TORONTO – This week the Ontario Press Council dismissed a complaint filed by CanWest Global Communications over a Globe and Mail column which ran last August.
CanWest, owners of The National Post, the Global Television Network and other assets, said that The Globe and Mail failed to follow standard journalistic practice by seeking confirmation of a rumour that CanWest Global Communications was planning to shake up the Global TV network last summer and bring in a new president replacing Richard C. Camilleri, probably with an American.
“The item, published Aug. 5, 2004, in a Report on Business gossip column entitled Feed the Goat, prompted a letter from CanWest CEO Leonard Asper declaring that ‘the cavalier manner in which you printed an untrue rumour about termination of one of our company’s top executives was highly inappropriate,’” reads the OPC release.
“The Globe’s comment editor said he consulted with the columnist and was satisfied the item was accurate,” it continues. The editor noted that 60 days later CanWest issued a press release announcing an American as the new head of TV and radio and that the new heads of several other departments were also Americans. Camilleri, chief operating officer on the operations side of CanWest Global Communications Corp., became president of the newly created group CanWest MediaWorks.
“Geoffrey Elliot, vice-president for corporate affairs, represented Asper at the hearing of the complaint and said speculation about CanWest is acceptable but the fact is the item suggested Camilleri was probably going to be replaced by an American ‘and he was not;’ he was replaced by Peter Viner, a Canadian, on May 31 this year, 10 months after the rumour was published,” continues the release.
“Recognizing that the column relies on rumour and speculation, the Press Council said it isn’t prepared to fault the newspaper for not seeking confirmation and refusing to retract the item. It also understands why the Globe declined to publish part of a letter that urged it ‘to be more careful about publication of material that is not only untrue but also potentially damaging to the individual who was the target of the spurious rumour and to the company,’” says today’s release.
It does, however, believe the Globe should have accepted Asper’s suggestion that it publish a trimmed down version of the letter simply saying he was writing to dispel the rumour and dismissed the complaint with just that reservation.
