Duplicity is a mug’s game

Ethical journalism requires full disclosure

Supplied

Supplied

As the CBC’s Chief Correspondent and national television anchor, Peter Mansbridge should know a thing or two about journalistic ethics. He should be aware, for instance, that as a leading representative of Canada’s public broadcaster his supposedly impartial editorial appointment must not be influenced by money.

Last week it was revealed that Mansbridge, 65, accepted a cheque worth $28,000 for a speech he delivered at the Investment Symposium of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) in December 2012. The CAPP is Canada’s most powerful oil and gas lobby group: its members produce 90 per cent of the country’s natural gas and crude oil representing earnings of over $100 billion-a-year. 

CBC spokesperson Chuck Thompson confirmed that Mansbridge was approved to speak at the event, described to the Huffington Post as an “outreach initiative in place for many of [the CBC’s] hosts that ensures the Chief Correspondent is talking to Canadians in communities across the country.”

Though it is not uncommon or inherently unjust for media personalities to be paid for guest speaking, CBC’s failure to declare the extracurricular activity of its top anchor has generated some controversy, and rightly so. In early February, network freelancer Rex Murphy was excoriated for a similar act of double-dealing. Since 2009, the climate change skeptic and tar sands apologist has lined his pockets with the proceeds from 25 speeches at oil industry events while using his television appearances, often on The National, to attack environmental groups and opponents of the energy sector. Even CBC anchor Ian Hanomansing, a relatively unassuming personality in his own right, was paid to speak at Oilweek Magazine’s Rising Stars event just last year.

It is altogether problematic for Canada’s public broadcaster to claim, as it did last week, that the compensation Mansbridge received from the CAPP was “fair” despite the obvious conflict of interest. Canada’s oil industry is driven by vested business interests (many of which are protected by CAPP lobbyists) and remains a contentious economic and political matter in the country. The topic of the oilsands is frequently addressed on the CBC’s national news broadcast, a program over which Mansbridge holds editorial control, and is expected to be reported impartially; that is with balance, not by displaying a preference for the partisan rants of quasi-independent commentators like Murphy. It is therefore of paramount importance that the CBC maintain transparency, obligate its employees – especially ones holding significant positions – to announce paid speaking arrangements and honour basic journalistic principles. Canadians ought to know about the private remuneration earned by journalists on the public payroll.

In the words of iPolitics media columnist Andrew Mitrovica, speaking on Radio One, “There is an inherent double standard at play here, Mr. Murphy and Mr. Mansbridge are increasingly being seen as celebrities and not as journalists. They have to ask themselves that seminal question: What am I? Am I a journalist or am I a paid gun-for-hire?”

Harrison Samphir is the Uniter’s senior editor.

Published in Volume 68, Number 22 of The Uniter (March 5, 2014)

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