Media and Society: Closing the Gap

Head Table Guest

Bart Mindszenthy, APR, Partner, Mindszenthy & Roberts, Communications Counsel and a Director, The Empire Club of Canada; The Rev. Dr. J. Robert Watt, B.A., M.Div., D.D., Honorary Chaplain, The Empire Club of Canada; Leon Kossar, Chairman, Metro International Caravan; Jan Dymond, Vice-President, ZED Communications and a Director, The Empire Club of Canada; Mark O’Regan, Managing Partner, Ernst & Young; Maj.-Gen. Bruce J. Legge, C.M.M., C.M., K.St.J., E.D., C.D., Q.C., Partner, Legge & Legge and a Past President, The Empire Club of Canada; Peter White, Chairman of Unimedia Inc. and Director of Hollinger Inc.; Her Worship June Rowlands, Mayor of the City of Toronto; Denise Cole, Special Assistant to the Mayor of the City of Toronto and a Director, The Empire Club of Canada; Stuart Adam, Dean of Arts, Carleton University; Larry Stout, Journalist and Broadcaster, CTV Television Network and a Director, The Empire Club of Canada; Donald J. Crawford, Secretary-Treasurer of the Canadian Journalism Foundation; Mary Lou Findlay, Journalist and Broadcaster, CBC Radio; E. Kendall Cork, Chairman and President, E-L Financial Corporation; Knowlton Nash, Journalist and Broadcaster and Chair of The Canadian Journalism Foundation.

Introduction by John A. Campion, First Vice-President and President-elect.

Friends and members of the Canadian Journalism Foundation and The Empire Club of Canada: Since the dawn of time on earth, media has been with us. When the first story of the successful hunt was told, when the epic poems of the Iliad and the Odyssey were recited, when mankind learned to use the alphabet to record events and reflections, and more recently, when printing presses, radios and televisions were brought into being, media became and was an integral part of our daily lives. At various points in the history of man and media, major changes in the medium have brought dynamic changes in our way of life and have threatened cherished old ways. Socrates is recorded to have said, "The discovery of the alphabet will create forgetfulness in the learner’s soul because they will not use their memories, they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. You give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth. They will be heroes of many things and will have learned nothing. They will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing."

Our guest speaker today has done our Club a profound service by his endeavours as President and, of course, by his involvement with The Canadian Journalism Foundation, but more particularly, by helping us in this series on Media and Society to understand and appreciate the powerful media forces reshaping our world. Dr. Frederic L. R. Jackman, we know, is a man of easy charm and wit, a friend on and off the public platform, but for those who have not read his biography, a person of catholic interests, activities and contributions–a renaissance man in the post-industrial age. He is Chairman of the Jackman Foundation and President of Invicta Investments. He practiced psychology for 17 years, and was awarded in 1991, the C. M. Hincks National Award by the Canadian Mental Health Association. In our community he has been active with various educational, community and cultural activities and organizations, including the Art Gallery of Ontario, The University of Windsor, The United Way, The Stratford Festival, The United Church of Canada, and of course, The Canadian Journalism Foundation.

He was a candidate for a well-known, or at least, previously well-known, political party in the 1980 federal elections. Dr. Eric is married to Sara and father to Tara, Thomas and Robert. On your behalf I would like to thank him for a lively year in our Club’s history and welcome him to address this joint session of The Canadian Journalism Foundation and The Empire Club of Canada, the final session of this important series on Media and Society.

Frederic L. R. Jackman

Mr. Nash, ladies and gentlemen, thank you, John for your kind introduction. At the conclusion of my speech, you too, may "know nothing."

It is a real privilege and a pleasure for me to stand at the lectern before you, this being my last day as President of the Club. And I would like to thank the members and the directors for their help and assistance throughout the year, and for all the friends of both the Club and The Canadian Journalism Foundation for your attendance at the activities of the Club throughout the year.

This is the first time in memory that the Club has joined forces with another organization, The Canadian Journalism Foundation, to sponsor an on-going series for a whole month. And I thank you, Mr. Nash, very much for your co-operation for doing so with The Empire Club this year.

