PROPOSITION:

That the Press and Media have become so important to our society that they should be named a full fledged PROFESSION, equal in position with lawyers, doctors and all other professions.

DISCUSSION:

While press and media people often like to refer to themselves as "professionals", they are in fact not entitled to use that term any more than prostitutes can call themselves "professionals".

This situation does not do justice to the press and media, because they have the capacity to provide a truly professional service, if only they would accept the essential organization that is the hallmark of every true profession. The press and media should be a fully self governing Profession, just like all other true Professions in our society, and that is accomplished by having a Professional Association through which the Profession governs itself.

Today anybody can call themselves a Reporter, and they can write things that may be published if the publisher so chooses. Today Reporters are not obligated to have any particular qualifications or training - that is left up to the employers to control.

For the Reporters to be truly Professional, they must collectively govern their own qualifications through an official tion of Professional Reporters. Employers of these Reporters ought to be obligated to respect any credentials conferred on the individual reporters by the governing Association. That is the normal practice of all existing Professions.

To accomplish this in fact, Parliament needs to enact an Act creating the Association of Professional Reporters of Canada, which shall be a self-governing, self-regulating association, completely independent of government (except for the passing of this Act).

The Professional Reporters, their employers, and the Association shall be accountable to only their own readers and listeners. This will require that print media once a year shall publish all relevant material, and voice media shall hold talk shows once a year to hear from the listeners and readers.

The Association shall grandfather in all members of the present parliamentary press gallery as fully licensed Professional Reporters, entitled to put the initials "PR" after their byline. That first group of members may decide to grandfather in as many other reporters as they deem fit, and to set up the method of self governance that they should adopt.

The overall group of inaugural members of the Association shall be charged with doing all that is required to make the new Professional Reporters Association viable, both professionally and financially. They shall also be required to develop and administer all standards, admission requirements, licensing, member services, ethics, and a means of dealing with complaints against members.

The Association shall also decide which reporters need to be licensed. While only Professional Reporters should be allowed to cover some fields where the press has great influence on the public, it should not be mandatory for reporters in some other fields to be licensed (eg. subjects such as sports, entertainment and local affairs could be good places for apprentice reporters to gain the experience needed to qualify for the Professional Reporter (PR) designation).

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The Present Press Councils are Secretive

By way of interest, this idea came to me about 8 or 9 years ago after I heard a report to the effect that the Alberta Press Council, upon considering a particular complaint that was put to them, came to the conclusion that:

1. A reporter is under no obligation to give a balanced story.

2. It is alright for a reporter to embellish a story to make it more interesting.

Accepting this ruling from the Press Council, and noting our long tradition of "Freedom of the Press", I concluded that if these pronouncements represent the sort of standards the press works to, then the press should have an obligation to inform their listeners and readers about it, so that the listeners and readers can assess what weight to give to any given press report, and temper their perceptions accordingly.

Act to Establish Professional Reporters Association

I recognize that no politician wants to interfere with the press, or tamper with any of the reporting. That would not be acceptable in our society. However that should not be a license for the press to go about with no accountability to anybody except their own industry run Press Councils in each province, which have had a track record of being excusers of the press, rather than serving the public.

Therefore I suggest that the self governing and independent Professional Reporters Association of Canada should be established by Act of Parliament, just as all other professions are established by Acts of Provincial Legislatures. In the case of the press and media, it should be a federal Act because the areas of concern for which a reporter should have to be licensed are in large part areas of federal concern.

Once the act is passed, I suggest that all members of the parliamentary press gallery would make a good nucleus of persons to grandfather into the profession. They should be given the responsibility to do whatever is necessary to get the profession established as a legal entity which is financially and organizationally self sufficient. The self governing Professional Reporters Association shall set out for themselves, the requirements for a person to be called a "Professional Reporter". Persons having that designation shall be required to put the letters "PR" after his or her name on any byline, thus denoting their professional status.

Accountability to Their Own Listeners and Readers

The Act should be worded the same as the Acts for all other professions, except for the "accountability clause", which shall state that the press and media are accountable to only one group of people in this country, and that is their own listeners and readers. This accountability to the listeners and readers shall be achieved by requiring the employers of all Professional Reporters to:

1. If it is a print media (newspaper or magazine), having a circulation of over 10,000 it shall once a year publish in full:

- all gazettes dealing with complaints and rulings, anywhere in Canada, plus

- the standards that the Professional Reporters Association decides to initiate, plus

- the code of ethics of the profession (by definition every profession must have some kind of Code of Ethics for their members to follow).

2. If it is a voice media (radio or television), having a listenership of over 10,000 it shall once a year have:

- a prime time talk show of at least one hour duration, during which the listeners and readers have the right to ask questions and give their opinions on the air.

- Live talk show programs may delve into how satisfied the listeners and readers are with the way well the press and media are reporting the news, and also whether the press and media are actually reporting all newsworthy stories (as opposed to just chasing the scandals and sensational stories).

