Politicians in public office have been known to try to pull rank on reporters they file under the nuisance category.
Former executive assistants to municipal politicians have boasted how they have sent workers to follow behind Toronto Free Press distribution teams to trash copies left at retail outlets. In response, TFP, in some areas of the city, has had to move more copies to more expensive home delivery. Delivery of local newspapers is often more expensive in election years.
The only thing more peculiar than the police arrest of three freelance journalists while covering a protest outside a Toronto abortion clinic on Oct. 15, is the ensuing silence of the mainline media.
The three journalists were charged with obstructing a peace officer, their film was confiscated, and they were later called in by police to be fingerprinted.
Sue Careless is an award-winning freelance journalist, who excels in writing about public education. Steve Jalsevac is editor of The Interim's on-line news service, LifeSite. Gord Truscott, of Guelph, is a reporter for the Royal City Journal.
At the heart of this matter is a 'temporary' injunction obtained by the then NDP Ontario government in 1994, which explicitly forbids any kind of protest outside abortion centres in the province. In no way does the injunction restrict the freedom of the press in reporting on such protests, and in no way were the journalists in question taking part in the protest on Oct. 15. This was made clear to the arresting officers, but to no avail. It is also worthy of note that the three working journalists did not interfere with police activity during the protest.
The Interim is currently pursuing legal advice in an effort to recover the seized films. It is also seeking to have the charges against the three journalists dropped, and to ensure that the action of the police in this matter will be clarified.
Perhaps the deafening silence of the mainline media is tied to a possible grouping of the three journalists as "pro-life journalists", rendering them not worthy of defense.
This theory doesn't wash. If press freedom for journalists grouped as "pro-life" is in jeopardy, how long before reporters from the mainline media are treated the same way?
David Harris, editor of the Anglican Journal and vice president of the Canadian Church Press, says this is not an abortion issue but an issue of freedom of the press. "Canadians should be concerned about this sort of heavy-handedness. It's out-rageous."
In the 1980s, Tony Silipo, then NDP chairman of the NDP-dominated Toronto Board of Education banned Toronto Sun columnist Judi McLeod from attending press conferences at the board of education's College Street headquarters.
Knowing that 155 College Street was an entity that belonged to the taxpayers, Sun editors wisely chose to ignore the ban and dispatched McLeod to the very next press conference, chaired by Silipo at the education centre. Spotting McLeod in the room among other reporters, Silipo reminded her she was unwelcome and demanded that she leave.
In the silence that followed, a reporter from a local radio station found the courage to stand up in objection. "If she's forced to leave and no one takes a stand, how long will it be before one of us is forced to leave?" the radio reporter demanded to know.
The incident of Oct. 15 is all the more significant because all reporters charged help earn their living by freelance reporting. Freelance reporters do not have the same resources to fight that their brothers and sisters in the mainline media do.
The Interim and other members of the Christian community are right when they say that what happened on October 15 is "a grave violation of freedom of the press, which we believe that if left unchallenged, the action of the police in this matter will jeopardize the freedom of all journalists to report matters of public interest in an accurate, thorough, and fair manner."
In a democracy, freedom of the press is everything.
That is why Toronto Free Press published the cover story of freelance journalist Paul Tuns in this issue.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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