Now I would like to talk about Media and Society and closing the gap. But before I do so, I want to share with you a personal experience of what it meant to me to come back to Canada 16 years ago after leaving my practice of psychology in Chicago. I want to do this because Canada was different when I came back. One of the things that was different was that I no longer had the flag we had when I left in the 60s. We had the new Canadian flag. And somewhere along the way I lost what was known as the Royal Anthem, "God Save the Queen." It had been replaced by the song we sing today, "O Canada." And there was an ad on television or radio to boost tourism in Ontario and you’ll remember that the ad finished " . . . Ontari-ari-ario." It was sort of cute and catchy and that was wonderful, except when I had left in 1960, there was no Ontario, no provincialization, no regionalization in the country. There was one place. It was Canada. I came back to a place that was becoming more segmented. And I wondered about that.

And another change was contained in a poll I looked at shortly after I came back. It was a poll dealing with national symbols of identity in the country. The flag and national anthem were high on the list of national symbols, but CBC was on that list and it was tied more or less with the monarchy. As a matter of fact, the CBC was a touch ahead of the Queen, both at around 25 per cent as national symbols. I was astonished. I was astonished because the CBC is a broadcast corporation. It is a company. The Queen is the Head of State. So, there had been some very significant changes happening in the country and I was concerned about that.

As a matter of fact, if one wanted to pick a corporation, that had a name with national symbols, I can think of two with very good ones. Like the "Dominion of Canada General Insurance Company" or the "Empire Life Insurance Company." Or, if you want to go coast to coast, how about the "National Trust"?

There was another thing going on. It was the election of 1980 which John referred to in his introduction. I did participate in that and I ran in Spadina riding, which this very hotel is in. I was defeated along with a lot of other Tories in that one, including Joe Clark, who was then our Prime Minister. And I was concerned about the way Joe Clark was being presented, both in the media and in society.

Do you remember Donato’s cartoon of Joe Clark standing with his arms down with mittens on strings hanging from his sleeves? It was vivid and will last a long time for a lot of us. And I can remember one of the jokes–in those days it was a joke about Joe Clark but nowadays it might be considered a joke about the media.

The joke was about Joe Clark walking along the Rideau Canal with his dog. He took a stick and threw it into the water and the dog ran down the bank, walked across the water, retrieved the stick, walked back across the water, climbed back up the bank, walked over to Joe and gave him the stick. You know what the media headlines were the next morning? "Joe Clark’s dog can’t swim!"

Well, the world was changing and while I was lamenting some of the changes I was also curious why these changes were going on and I knew that countries change, countries get better, countries get worse. You go down to the Caribbean and the countries seem to stay the same forever. But anyway, I looked through the shifting sands and I found that there was a growing media influence in Canada. Marshall McLuhan, the great Canadian, was writing then, and he said, "The power to communicate is the most powerful force in shaping society."

"The power to communicate is the most powerful force in shaping society." Do you know how much media we consume each week? Well, my guestimate is that we do 40 to 50 hours per week. It consists of 24 hours of television, 12 hours of radio, and when you add in magazines and daily newspapers, you’ll go over 40 hours a week. Well, you’re going to be getting all sorts of impressions from what you’re consuming–and that’s a whale of a lot of influence.

Mary Lou Finlay is going to do a programme for CBC on what this is all about. Reuben Blades said, "I think we are becoming the best informed society that ever died of ignorance." We’re an inventive society and the phenomenal changes of this century have been just extraordinary. Pretty soon we’ll have satellites sending down 500 channels and the influence-peddlers will be sending one message or another. The information age is rapidly moving along the electronic highway and you know, if it weren’t for satellite publishing which allows The Globe and Mail to publish simultaneously across the country, it could not call itself Canada’s national newspaper.

The inventions aren’t new. If you go back to 1917 when Alexander Graham Bell addressed this Club he said, "You see, America is a country of inventors, and the greatest of the inventors are the newspapermen."

But seriously, the media’s influence is felt enormously and I would like to harken back politically to Clark and the critical attacks he faced. I wondered whether or not that negativity could lead to the cynicism in society that Bill Davis was talking about three weeks ago in this series.

