Complaints Report: 1997

Thirty nine complaints were received in 1997. Up to the end of 1997, the Council had received 500 complaints and held 43 hearings.

Seven hearings were held in 1997. Reports of the mediations appear below.

COMPLAINT STATISTICS:

ABOUT:

AGAINST:

DISPOSED OF:

TWO FORMAL HEARINGS:

DR. PATRICK MOORE vs. VICTORIA TIMES COLONIST

The B.C. Press Council has upheld in part a complaint against the Times Colonist by a Vancouver consultant to the forest industry.

Dr. Patrick Moore of Vancouver complained that an article by Malcolm Curtis had failed to correct a factual error about forest practices in B.C. and had maligned his character by calling him a "one-time Greenpeace member turned industry apologist." The article in question, published Feb. 7, quoted Dr. Moore's response to a Feb. 5 article which discussed some recent findings of German botanist Herbert Kronzucker about the damaging effects of clearcutting on forest regeneration. Kronzucker is currently visiting at UBC.

Dr. Moore disagreed with Kronzucker's claim, reported in the Feb. 5 article, that "planting in 1.5 million of hectares of cleared forests in B.C. has failed," partly due to the size of the clearcuts themselves. Dr. Moore faxed Curtis that the actual number of 'plantation failures' was 22, 246 hectares, citing Ministry of Forests statistics, and asked for a follow-up article to correct the error because he felt the Feb. 5 story had caused considerable consternation among both academics and industry officials who worried it "could be used to refuel the boycott movement and that it will be taken up be preservationists as proof that clearcutting is evil. Forest scientists are concerned that poor science is being spread far and wide when there is very good science on this subject."

Dr. Moore also said that he had never called Kronzucker's research "snake oil," as stated in the Feb. 7 article, but said he had made the remark in reference to Curtis' paraphrase of Kronzucker on the problems of pesticide spraying in clearcut areas which appeared in the Feb. 5 article.

The Times Colonist maintained that both articles were balanced and fair accounts of both Kronzucker's published research and Dr. Moore's objections to it. Managing Editor Jody Paterson said the articles didn't go into more scientific detail because they were written for a general readership, not a scientific one.

TEXT OF THE ADJUDICATION (May 15):

The Press Council upholds Dr. Moore's complaint that the Feb. 7 article did not correct the significant factual error in the number of hectares considered to be failed plantations. The article also failed to demonstrate balance when compared with the Feb. 5 story in which Kronzucker's research into seedling propagation was presented in considerable scientific detail.

In addition, the Feb. 7 article referred to Dr. Moore as being a "one-time Greenpeace member turned industry apologist," a description the Press Council concluded was derogatory in the light of Dr. Moore's history as a founding member and one-time president of Greenpeace Canada, and as a consultant and director of the Forest Alliance of B.C.

At the hearing Ms. Paterson indicated to the Press Council that the newspaper would be willing to publish an opinion piece by Dr. Moore that presents his perspective on the issue of seedling research. The Press Council notes that had Dr. Moore dutifully contacted Ms. Paterson before commencing a formal complaint and availed himself of a similar opportunity to reply, the need for a hearing could have been avoided.

The Press Council could not uphold the snake oil' aspect of the complaint because it was unable to determine whether the reporter applied the term out of context.

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WARREN KINSELLA vs. NORTH SHORE NEWS & DOUG COLLINS

The B.C. Press Council has upheld in part a complaint by former political candidate Warren Kinsella against the North Shore News with regard to columns by freelance columnist Doug Collins.

Mr. Kinsella, who ran in the June, 1997 federal election as a Liberal Party candidate for the riding of North Vancouver, claimed that Mr. Collins had made as many as 20 errors of fact or conjecture elevated to fact in several columns published in the News between March and June, 1997. He also charged that his attempts to obtain corrections or apologies in the News had been unsuccessful.

In a 5 to 3 decision. the Press Council concluded that two of the 20 alleged factual errors listed by the complainant should be upheld. However, the dissenting minority of Council believed that the complaint should have been dismissed in its entirety as Mr. Collins' opinion columns constituted "fair comment" during a heated election campaign.

The two aspects of the complaint upheld by Council were -

• that Mr. Collins mistakenly stated in his March 3 column that Mr. Kinsella had "ranted" during a political meeting at the Centennial Theatre in North Vancouver in October, 1996, when in fact Mr. Kinsella maintained that he had not ranted. This factual error, which was also made by North Shore News columnist Trevor Lautens, was voluntarily corrected by Mr Lautens when brought to his attention but never by Mr. Collins: and
  
  
• that Mr. Collins, in his columns of March 3 and May 7, had wrongly stated that three Manitoba men charged with 'hate' crimes had been "acquitted," whereas Mr. Kinsella, in his book Web of Hate (which Mr. Collins criticized as "error-ridden"), said the charges had been "stayed." Council considered relevant court documents and determined that Mr. Kinsella was correct: charges against the three men were stayed, not acquitted, as a review of court records would have shown.

The consensus of the dissenting group was that most of the subject matter of this complaint fell clearly into the category of an expression of opinion; that which did not consisted of inconsequential errors upon which the main argument did not depend. It was the dissenting group's opinion that the emphasis placed upon these errors was too great in light of the fact that most of the complained-of work was found to be fair comment. In short, the dissenting group found that Mr. Collins offered aggressive commentary during the election campaign upon a person seeking public office, as newspapers have been wont to do for decades. The group felt that censure was unwarranted, but the majority of Council did not.

The Council also found that the need for a formal hearing might have been avoided had both parties been more accommodating to each other over the matter of publishing Mr Kinsella's written response to Mr. Collins' criticism. Council notes the fact that the News invited a written response from Mr. Kinsella and then rejected it on advice from legal counsel. and that Mr. Kinsella then chose to file a complaint with the Press Council instead of submitting a revised article to the News.

Finally, in this decision Council upholds its principle on dealing with complaints about opinion that newspapers and columnists enjoy a hard-won right to exercise the widest possible latitude in expressing opinions, no matter how controversial or unpopular those opinions may be, but that they should also strive to avoid expressing comment and conjecture as established fact.

N.B. Hearing held November 20, 1997.

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