BCPC Dismissal and Guy's Response - Scribd-complete.rtfd 09.05.

19 10:44 PM

May 14, 2009

"You have failed democracy and because of you democracy is failing"

Introduction

In the spring of 2005 I had first hand experience with the British Columbia media that
confirmed, unequivocally, that it is corrupt. By 'corrupt' I mean that it has come to serve
the needs of its corporate owners and their masters, not the citizenry. To turn an old
media saw, they have come to comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted.

My seminal proof of that came to me via a senior editor of The Vancouver Sun. Fazil
Mihlar lied in an editorial that denigrated a labour union. And while lying editorialists
are surely not rare, in this particular case I had been researching the very topic about
which he dissembled, and when I called him on his misstatement of fact Fazil Mihlar
responded, in writing, with an open, even proud admission to having lied, and the self-
serving justification of it having been a good lie because he has 'considered
judgement.'

I was at first stunned, and then enraged, by this response. After recovering from his
blasé admission I began a response that prompted my wife to call out from the other
room in defense of the keyboard I was pounding into submission. I didn't send that
vitriolic outburst, but allowed my heart and head to cool overnight, after which I
recomposed something more ... calm and meaningful than the earlier verbal eruption.

In my 'calm' rant I set out to prove in no uncertain terms that Fazil Mihlar is ignorant of
history, language and ethics. It was summarily dismissed by Mihlar – although quite
likely unread because it had a history and a vocabulary.

That dismissal prompted me to appeal to the British Columbia Press Council for their
show of policing integrity and ethics in their journalistic members. I was saddened that
once again my concern was dismissed, but shocked at just shallow and ill- or even un-
considered was the rational dismissing my complaint. I have, rightly or wrongly, taken
the inane dismissal as a final sign of how fully corrupt is the media in, at least, British
Columbia. And here by corrupt I mean lacking even the integrity to chastise, even with
a token gesture, a prominent editorialist who not only lied but publicly admitted to
lying.

I have chosen to publish the second part of this tale first, that being comprised of:

- the transcriptions of the BC Press Council's dismissal of my complaint

- my response to them of that dismissal.

Note: for publication in Scribd I have edited this edition to correct small editorial and
grammatical errors in my text, and to remove identifying personal information. The
transcription of the BCPC's response is unchanged, except as marked with squared

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brackets [like these].

In a later Scribd publication I will publish:

- Mihlar's offending article

- my initial letter of remonstration
- Mihlar's flaccid defense of it
- my extended 'proof' of Mihlar's ignorance.

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July 21/05

Guy A. Duperrealt
[address]

Dear Mr. Duperreault:

The Press Council review board which was assigned your complaint against
The Vancouver Sun (Editorial of April 27) has ruled the council should take no further
action on the matter.

The board found the complaint did not merit a public hearing, saying the
editorial in question was not intended to be, and was not, a chronology of labor [sic]
relations between the Telecommunications Workers' Union and Telus [sic], or a
chronology of events.

The board noted that the newspaper, almost immediately after the editorial ran
supplied op-ed space for a response from the union's president and in addition, also
published a lengthy letter from a union member.

In its ruling, the board said latitude should be shown opinions contained in
articles like editorials and found that the actions of the paper did not violate any of the
rules in the Council's cod of Practice [my emphasis].

[signed]

Bill Bachop,
Executive Director

[Addendum by Guy from the BCPC "Code of Practices":

[4. ... However, newspapers and journalists shall strive to avoid expressing comment

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and conjecture as established fact (my emphasis).]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[My response is comprised of two parts, the e.mail preamble to BC Press Council and
the attached letter of disgust].

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[e.mail preamble:]

Mr. Bachop:
I received a few days ago the BC Press Council’s rejection of my demand for an
apology for Fazil Mihlar of The Vancouver Sun having knowingly made a misstatement
of fact. Their reasoning is contemptible. I have attached my full reason for such strong
language, if you are interested in reading it.

You, the BCPC, and The Sun have all conspired to kill a little what little remains of
democracy in Canada. This saddens me more than a charming corporate bully
enriching himself at my and my community’s expense while being praised by our
“respected” media.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[The body of my response:]

August 1, 2005

Guy A. Duperreault
[address]

Bill Bachop
BC Press Council
#201 - 1290 Broad St.
Victoria, BC V8W 2A5

Dear Mr. Bachop:

I am ambivalent as to what made me feel sadder when I received the Press Council's
finding: that your organization failed its obligations to hold accountable the members
who pay you to hold them accountable, or that this failure was not that big a surprise to

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me or to the many others who have been following this sordid saga.

Mr. Bachop, you may as well stop reading now. I see no tangible value in my pointing
out to the naked emperor's tailors the hairy wee-wee truth. Unfortunately I feel
compelled, in my own tiny way, to defend Canadian democracy against its imminent
death by a thousand tiny cuts, of which you, your organization, Fazil Mihlar and his
corporation, have inflicted at least three: that lying to the public is acceptable
behaviour, that an exposed lie is excusable because the liar's pride in having
considered judgement is able to metamorphose the lie into the truth, and that it is the
media fox who is guarding the dissembling hens' media houses.