So I looked at the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and their finding is that there is a clear trend of more negative coverage. In 1962, 32 years ago, there was more positive coverage than negative coverage of our parties and our leaders. But by 1980, most of the coverage had become negative about the leaders and their parties and the studies show the trend has carried through to 1988. That’s when the data ends on that Royal Commission (1991).

Now, if we move away from politics and elections to a recent study of how the public views our media, we look to the Times-Mirror poll of eight western nations that was reported briefly in The Globe and Mail last March. Of the eight nations, the Canadian study was conducted by Environics Research. While there was much in the poll that is praiseworthy of the Canadian media, I want to focus on what I consider the negative or areas where improvement needs to be made.

The public was asked, "Does the media get the facts straight?" Well, in Canada 36 per cent or one in three say, "No, they don’t get the facts straight."

When the question is asked, "Do newspapers cover all sides fairly?" The answer: Sixty-one per cent of respondents say newspapers do not cover all sides fairly.

The TV? It’s about 50 per cent who answer: "Don’t cover all sides fairly."

When the question is asked, "Do newspapers invade people’s privacy?" Take your guess. Fifty per cent of Canadian respondents say newspapers invade people’s privacy, and for TV it goes up to 53 per cent.

"Do the newspapers deal irresponsibly with politicians?" We see the politicians as fair game: Only 25 per cent of the people say the newspapers deal irresponsibly with them.

So, there is not only substantial negativity and intrusiveness, but there is a serious failure to deal fairly with all sides as perceived by the Canadian respondents.

Now, the same survey found that one in three, 33 per cent, favoured some restriction. Ah, my media friends, 33 per cent of the sample favoured some restrictions on freedom of expression. Why would they do that? Clearly, society notices these changes and wants to do something.

Your presence here today and during this series shows that the public is interested and concerned about the media. Now the difference in perceptions between the media and society is what I call "The Gap." And I say that we need to close the gap. Now a gap, really, is healthy. I’m not saying that media and society should get together. They would end up in collusion and media would not then serve society in the way that it should. When they get too far apart, it is not serving well. If you have the right amount, there is a healthy respect. It is very much like a spark plug. If the gap is set right, the engine will start. If it’s too close, it won’t, and if it’s too far it won’t work. It’s got to be right. I want to introduce this notion that there is a proper level of gap before media and society will work appropriately together.

When the gap becomes a chasm, then what was once respect of one side for another side becomes disrespect; where fascination, becomes dislike and distaste. When feelings that were at one time of benign acknowledgment have become distrustful cynicism, then the gap has gotten too big. There needs to be a productive tension, not a counter-productive tension.

You know, in the old days one person could forgive another person but now they say "I’ll take you to court," or the media says, "I don’t care how much you suffer in the public eye. I want to titillate my readers and make money." When that happens, you’ve gone too far. And while we’re arguing about that, the paparazzi and the photojournalists are setting up their peeping-Tom cameras to take pictures of the Princess Diana and the royal family. Do you know what you can get for a good picture of the royal family? Two million dollars. If you pay a-half-a-million-dollar fine, so what? You’re still ahead of the game. Is this what we want to go on?

Anyway, the gap is too large. Clearly, my concern is the quality of leadership, the quality of the media, and the drift to a wider gap. One can ask, "Is the media responsible? Are the politicians bringing it on themselves?" Maybe both. Maybe it’s in the relationship. What I suspect is that there has been a power shift in favour of the news media.

But, if the media is the culprit, they’re going to get caught soon enough. There’s an old expression, "The doctors bury their mistakes, the lawyers hang ’em, and the journalists put theirs on the front page."

Well, what happens when leaders are criticized? It’s possible that they might suffer a loss of confidence and I think that seems to be what has happened. Lawyers, judges, doctors, politicians have all been losing public confidence lately.

In a recent confidence poll, 19 per cent of Canadians have confidence in our politicians. Nineteen per cent! Take a look around the room and you can see how many of us don’t have any confidence in our political leadership. That’s down from 43 per cent 10 years ago. Now, would you run? If you were going to launch a product into the marketplace and you had done market testing, and you had 19 per cent acceptance of your product, would you launch it?

