News

Sun, Province to Promote Governments' Homeless Message

CanWest newspapers co-sponsor government-run public relations centre in Downtown Eastside during Olympics.

By Sean Holman, 27 Jan 2010, Public Eye

CCAPMarch

Carnegie Community Action Project march, Sept. 2007. Photo by The Blackbird (from the Tyee Flickr Pool.)

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Vancouver's two major newspapers are sponsoring a government-run centre that will tell international media covering the 2010 Winter Olympics about how the province is dealing with homelessness issues in the city's troubled Downtown Eastside.

Media observers say The Vancouver Sun and The Province should investigate the veracity of the information that will be presented by the centre, not sponsor it. But The Province's editor-in-chief has said that sponsorship deal would only create a conflict of interest if it had been arranged by the paper's newsroom -- which it wasn't.

News that BC Housing and the City of Vancouver wanted to establish a centre to "showcase the range of programs and services that have been undertaken to address the issues of homelessness" was first reported by Public Eye in November.
 
"We think there's a good story to tell about what we've done in B.C. for homelessness, mental health, drug addiction," Housing and Social Development Minister Rich Coleman later explained in an interview with The Globe and Mail's Frances Bula.

Now it comes to light that six private sector interests -- including The Vancouver Sun and The Province -- are sponsoring that centre, which is being set up in the Woodwards building and will also target the city's international visitors.

Newsrooms not involved: Province editor


A spokesperson for BC Housing confirmed the newspapers, which are published by CanWest Global Communications Corp.'s Pacific Newspaper Group Inc., are "providing promotional ads about the centre while it is open in February."

Reached via email, The Vancouver Sun's editor-in-chief Patricia Graham stated she didn't know anything about the deal.

Nor was The Province's editor-in-chief Wayne Moriarty aware of that arrangement, stating, "That's not my department."

But, that being said, Moriarty explained, "We have contra deals with all sorts of agencies and people we report on. And there's lots of things the company does in terms of giving space away and cross-promotion and free promotion that could be viewed as a conflict if it was run out of a newsroom. But it isn't."

Instead, those things are run out of Jamie Pitblado's department. He's the vice-president of promotions and community investment for Pacific Newspaper Group.

"We certainly think it's an opportunity to shed some light on the homelessness issue at a time when it will be front and centre in people's minds -- not just international media but local people who live here and visitors who come here," Pitblado told Public Eye when asked about the reason for the sponsorship.

Is he concerned the centre is being run by the government, whose motivation may be different from the media's truth-telling mission?

"No," the vice-president responded. "We support lots of private sector programs. We support some public sector programs. We believe part of our role as one of the leading media outlets here is to engage our community, spark debate, discussion and dialogue and see if it can make a difference."

Journalism profs express concern

Pitblado declined to disclose the value of the advertising being given to BC Housing, which he said wouldn't be a "significant contribution of our inventory."

Moriarty said The Province's newsroom is also providing BC Housing with free access to photos from its Operation Phoenix series of stories -- which reported on what was working and what was broken in the Downtown Eastside.

"They've asked us for some editorial support in terms of the use of our photos for helping when all the media come in to the Downtown Eastside," he said, adding the newspaper has reviewed that support and determined it won't constitute a conflict of interest.

But not everyone shares Pitblado and Moriarty's opinions.

"That's shocking," said University of Victoria journalism professor Lynne Van Luven, when told about the free advertising. "I don't think that either major paper in a city as plagued with social problems as Vancouver should be engaging in that sort of venture."

"They should be, in fact, standing away from it and looking at it and writing stories about it and trying to find out if it indeed is whitewashing the homeless problem or if, in fact, this BC Housing gambit is actually legit," she continued.

That view is shared by Klaus Pohle, a specialist in media ethics at Carleton University's school of journalism.

"It's a conflict of interest. Newspapers shouldn't be in the business of promoting anything like that. They should be reporting it. And, if they do report on it (now), it becomes suspect because they're involved in it," he said.

"If this centre turns out to be a bust or whatever, they're not going to report on it honestly because they're part and parcel of it. There can't be arms-length reporting of something in which you're involved."

Four firms connected to the real estate development industry have also signed-on to sponsor the centre. [Tyee]

Sean Holman is editor of the online provincial political news journal Public Eye. He can be reached at editorial@publiceyeonline.com.

