asked the press council to discipline the News for its unethical reporting.

Timothy Renshaw, editor of the News, told the council that Millerchip's story was "fair comment" and that Millerchip was uniquely placed to make judgements about incumbents. He had been covering council steadily for five years and knew most of the incumbents personally. Mr. Renshaw also pointed out that the offending story was clearly marked "opinion" to distinguish it from a typical news story.

Mr. Millerchip told the council he had not been motivated by personal malice when he wrote the report card. He said all his gradings contained "personal opinions, summative perceptions. I made no attempt to disguise them as anything else."

Ms. Gadsby pointed out that one unflattering comment about her in the story could also have been made about a rival incumbent but it was not. "That was unfair and unbalanced. I didn't deserve a D."

The text of the council's formal adjudication:

"It is the council's conclusion that the Report Card was fair comment.

"Evidence presented during the hearing convinced the council that the North Shore News had an acceptable basis to consider the reporter's grading process as fair comment. Martin Millerchip's District Council reportorial experience was deemed sufficient and appropriate to his preparation of an honest and fair grading.

"Nevertheless, the council expressed concern that some of the statements in the report card were of a personal nature and not entirely relevant."

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