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June 28, 2002
Aspers aren't the enemy
Editorial
The recent firing of the publisher of the Ottawa Citizen
has provided a new round of hand-wringing over the near-monopoly
of Canadian daily media by the Asper family's CanWest Global company.
Russell Mills was fired after the Citizen ran an editorial
calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.
Never mind the irony that the publisher was apparently fired for
saying something members of Chrétien's own caucus have been
saying publicly of late. The matter was immediately viewed in the
context of Izzy Asper's known support for the federal Liberal party
and his perceived friendship with the prime minister. Issues have
again come to the fore about the degree to which Canadian media
are free to express themselves.
Unfortunately, complicating this issue is the very basic matter
of private personnel issues in a private company. Whenever an issue
like this spills into the public realm, the chance that the full
truth will emerge is highly unlikely. A fired employee is relatively
free to criticize a former employer with little fear of legal ramifications.
A former employer, however, risks a serious breech of ethics and
severe legal complications if they are seen to be impugning the
reputation of a former employee by releasing details of a personnel
matter.
So it may be the case that Mills was fired solely for an editorial
calling on the prime minister to resign. Or it may be, as a spokesperson
for CanWest seemed to suggest in a CBC interview recently, that
there were other issues between the employee and the employer prior
to the anti-Chrétien editorial.
Either way, the incident raised again the demonization of Asper
as the monster that ate Canadian media. Until Asper purchased controlling
interest in the newspapers held by Southam Inc., the public demon
of media was Conrad Black.
Both men have been pilloried for what is an unfortunate situation:
the control of a massive number of media outlets in the hands of
one or a small number of companies.
This demonization makes the firing of Mills all the more complicated
because the public and parts of the media are ready to side with
anyone who sides against Asper. So there is a predisposition to
accept that Mills was fired on solely political grounds.
Yet, one has to wonder, why hasn't Asper fired most or all of the
staff of the National Post? Columnists, editors and reporters
at the Post have done an exceptionally effective job of unearthing
scandal in the federal Liberal government and have, through sheer
tenacity, proved more effective at criticizing the government on
most issues than have the elected opposition members of the House
of Commons. The Post routinely shills for a united right-wing
party and editorializes against all range of "sins" by
the federal Liberals. Why hasn't Asper
fired them?
The immediate presumption of guilt laid on Asper doesn't wash when
taken in the context of the mass of writing in his countless newspapers
across
the country. Perhaps there is more to the Mills case than we will
ever fully understand.
As corporate citizens go, Asper has been exceptional. He has shown
loyalty to his hometown of Winnipeg, maintaining his company's headquarters
there when many successful businesspeople would have repaired to
Toronto when they gained Asper's level of success. He has been an
unstinting philanthropist to Jewish and other causes. Many British
Columbians have benefited from his generosity, including the Vancouver
Talmud Torah students who recently returned from Washington, D.C.,
and the countless number of British Columbians who will be able
to attend the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on scholarship, thanks
to a new fund endowed by Asper.
This does not discount the unfortunate fact that the Asper family
has an inordinate hold on Canadian media, but it does belie the
image of a media robber baron some people are trying to pin on the
man.
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