OTTAWA – The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. on Monday released a letter it sent to the Conservative Party, indicating that its reporter Krista Erickson did provide an opposition party member with questions prior to the Ethics Committee hearing in December on the Mulroney/Schreiber affair.
As a result, Erickson has been removed from the story and reassigned to the public broadcaster’s Toronto offices, effective today.
In the letter to Conservative Party director of political operations, Doug Finley, a CBC executive writes that an investigation by CBC News senior management found there “was no bias in related news coverage.”
The publisher of CBC News John Cruickshank, notes that the reporter’s actions, “while in pursuit of a journalistically legitimate story, were inappropriate and inconsistent with CBC News policies and procedures, specifically under our principles, section 3."
That section reads: “Credibility is dependent not only on qualities such as accuracy and fairness in reporting and presentation, but also upon avoidance by both the organization and its journalists of associations or contacts which could reasonably give rise to perceptions of partiality. Any situation which could cause reasonable apprehension that a journalist or the organization is biased or under the influence of any pressure group, whether ideological, political, financial, social or cultural, must be avoided.”
Cruickshank notes that “given the potential risk to the journalistic credibility of our Ottawa bureau, its reporters and CBC News generally,” the corporation has chosen to make the outcome of its investigation available to the federal government, its own employees and the public.
The Conservatives are also told that if they are not satisfied with the CBC’s response, then they can submit the matter for review to CBC Ombudsman Vince Carlin.