When I talk to my friends about political ambition, they say, "Why should I expose myself or my family to the sort of media criticism that I will likely get if I’m elected?" I think that what we will get in Canada is a decreasing level of candidate. That is, the quality of candidate is going to drop further and further down. And elected leaders are the people that we used to follow. Given the Charlottetown Accord, that may not happen anymore, but that is what we used to do. We used to follow the people that we elected. That’s the way the system works. That’s the way it is supposed to be.

Now let me leave politics aside for a bit. Knowlton, you have been a wonderful Chairman of The Canadian Journalism Foundation, and I would like to maintain a sense of pleasantness today, so I didn’t want to be too critical of the CBC. I decided that I wouldn’t talk very much about CRTC Chairman Keith Spicer’s warning that the CBC is on a path to oblivion. Nor did I think I ought to talk much–because General Legge is here–about the CBC’s reinterpretation of military history in The Valour and the Horror. Nor did I think there is any sense at all in talking about Barry Cooper’s new critical report on the CBC entitled Sins of Commission really, because it’s barely off the press and not yet available. However, if anyone wanted one, you can get it at the University of Toronto Press.

Now, there is a guy called Kurt Luedtke, who was the Executive Editor of the Detroit Free Press. He made an address to the Newspaper Publishers’ Convention about 10 years ago. This being 10 years old, it may not be true anymore, but it does show how power has shifted and it shows that some people in the media see the world just as some outside the media do. This is a media person talking to media people. He says, "You no longer shape public opinion, you have supplanted it. There are good men and women who will not stand for office, concerned that you will find their flaws or invent them. Many people who have dealt with you wish that they had not. You are capricious and unpredictable. You are fearsome and you are feared because there is never any way to know whether this time you will be fair and accurate or whether you will not. And there is virtually nothing that we can do about it." And all this from a journalist.

Now, I want you to know that I’m not trying to be unfair to Mr. Nash. I am told that he was asked to thank the speaker, so I know that he has five minutes at the end to put it right.

All professional groups have their power base. Business has the economic power and the advertising support and they can withdraw it from the media. The judges have gag orders as in the Homolka case and can shut down freedom of expression. The government has the injunction and can muzzle media as they do in many countries in the world. But the media has the ability to attack reputations and invade privacy.

What we have seen from the data presented today is that media attacks seem to be going on more frequently than most Canadians would like. Sometimes I wonder that, in the power struggle between media and society, the power has shifted to the media so that the "ink-stained wretches" as they were called in days of old, in the publishing houses of yesterday, have become the "lords of the manor" without realizing it. I think that the rules have changed, that the playing fields have shifted, that the game is now being played on the news media’s terms.

More importantly, I think it is time to stop attacking each other as it only widens the gap. It is time to stop writing ad nauseum about the other side’s mistakes. It is time to start working for a greater understanding and acknowledgment of others’ successes in this society. It is time to start creating a better journalism and a healthier society.

At the beginning, I talked about changes to Canada and our search for new symbols of national identity. I talked about the media’s growing presence and influence. I mentioned that the CBC, a mere media organization, was perceived as a national symbol. And so if, as silly as this may seem, that on our flagpole we have to raise the new CBC logo, let’s be sure it is as good as it can possibly be. And let’s be certain that all our journalistic enterprises are as excellent as they can be.

In closing, I would like to do so with some remarks about The Canadian Journalism Foundation, this being its first time in a public forum, and The Empire Club of Canada of course, has been here for 90 years.

The Canadian Journalism Foundation is not a journalism foundation: It’s a societal one. It’s controlled by no one group. It’s governed by journalists and business people, by media owners, philanthropists and by professors and university presidents. It began in the late 80s because I was becoming increasingly frustrated in my conversations with various people in the media and I’m sure they were becoming increasingly frustrated with me.

At that time I discovered a common interest that The Niagara Institute had in the media. At The Niagara Institute, they were putting together discussion groups because they were concerned about the relationship. The groups consisted of media, government, politicians, labour and businessmen. They would meet for two or three days–sometimes a week. As they met together, under their discussions, what you would find was that greater understanding gave way to greater appreciation, greater acceptance and more trust, and while you didn’t necessarily agree with a certain position, you at least understood it and weren’t vindictive about it.