30 Comments:

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  • SharingIsGood

    2 years ago

    Aspers

    Aren't the Aspers gone. Who is in charge of editorial policy - the banks? How can this be? If it is the banks, then they are using our own bank funds to help promote the BC Liberal government's fantasies/propaganda! I thought we were done with this, when the Aspers defaulted on their loans and the banks took ownership. This is scandalous!

    I'm pulling what's left of my money in the banks and putting it and all future funds into Credit Unions. I encourage others who may be shocked by this revelation to do the same. Common folk can play the capitalism game too!

  • The Lastfish

    2 years ago

    Good story Sean Holman

    From a government that has gutted freedom of information and now this?

    Big media from out of the Province will smell this rat...You can`t hide our shame, or the B.C. Liberals and Gordon Campbell`s shame!

    http://archives.starbulletin.com/2003/03/25/news/story8.html

  • kl

    2 years ago

    Delusions

    "We think there's a good story to tell about what we've done in B.C. for homelessness, mental health, drug addiction," Housing and Social Development Minister Rich Coleman later explained in an interview with The Globe and Mail's Frances Bula."

    Coleman is delusional at best. I suggest all he needs to do is take a walk through the DTES and see what good things they've done. There are just as many homeless people as ever down there. And many more spread throughout the city.

    Another made in BC farce.

  • zalm

    2 years ago

    Pitblado, when asked about the sponsorship deal, said....

    ""No," the vice-president responded. "We support lots of private sector programs. We support some public sector programs."

    Ya, sure you do. But you don't support criticsm of private sector programs, and you don't support praise of public sector ones. You're transparently black-hearted.

    Just today, Pitblados's fishwrap sponsored a rant by local Atilla the Gun Phil Hochstein who took aim at the paramedics and said they threatened to strike over the Olympics. When pointed to the Tyee article and the exact quote from CUPE chief Barry O'Neill that said the exact opposite, the comment was expunged and the article was quickly shunted off to the archives. But no response, and no chance to see Hochstein's lurid lace panties.

    Fishwrap is all the Sun has been for a decade now, and fishwrap is all it will ever be until it grows a spine and stands up for the few reporters and columnists it has left that are worth a speck of flyshit.

  • Grumpy

    2 years ago

    I see the two Vancouver dailies..........................

    ......................., winners of the prestigious Joesph Goebbels award for journalism, are now supporting Gordo's 'good news' spin.

    Former winners were Pravda, Stars & Stripes, and the famous North Korean Rodong Sinmun.

    As a previous poster said, "Fishwrap is all the Sun has been for a decade now, and fishwrap is all it will ever be ......."

    I have a better description, for the sun and Province - outhouse paper, rather used outhouse paper.

  • North of Hope

    2 years ago

    Zalm

    I just checked the Vancouver Sun's site and Phil Hochstein's two articles (really rants) attacking unions were still posted. I'm not sure what The Sun, its editors and owners hope to accomplish with these articles but rational opinionating is not to be had.

  • sicntired

    2 years ago

    this is the end of the MSM as a news entity

    by climbing on board with the provincial government with this apology to the world the MSM has finally exposed themselves as the pawns of the provincial government and nothing more.If these papers had done their job in the first place we might have a solution for homelessness instead of a spattering of groups set up with government funds to provide a whole lot of high cost and low impact services that are there one day and gone the next.The Vancouver civic council was elected on a platform of ending homelessness and they opened a few shelters and then closed them when the neighbors complained.With the MSM partnering with the provincial government in this effort there is now no question that the daily newspapers are in bed with this government.I hope that Pivot has more impact with their red tent campaign but I have a serious doubt that this will happen.When the local media becomes a mouth piece for the government on such a serious issue as homelessness there is now no voice in the city that is not in bed with the Liberals,not that this comes as an surprise for anyone with a brain.

  • verso

    2 years ago

    Location?

    Where is this centre to be located, or are they keeping that a secret, too?

    Should be the ideal spot for protests. Perhaps some red tents will be setup there.

  • deeby

    2 years ago

    At Least Things Are Transparent Now

    The cat's out of the bag. Vancouver's CanWest dailies are officially agents/disseminators of BC Government policy. Disclosure is good ;-)

  • Jeffrey J.

    2 years ago

    Government and Media Know Best

    It is telling that no-one is surprised by the further integration of BC's largest daily monopoly spouting the Campbell regime's party line. The only one pouting is likely Glacier Ventures, who outspent CanWestGlobal in donations to Campbell ($100,000) but didn't get the 'privilege' of spreading the gospel. But I'm sure that too will change.