The readers and listeners deserve, and indeed should be assured of getting an such an annual accounting. The public have a right to be informed about any standards or code of ethics that the self governing Professional Reporters Association should decide to produce to govern their own profession.

REGULATIONS ASSOCIATED WITH THE ACT

Penalties for Reporting Without a Valid License

Every Act creating a profession must by definition provide for penalties for non compliance.

The primary penalty for professionals is to have one's license removed for a set period, or in extreme cases permanently. Sometimes the terms of reinstatement may require the culprit to take certain training or write certain examinations before reinstatement is considered.

There must also be a clause which deals with unlicensed persons who "impersonate" a Professional Reporter. This must be regarded by the courts as a serious offence carrying both a minimum fine of significant amount (say $5000) and a maximum fine (of say $100,000), or in extreme cases imprisonment.

WHICH REPORTERS NEED TO BE LICENSED PROFESSIONAL REPORTERS?

Clearly not everything that appears in newspapers or newscasts is of equal importance to the readers and listeners in terms of the accuracy and reliability of its contents.

Therefore licenses should be mandatory for reporters in only certain fields as far as the regulations attached to the act are concerned. The areas for which a reporter ought to be licensed should be:

1. Religion - This is a very sensitive and personal area for many readers and listeners, and it is important that the Professional Reporters in this field are capable of handling this subject with understand of the theology and politics of religious organizations. Reporters should not cause severe upset, or in unwittingly precipitate unrest or even violence in extreme cases.

2. Science - Professional Reporters must be able to inform the public with as much accuracy as science itself demands of its practitioners. This is an exacting subject, and the standards of reporting of it should also be exacting. The experts that the press quotes should be checked out with their peers before the press relies on what they say, because there are many mavericks and quacks among those that would like to call themselves "experts". So much rubbish and hoaxes have been served out to the readers and listeners over the last decade in the form of news reports. Many issues involving the environment and ecology have been reported in which rumour and innuendo are reported as facts, and dire consequences are predicted when there is no evidence to support that exaggerated statement. Cases in point are the hoaxes of PCB, Urea Formaldehyde and asbestos pipe, none of which have caused a single death but are treated as serious threats in Canada because of false media pressure, whereas this is not so in many other countries. (See attached speech by Eric Malling to a School of Journalism in which he admits on page 14 that the press knowingly perpetuated the PCB hoax.)

3. Business - Professional Reporters should have a responsibility to be accurate in their reports about businesses. Biased reporting has in some cases closed down plants with the loss of many jobs. Thus the readers and listeners have a right to know that the Professional Reporters are basing their reports of true facts and not just rumours. Business is the essence of our economy, and it must be treated with respect and care.

4. Politics - The power of the press and media in politics is enormous. Elections are in large part popularity contests in which the press and media play a major part in convincing voters to choose one candidate or another. No one can question the legitimate role of the press and media in this process, however this also puts an extra obligation on the press and media to be fair and respectful in their comments. Every candidate has gone to considerable personal and financial effort for the right to represent the constituency, and therefore deserves a degree of respect regardless of what that person believes or stands for.

The press flurry that led to the cancellation of the helicopters for the navy are an example of the press at its worst. That deal was begun under the Trudeau cabinet (with Jean Cretian present). The Conservatives merely took the program they inherited from the Liberals, and took it through its logical development. They had succeeded in negotiating a sweetheart deal in which Canada would spend $4.2 billion, and in exchange get contracts for $6.4 billion for making parts for the entire production for all countries. The press never told the public that we were giving up a deal in which we would have earned more than we would be spending, not to mention the attendant major loss of jobs in Canada due to the cancellation. By that time, almost $1 billion had either been spent, or had to be paid out in contract cancellation penalties. So where are the cost savings that the media persistently promised - what a hoax to put on their listeners and readers - and the media just laughed at the role they played in that big mistake.

Other Reporters in Other Fields

Except for the fields named above, it should not be necessary for the reporter to be a Professional Reporter. This would include sports, entertainment, fashion, city occasions and local events, book reviews, music, weather, traffic, police and court reporting (the latter two have their own means of dealing with the media).

INTRODUCTION OF THE PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION

All current members of the Parliamentary press gallery would be "grandfathered" into membership of the Association of Professional Reporters, and they would decide who else across the country deserved to be "grandfathered" into membership.

Thereafter, they would be required to establish the qualifications for membership, dues payable by members, organization and staff required. As with all professions, these costs will be paid through revenue from membership dues, and all costs will be the responsibility of the Association (except for some seed money from parliament in order to get started).

The above are my thoughts on this matter. Thank you for considering this issue.

H. J. Wilkinson, P.Eng., C.Arb.

1022 Waterdown Road

Burlington, ON L7T 1N3

Email: yoursay@halsays.com

Please Send Me Your Opinion

(Please enter subject as "reporters")

Return to Main Page

You are visitor number to this page