As a result of that, the Jackman Foundation along with The Niagara Institute and the help of many others, invited people from all over the country. Fifty or 60 of us met at The Niagara Institute to discuss the possibility of creating a new Canadian institution that would serve Canada through journalism. But it is not a journalism foundation, not a journalism organization. We serve Canada through better journalism.

In order to encourage journalists, who have a healthy respect for maintaining their own territory and not having anyone intrude upon it, it was absolutely essential that we get the most respected journalist we could find in the country to work with us and to provide leadership for the organization. We were most fortunate that Knowlton Nash, after many interviews, let us convince him that our hearts were in the right place and our minds were well set. He has been our founding Chair since 1990.

The Canadian Journalism Foundation is unique. It is the only one we know of in the world which is structured the way this one is. Its goal is to enhance Canadian journalism and it’s a charitable organization. Its goals are threefold: professional development, to acknowledge outstanding achievement and to conduct research.

And I have one other goal which is not part of the Journalism Foundation but I would like it to be. It has to do with excellence in journalism, not just excellence, but I want us to have the best journalism in the world.

I talked of changes in the beginning; the media is big in our lives. It can get worse; it can get better. The Times Mirror survey of the eight nations said media can get worse. For example, when it comes to invading people’s privacy, if you lived in England you might be part of that group that says, "Yes, there’s a lot of invasion of people’s privacy." Seventy-six per cent of the people in England think the press invades privacy. To remind you, we were only 50 per cent. We could go to 76 per cent.

Do they report irresponsibly on politicians? Again, in the U.K., 48 per cent of the people say "Yes, they report irresponsibly." Canada was 25 per cent.

Does the press deal fairly with all sides? In Italy and France 81 per cent of the people say the press deals unfairly. We were only 61 per cent. Bad enough, but 81 per cent is worse. Does TV deal fairly or unfairly with all sides? France-75 per cent; Canada was 54 per cent.

So, we are not as bad as we could get.

Perhaps it is only my fear that we are following in the footsteps of the tabloid journalists of other countries, but I believe I am not alone in my concern. When people ask, "How can you establish standards of excellence?" I can tell you that an extraordinary thing happened in the newspaper business this year. The Society of Newspaper Design awards annually a series of awards for Best Designed Newspaper. Le Devoir of Montreal in a contest of over 9,000 newspapers, won "Best in the World." We have a standard of excellence of design. Le Devoir picked one up. I’d like to see how it’s designed. I don’t know much about these things–I’m not a designer, but in the terms of the people who judge these, we have one of the best in the world.

The point of this is that we will be able to say, "Yes, if we set standards of excellence, then we can go for the best." Let me remind you about the Maclean’s university poll. Remember they said they would have these long lists of universities and every university president in the country is going to be upset with us, except one. Well, they kept at it year after year: They refined the methodology. Now there seems to be a fairly well-accepted notion that yes, you can have a best university in the country, and this is the order in which they fall. Why can’t we have that for the media?

I’m pleased to say that Peter Desbarats at Western’s newly resurrected School of Journalism has started some preliminary work to look at the best print journalism in Canada. This is a project of the Jackman Foundation, not The Canadian Journalism Foundation. Stu Adam has been doing similar work at Carleton University. All I can say is that if we have the standards, then we can strive for them. If we don’t have them, then we just muddle about. I think the media is so important to democracy. We have some of the best right now. Let’s make it better. I agree with McLuhan that the power has shifted: How to communicate is the most powerful force in society. Ladies and gentlemen, I think The Canadian Journalism Foundation is vital to the health and well-being of society.

Mr. Nash, in closing, I wish that your young organization, The Canadian Journalism Foundation, has as much health and vigour as The Empire Club has enjoyed for all these past 90 years.

Thank you.

The appreciation of the meeting was given by Knowlton Nash, Journalist and Broadcaster and Chair, The Canadian Journalism Foundation and Larry Stout, Journalist and Broadcaster, CTV Television Network and a Director, The Empire Club of Canada.

