Canadian Cross-ownership Ruling Is Criticized

By: Paul Geitner, Associated Press Writer (AP) The world's largest organization of journalists on Monday criticized a ruling by Canadian broadcasting authorities that allows national television networks and the newspapers they own to use the same reporter to cover a story.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) said that by allowing a practice already relatively common in the United States, the Canadian regulators were contributing to a trend of less quality journalism on private networks, as well as threatening public broadcasters.

"If the private sector can get away with cheapskate news and call it quality, there is no doubt that more pressure will be brought on public broadcasters to follow suit" in cutting costs and lowering standards, said Aidan White, secretary general of the Brussels-based organization.

The decision last week by the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission came as it renewed the licenses for networks CTV and CanWest Global.

The CRTC said the companies do not have to strictly separate the newsgathering operations of their TV stations and newspapers as long as management of each operates independently. The ruling included a "Statement of Principles and Practices" for the media giants in an effort to limit the narrowing effects of cross-media ownership.

But White said the code "completely sidesteps the whole issue of day-to-day doubling up of workloads."

While conceding that such "convergence" was inevitable in the face of more and more media mergers, White said his group was worried that Canadian regulators appeared to giving the "green light" to the practice.

"Canadian consumers are going to be the losers in the process," he said. "There is no way that journalists and media people who are trying to gather news and feed it out simultaneously for different newsgathering systems are going to be able to maintain quality of product."

The Canadian ruling could also influence an ongoing debate on the future of newsgathering in Europe, where most countries have a system of support for public broadcasting similar to Canada's, he said. "We're very, very worried that when Canada moves down this road, the trend will accelerate very quickly," White said.

The Newspaper Guild, an IFJ affiliate in the United States, has been complaining for some time about a "palpable decline" in quality due to mounting commercial pressures on journalists, White said. "It's been a concern of ours for a long time," he said.

The IFJ represents more than 450,000 journalists in 106 countries.

On the Net: http://www.ifj.org