Racism claim not backed up – The Chronicle Journal
September 15, 2016
A DISPUTE over the accuracy of a local CBC news story this week highlights the nature of relations between the media and government. Elsewhere in Thunder Bay Dougall Media refuses to deal with Mayor Keith Hobbs over comments on its website and won’t air Crime Stoppers material in a dispute with police. Some readers may recall a testy former mayor Walter Assef threatening to beat up a reporter in council chambers.
A free and unfettered news media is an essential component of democracy. In English and French historical terms the press was referred to as the fourth estate of government, with the clergy, the nobility and the commoners. In Canada the House of Commons governs with the media obliged to hold it — and all levels of government — to account. It is in this context that the CBC — the public broadcaster — alleged in a news story this week that Thunder Bay police officers verbally abused a woman conducting a cross-cultural training session on indigenous issues.
Thunder Bay city clerk John Hannam, whose office produced the film used in the program, insists the woman misunderstood the behaviour of officers when they questioned statistics she presented on murdered and missing aboriginal women, and asked her to verify her claim that they treat indigenous people differently than other people.