Knowlton Nash

Well, now this is a challenging job for me–thanking Eric for his comments today. Never one known to shy away from contention, and you did say, Eric in your comments that I would have the last word, and I’m certainly glad of that.

I also noted, incidentally, and I hope it is not a direct result of Eric’s speech, that directly after his speech, he is going to lose office.

As Eric has said, we do work closely together in The Canadian Journalism Foundation and elsewhere to develop more understanding about the role of the media in society, each of us coming at the question from rather different perspectives and with different backgrounds, but actually each with the same objective in mind.

You quoted a lot of statistics today, so effectively in articulating your point of view that if I were to offer my own statistics on the basis of your speech, I think I would agree with about 60.4 per cent of the time, I’d question about 20.7 per cent of the time, and disagree with 18.9 per cent or thereabouts, and actually, I think Eric would have about the same percentage in terms of my own comments and my comments of last week.

But Eric also talked about public confidence in various professions, and he noted that the media rated higher than politicians and lawyers, with some exceptions. I’m sure the Mayor is an exception to those figures. I took some comfort from another survey that I noted the other day, something similar to your survey that you’d seen. I noted that at the very bottom of public appreciation were car dealers and business executives, and at the top far ahead of journalists or teachers or anybody else, were pharmacists and druggists. I’m not quite sure what that says about the level of confidence of our leaders in the country, but pharmacists and druggists are the most respected apparently.

Actually, Eric says journalists with their high public appreciation are beginning to act like lords of the manor, although I can’t think of any journalists and reporters who would live in such high-faluting terms.

Journalists are indeed agents for the public, I believe, and the public does have the right to demand quality and fairness and thoroughness. Information is power, Eric has said, and his goal is to see that Canada achieves the best journalism in the world and that certainly, I think, is an objective towards which all journalists would seek to move. As he has said, his objective, and I think again, that of most journalists is to enhance the quality of journalism and to help to close that gap of which he spoke–that gap in public understanding of the media and its role and the media’s understanding of its responsibilities in society.

There may be differing and there are differing perspectives on how that gap should be closed, but there should be no difference at all in the need and the need for full understanding of the importance of the media in our society and the responsibilities of the media.

Unless we’re talking about it we are never going to achieve that understanding and Eric’s comments today are a reflection of reality for many people as they look at the media. I am grateful to Eric, not only for his support of The Canadian Journalism Foundation, but also for organizing these luncheons as part of the effort to increase understanding of the media’s role in our society.

Now, he spoke of the need for more examination and self-examination as well, and I think we’re beginning to see that happen as the ombudsmen’s role in many of the newspapers in the country, especially at the CBC, with editors paying more and more attention to the feedback from readers and listeners. Broadcasters too, like the CBC which as Eric noted, is starting a new radio programme on the media next fall with Mary Lou (Finlay) as the host of that programme, and of course, the luncheons here at The Empire Club.

So, a lot is beginning to happen in this business of understanding the media and its role in society. Eric, today, has made a significant contribution in trying to bridge that gap between the two.

The man who began CBC News back half a century ago, a man called Dan MacArthur, warned his editors of their responsibilities and he told them at the time that reporting the news is a public trust. And so it is. And so Eric has reiterated today. And so, for his comments and for his enthusiasm and his combativeness in our discussions about this subject, on behalf of all of us here, Eric, I thank you very much.

Larry Stout

Your Worship Mayor Rowlands, Mr. President, Mr. President-to-be, friends of The Empire Club of Canada and The Canadian Journalism Foundation: Sometimes a single event triggers a wave of nostalgia and reminds you not so gently about the rather rapid passage of time. That happened last night when I watched the funeral of former President Nixon. I remembered Knowlton, that it was in 1968 that you and I first worked together at the Republican convention in Miami Beach that elected Richard Nixon. I was on the streets of Panama City where they had a couple of riots–that was the bad news, Eric–and later on we did the Chicago Democratic National Convention with all the problems there.

But I remember with more warmth, Knowlton, about walking down the streets of Manchester, New Hampshire on a cold February morning while covering the Democratic Primary and Eugene McCarthy was running for the Democrats on an anti-Vietnam platform. One of h