    All I can say is, thank God we have independent media like Tyee, rabble.ca, Public Eye and others. But the tightening of the grip of the corporate media government propaganda machine is truly disturbing.

    As always, fantastic coverage for citizens who want to know what's really going on.

  • G West

    2 years ago

    Wellll!

    Just cancelled our most recent subscription to the local CanWest organ here in Victoria.THE Times Colonist. This one had lasted three months before the revulsion occasioned by trying to find something worthwhile in its pages more than 10% of the time took over.

    It reached the point where even trying was futile.

    Eventually you quit trying and we've reached that point. And we won't be back this time - no matter what the incessant pleading phone calls with damn-near free offers to 'come back' say.

    I hope thousands of Tyee readers will be doing the same over the next few weeks...

  • realisticman

    2 years ago

    GWest

    We always suspected that you were a secret CanWest supporter.

  • The Lastfish

    2 years ago

    Canwest died many years ago

    Leonard Asper strangled Canwest many moons ago, in and around where media gathers the Vancouver Sun and Victoria Times are considered but a sad joke.

    The once respected journalists are ridiculed, in fact even Hollywood gossip magazines are held in higher respect, at least gossip magazines are what they claim to be.

    The likes of Vaughn Palmer having to beg to write anything close to critical, Michael Smyth jumps from corporate lobbyist to "The big man" on Olympic ticket spending or Government Wii(Wee Wee) rooms for bureaucrats, sad, very sad, Les Leyne, what can you say about Les Leyne...He actually won an award for being the best of the worst,he`s very inactive, maybe that`s why he won an award because he wrote so few "Dribble pieces"!

    Les Leyne "So What" my god, how these men can look in the mirror without throwing up.

    Canwest "Death of Canadian journalism"

    http://www.cepmediaone.ca/GAC%20Documents/The%20Death%20of%20Canadian%20Journalism2.pdf

    There`s better writing,thought and originality on comment threads than any Canwest corporate ad paper.

  • KWD

    2 years ago

    mea culpa

    I thought about canceling the TC but decided I still needed something that provided a benchmark for measuring the rate at which our MSM negatively influences public awareness.

    Also, on top of keeping my budgies happy (you should hear them chatter when their cage is lined with fresh editorial page) I would have to find something that would satisfy my morning addiction to Sudoku and crossword.

    In today’s edition we discover that Dave Lewis, executive director of the Truck Loggers Association, blames urbanites for the forest industry’s financial woes. Apparently city folk are unaware of the problems faced by loggers. And if they were educated they would realize that cutting our timber and shipping raw logs out of the province, as fast as possible, would bolster provincial revenues, and our economic woes would be solved.

    In fact, if we allowed this wholesale clear cutting venture to continue, the province would reap enormous financial benefits. And instead of logging revenue running at a $250 million dollar deficit (in 2009) we would get back to realizing forest revenues that, in the past, topped out at $2 billion.

    Strange thing is, Lewis makes no mention of the fact, despite their indirect economic gains, urbanites didn’t decide past cutting practices and strategies that essentially denuded and destroyed BC forests and rivers. And he makes no mention of the fact that all of the easy-to-get profitable timber has been logged.

    http://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/op-ed/Educating+urbanites+forest+industry/2494002/story.html

  • ReeferMadness

    2 years ago

    Oh. My. God.

    These rags just gave up any claim they had to be independent.

    RIP, mainstream journalism.

  • skippy

    2 years ago

    Main stream media

    It's finally out in the open, The B.C. Main street media are officially the propaganda arm of the Liberal party. Not unlike Fox news in the U.S.It has come to pass" Whoever controls the media controls the state.Goebbels 1936 Germany. Maybe an independent news team could take some Olympic visitors to the downtown eastside.Hiding homelessness won't make it go away.Rich Coleman can click his red shoes together and wish and wish as much as he want's but the problems will stay as long as Libs are in power.

  • SharingIsGood

    2 years ago

    Zalm & North of Hope

    The banks own the media. The banks pushed to have mortgage restrictions removed here, in the US and all over the world. The banks bankroll big business with money that they create themselves with very little actual capital (plant, equipment, materials etc.) to back that money up. Perhaps it had been the banks pulling Aspers' strings all along. After all, the CanWest was owned by the banks through Aspers. As the MSM game against the common person has not ended with the banks' assuming ownership, I believe we need to stop buying CanWest papers and put as many of our assets we can into Credit Unions. That's how the capitalism game works - you vote with your cash.

