Image Credit: BC - Yukon Community Newspapers Association

By Mel Rothenburger

Armchair Mayor

ROTHENBURGER: Blurring the lines between objective reporting and somebody’s opinion

May 20, 2023 | 7:43 AM

THERE’S BEEN a bit of a controversy the past week or two involving comments by a local media individual that I won’t get into because he’s had his say — at great length — and I’m not inclined to give it even more attention, nor certainly to feud over it.

In fact, as much as I feel other commentators’ opinions are off base on any given day (as I did in this case) I support their right to express them, though I might wish they were better informed. Media commentators are paid to tell people what they think.

But it does raise an issue in need of some scrutiny.

It makes me think about some of the legendary old-time opinion leaders who make us current commentators seem unworthy by comparison. I have vivid memories of people like Edith Josie, Ma Murray and Jack Webster.

Edith Josie lived in a tiny place called Old Crow in the Yukon. Each week she would send her column in to the Whitehorse Star by airplane. The column was called “Here Are the News” and it had readers around the world.

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Edith’s first language was Gwich’in. When she translated it into English it came out sounding quite chaotic, and people loved her for it. She blended news about who went fishing and who had a baby with her own observations on life. Those observations were often thought-provoking, at other times touching.

Ma Murray ran a couple of small papers in B.C. and was famous for her salty language and bad grammar. She sometimes just made things up, like the time she wrote that a mayor had been thrown out the window during a contentious council meeting. It wasn’t true but she thought it made the story more interesting and figured her readers could sort out fact from fiction.

The best columnist ever at The Kamloops Daily News was a fellow named Bert Barrett, who had once worked for Ma Murray and it showed. Sometimes he wrote things that scared me but the whole town read his column week after week.

More articulate but just as direct and controversial as the others I’ve mentioned was the famous newspaper reporter turned radio hotliner Jack Webster. His research and knowledge of politics in B.C. was legendary and he loved cornering politicians on touchy issues.

None of the media people I’ve just mentioned was well educated — I think Webster went the furthest in school, dropping out at 14. Lack of formal training certainly didn’t hold any of them back.

Another thing they had in common was that everyone knew they were blending fact with opinion. They weren’t minute takers. We knew exactly what we were getting.

And each had a great sense of humour. They could laugh at themselves as much as they lampooned others. And they knew how to entertain. There’s not enough of that these days.

The issue right now, as I see it, is the blurring of lines between news reporting and news commentating in a much different way than those voices from the past.

While once there were strict self-imposed codes of conduct around carefully separating objective journalism from opinion, and making it absolutely clear which was which, the media are becoming more and more comfortable with blending the two.

Here’s the deal. We need to remember the difference. We need to be able to tell them apart. If something is said in a top-of-the-hour newscast or written on the news pages, it’s supposed to stick to the facts and remain free of opinion.

If, on the other hand, something is said during one of those chit chats in between newscasts or on the editorial pages, rest assured it’s going to be biased. If it’s clearly labeled as an editorial, a column or an opinion, we know what to expect. It’s only fair.

So if a questionable remark is made within a piece of commentary, we can feel free to question the person’s conclusions and even their intelligence but not their objectivity because being objective isn’t part of the process.

Those labels I mentioned are too often omitted now. Watch out for media that allow bias to creep into their news reports. It happens too often. Sometimes, just a word or two can make a difference. For example, “suspected” might alert the reader or listener to the fact a thing hasn’t yet been proven, but a journalist who is convinced something is true might choose to omit it and, instead, make an assumption.

Just as bad is the commercial or ad that masquerades as news. You know the ones — they sound like interviews or look like news stories but they’re actually paid advertising. Some advertisers think their message will get more attention if it looks like news.

Such material is supposed to be clearly labeled as “Advertising Feature,” “Advertorial” or “Sponsored Content” but some media forget that rule just as they do the one about labeling columns, editorials and opinions.

The danger in the blurring of lines between fact and opinion can be illustrated with what’s going on with the major U.S. television networks, where talking-head panels have replaced actual news reporting, and spend much of their time blasting away at their competitors. It’s become almost impossible to tell fact from BS and that’s why there’s so much distrust of the media.

We should be very careful not to go down that same path. As Ma Murray would say, that’s fer damshur.

Mel Rothenburger is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. He has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.

Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.