So, if you are still reading, I take with complete disdain the quality of the tribunal's
ruling. "The board found the complaint did not merit a public hearing, saying the
editorial in question was not intended to be, and was not, a chronology of labor [sic]
relations between the Telecommunications Workers' Union and Telus [sic], or a
chronology of events."

What?!? I say again: what?! What was this trio smoking when they wrote this? My
complaint was that Fazil Mihlar lied. And when I provided the proof of the truth, Mihlar
admitted to lying. FAZIL MIHLAR ADMITTED TO HAVING KNOWINGLY LIED! I will
repeat that last sentence: FAZIL MIHLAR ADMITTED TO HAVING KNOWINGLY
LIED! In case you or your tribunal think I am exagerating, here is what Mihlar wrote:
While it is true that the TWU proposed renewing the existing contract with
improvements, our considered judgement was since Telus was a new company
(merging of the two firms from Alberta and B.C.) and the competitive landscape
had changed, any proposal should consider these realities. So in our view,
there was no new proposal or counter proposal to what Telus had on the table
[my emphasis].
In his reply, here, he adds the adjective "new." In his editorial he used the adjective
"single." He knowingly lied.

After that admission, which quite frankly caught me by surprise, I asked for a front page
apology for an admitted, even proud liar, having publicly lied so as to hurt the
reputation of an organization. It seems that that must have been a surprise to ya'll, my
not being overawed by the power of an admitted meritocratist's "considered
judgement" to morph a lie into a truth.

My verbose letter was a dismissal of Mihlar's argument, knowledge of labour history

and of the TELUS/TWU legal wranglings. Near the end of it, three paragraphs after
demanding a front page apology for his lie, I suggested that the public deserves a fair
reporting of the events by which they can judge for themselves what is "fair", "truthful",
"correct", etc. Yet you dismissed my claim because his editorial was not to be a
chronology?!!! When I suggested that responsible reporting .... Oh. Maybe I had
better cite myself, since your organization seems to have trouble reading.
The public deserves a detailed and honest reporting of TELUS’ s and the
TWU’s bargaining history, as well as some honest details of the contract, and

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not just TELUS’s sugar coated version honeyed up by a band of self-considered

dissembling anonymous editorialists. Then, after printing a disinterested
truth, if the anonymous editors and/or publisher so incline, then opine their
properly “adjectived” babble until the cows come home [my emphasis].
I repeat: I even add that once an "honest reporting" is done, then the editorialists are
most welcome to "opine ... until the cows come home." (Perhaps the neologism threw
you, but I have been reading Shakespeare lately and am suffering from neological
inspirationitis.)

The tribunal dismissed my claim because his editorial was not to be a

chronology!!! I had to repeat that, because the tribunal omitted to comment on my
complaint, which was that Mihlar lied and admitted to lying. Why did the tribunal fail to
comment on that "fact", even if to pedantically suggest that the lie wasn't black enough
to warrant censure. No, the tribunal simply ignored it.

Well, not quite. It seems that there was a kind of glossing over of it, because the
tribunal also wrote:
In its ruling, the board said latitude should be shown opinions contained in
articles like editorials and found that the actions of the paper did not violate any
of the rules in the Council's cod of Practice [my emphasis].

But that isn't quite true. I would like to cite one of "your" foxy rules:
4. ... However, newspapers and journalists shall strive to avoid expressing
comment and conjecture as established fact (my emphasis).

And perhaps here the waters of clear language run muddy. Did Mihlar strive to be
truthful in his misuse of the adjective "single"? Quite frankly, his proud defence of it
would argue otherwise. What does that tell me of your role in keeping honest the
media, except that the BC Press Council is at best token arbiters of ethics in
journalism? By not addressing the lie have you not tacitly admitted it? Would it be an
unreasonable psychological stretch to suggest that you were unwilling to attend to it
ethically and so your unconscious quietly, unobtrusively, blanked it out of your
reasoning? Nah! That would be a stretch. Your tribunal simply ignored the issue with
the hope that I would go away. And that is a democratic cancer almost as pernicious
as Mihlar's "considered judgement."

What dismays me most of all in all this media anti-democracy cancer is the full
realization that I, as a member of our so-called democracy, have come to understand
that an individual who takes pride in lying, who is even ignorant of the root of the word
"meritocracy" let alone labour history as espoused by such economic heroes as Adam
Smith and JS Mills, has the "considered judgement" I need to keep healthy my
democracy!

And thus I am left with the first hand knowledge, which I will disseminate to all who will
read it, that not only does at least one of the The Vancouver Sun's editors lie, that he
takes pride in the considered judgement that gives him the authority to lie, and that the

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BC Press Council condones it. I am unlikely to read anything in any of The Sun's
pages, or its affiliates, again. (Except when a "friend" wants to see me enraged by its
corruption.) I will never knowingly buy any such paper. I will assume that all of the TV
affiliates associated with The Sun broadcast lies designed to mislead me, and so will
attend them not or with complete contempt.

With anger and deep sadness,

Guy A. Duperreault, BGS AScT

CC: Peter Julian, MP.; Dennis Skulsky, President and Publisher The Vancouver Sun;
Bryan Cantley, Vice-President of Member Services Canadian Newspaper Association

[And I did not received a response from any of these people, our guardians of
democracy.]

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