    Corporations/banks rule the world:
    http://www.pcdf.org/corprule/failure.htm

  • edh

    2 years ago

    Missing the Point

    You folks are missing the point. The real objective here is to feel good and make a good impression on those out of towners heading here to spend money and socialize at high falutin cocktail parties.
    Now be quiet and go back to paying taxes like good little people.

  • The Lastfish

    2 years ago

    More Hochstein

    A letter to the editor in the CANWEST owned Buraby now,

    More vile speak from Hochstein blaming unions,fair wage and of course..."The NDP of the 90s"

    http://www2.canada.com/burnabynow/news/opinion/story.html?id=5ce7f7d8-4274-43c5-851c-025788b758e6

  • mcgregory

    2 years ago

    Infomercial

    So basically the Sun and The Province (same paper different issues) are going to not only reporting on the infomercial, but also participating in the infomercial.

    Makes you wonder why their fortunes are falling. No wonder there is voter apathy, and people seem like they are separated from the truth of what is happening out there.

    I guess they will just toe the party line like usual, and tell us they stand for journalistic integrity.

  • zalm

    2 years ago

    North of Hope

    "I just checked the Vancouver Sun's site and Phil Hochstein's two articles (really rants) attacking unions were still posted. "

    I'm quite sure they were. But the comments? None to be found. And the point was that when called to account, instead of posting the comment, the whole post was swept into the archive a day or so ahead of schedule.

    I wonder if it was too stinky to be used for fishwrap?

  • North of Hope

    2 years ago

    responses to PHIL HOCHSTEIN articles

    These were not published on the Sun's site.

    1st article:
    PHILIP HOCHSTEIN asked,
    "Why did four contractors receive more than 40 per cent of a $24 million fund set up by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) to help all its contractors compete with open shop companies?"

    Because they want to help their workers. It is their money to be used to help their workers.

    and 2nd article:
    Once again this is the pot calling the kettle black. Face it Mr. Hochstein hates unions and will continue to bad mouth them as long as he has a venue to do it.

  • W2Woodwards

    2 years ago

    Un-accredited media centre

    W2 Culture + Media House will be providing space across the street from the provincial information office at Woodward's. Media briefings and media resources will be available to ensure that a broad perspective of voices and initiatives are presented to the 300-500 media anticipated at our unaccredited media house as well as for the public. For more information check out: http://www.creativetechnology.org/page/w2-culturemedia-house-2

  • Leonasha

    2 years ago

    rally on Feb 3rd

    @Verso: CCAP (Carnegie Community Action Project) will hold a rally at the site at 1pm on Monday Feb. 3rd. It is at Woodwards outside the atrium, near the JJ Bean.

    Relatedly, I learned yesterday that Carnegie Centre was asked by BC Housing to support this media centre, but balked when they saw that the content of Carnegie's statement would be less than "positive".

  • Rolf Auer

    2 years ago

    Good reading on this subject is...

    Donald Gutstein's new book Not A Conspiracy Theory: How Business Propaganda Hijacks Democracy. Plenty in it about government/media collaboration too.

  • Takuan

    2 years ago

    time for open war

    The Sun and Province squat on the supine body of Vancouver like harpies guarding their soon-to-be carrion meal. There is nothing else to be done for it: They Have To Go.

    Anyone living in B.C. should consider it their sacred duty to encourage new, honest media and to make sure they starve those vultures into well deserved oblivion.

    No clicks for the Sun or Province!

  • off-the-radar

    2 years ago

    congrats Sean and Tyee

    great story to break. Unbelievable breach of journalistic ethics.

    I feel sorry for staff working at Canwest watching management wantonly destroying the papers before their eyes.

  • verso

    2 years ago

    Leonasha

    Thanks for the info... I'll be there.

  • greengreen

    2 years ago

    FI rresearch

    I believe the Fraser Institute will soon be providing a research paper proving that when MSM and government work together, homelessness decreases dramatically. Look for it in the Sun.

  • off-the-radar

    2 years ago

    Hochstein's anti-union rants

    I was wondering about the timing and exposure of Hochstein's anti-union rants. It's because the provinical government is negotiationg with the public sector unions.

    Isn't it nice to have the "independent" Canwest "papers"?

    (Yes, let's all back to the "good" old days of no unions and no worker protection either and unbridled capitalist profits. Hang on a sec, aren't we almost there?!).

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