Confined to ship – update
Nancy Waugh, executive producer of CBC News: Nova Scotia at 6 (And 5 and 530….) takes issue with the anonymous Contrarian source’s suggestion that CBC sent Rob Gordon Craig Paisley to Haiti without realizing their disaster zone training had expired:
What source said we discovered their lack of training after they’d departed? A source who didn’t bother to check to see if it was true? Jeepers creepers!
We knew their accreditation had lapsed and that they wouldn’t be allowed ashore. They signed documents to that effect before they left Halifax. Everyone knew the rules.
Craig and Rob did check (enroute) to see I their accreditation might be renewed on board, and the answer was no.
I’m quite worked up about the assertion that we’d play fast-and-loose about regulations that are there to protect them.
Because we knew they’d remain on the ship, we sent Rob and Craig with a bag full of flipcams and digital cameras that COULD go ashore with crewmembers.
I think we actually got something nobody else has managed in quite the same way: honest-to-God stories in the sailors’ own words, as seen through their eyes.
I think Andrew Cochrane already made it clear that CBC went into this curious arrangement with its eyes open, but Waugh nails the point. Besides, the Flip Cam ploy was brilliant.
Confined to ship
CBC newsmen Rob Gordon and Craig Paisley left Halifax for Haiti aboard HMCS Athabaskan January 14, but returned home Friday without setting foot on the island.
It seems the journalists were confined to the warship because their required training for operating in dangerous environments was not up to date. Both men had received the five-day course, provided by U.K.-based AKE Integrated Risk Solutions, before traveling to Afghanistan several years ago, but their accreditation has expired.
As a result, CBC brass ordered the men not to leave the ship.
“It’s analogous to a driver’s licence,” said CBC’s Atlantic Regional Director Andrew Cochran. “If you go in without it, it’s like driving without a licence: (a) it’s an offence, and (b) your insurance won’t cover you.
A source told Contrarian that the problem was only discovered once the reporters were en route, and frantic efforts to get them the required refresher course by phone were unavailing.
Not so, says Cochran.
“We were completely aware of the situation before they left,” he said in a telephone interview. “We knew there would be CBC reporters covering events on the ground, The decision was that it was still worth sending them to cover the story of the navy sailors going in to help.”
Gordon is Canada’s most experienced reporter of naval issues.
Cochran acknowledged that there had been discussions of getting the refresher course en route, but this proved impossible.
Since arriving off the Haitian coast January 18, the two men have blogged about their experience and filed occasional dispatches from aboard ship. Paisley filed his final blog post Wednesday.
Give it away … or make them pay?
O’Reilly, the world’s largest publisher of tech books, decided in 2008 to remove digital rights management — copy prevention software — from its ebooks. The result? In the 18 months since, ebook sales are up 103%.
Long Island’s Newsday, the 11th-largest-circulation newspaper in the US, is one of the first non-business newspapers to put its website behind a pay wall — a step The New York Times and all of Rupert Murdoch’s papers are said to be considering. The result? In three months, Newsday’s $5-a-week website has attracted 35 paying subscribers.
Hat tip: SP.
False positive
An apparently random swab test of Contrarian’s new MacBook Pro at the Stanfield International Airport screening area this morning detected traces of nitroglycerin.
The CATSA agent who conducted the test summoned a supervisor who explained, pleasantly, that the machine had triggered an alarm. She proceeded to check my identification and ask a series of questions about medication, chemicals, and hand creams. My negative answers turned up no obvious source of nitro, resulting in a further swab test of my iPhone, a complete physical check of every item in my carry-on bag, and a rigorous, 90% pat-down.*
In all, my case drew upon the efforts of four CATSA agents, whose demeanor ranged from polite to cheerful. After half an hour, CATSA deemed Contrarian fit to fly.
Regular readers will know that I am no fan of airport security theatre. While I found this rigorous screening unpleasant, my initial reaction is that secondary, intensive screening following a positive indication for nitroglycerin probably falls into the small subset of CATSA protocols that actually make planes safer.
I am baffled as to what triggered the false positive result. The screen cleaning wipes I bought recently? A certain person’s hand cream? The pleasant supervisor said traces of nitro can be persistent, so I now wonder if I should allow an extra half hour for the flight home.
*The pat-down was 90% in the sense that it would not have caught the Christmas Day bomber, if you catch my drift.
Didn’t I make you feel?
Theresa Malenfant takes another little piece of Halifax’s heart at Bearly’s Friday night.
Protecting Sable – III
A former Parks Canada employee sends this comment on the prospects for Sable if Harper Environment Minister Jim Prentice succeeds in making it a National Park:
I continue to have a great affection for this institution and its objectives… In my time I worked in the parks themselves, at Head Office in Ottawa, and at the regional offices. All levels are influenced by the conflicting desires to both protect, and to show what has been protected.
Unfortunately, with money for expenditures somehow ever flowing, and with government’s obsession with “show and tell” as the chosen means of bringing good fortune to themselves, advancement-seeking civil servants and advantage-seeking politicians (usually with little or no sense of history) will inevitably leave their heavy footprints on the very land they were mandated to protect.
Sadly therefore, from experience, I must, at least until National Parks Objectives are significantly revised to enhance their protection mandate, agree with you. Don’t let the bastards near Sable Island. All your negative predictions should they come are very realistic! Witness the dividing into thirds of Rustico Island in PEI National Park, the creaping evolution of a long planned for (by various political parties and park staff) Olympic-type village at Lake Louise, and so on, and so on!! ‘Tis sad to say, but the Park Systems of Canada are not ready for Sable Island.
I have received several thoughtful comments, and will post more tomorrow.
Sable MOU
For the on-line record, and thanks to Joey Schwartz’s OCR magic, here is the start of the Sable MOU signed Monday, with the remainder after the jump. To download the official PDF version, click here and the unofficial Word version here.
MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING
(hereinafter referred to as “MOU)
BETWEEN
HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN IN RIGHT OF CANADA
AS REPRESENTED BY THE MINISTER OF THE ENVIRONMENT
(hereinafter referred to as “CANADA”)
AND
HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN IN RIGHT OF NOVA SCOTIA
AS REPRESENTED BY THE MINISTER OF NATURAL RESOURCES
(hereinafter referred to as “NOVA SCOTIA”)
RESPECTING
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A FEDERAL PROTECTED AREA
ON SABLE ISLAND IN THE PROVINCE OF NOVA SCOTIA
WHEREAS Sable Island is a remote island located about 160 kilometres from mainland Nova Scotia near the edge of the continental shelf;
Protecting Sable: The MOU
Canada and Nova Scotia signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the future of Sable Island Monday amidst considerable fanfare and media coverage. Surprisingly, and unusually, the actual text of the agreement was not made public at the time. Normally such agreements are posted on government websites at the time of such announcements.
Thanks to the communications folks at the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources, Contrarian has posted a copy which you can download here. [PDF file].*
The MOU confirms that the process annouced Monday will unfold in two stages, only the second of which will involve the public.
First, provincial and federal bureaucrats will form a task force to consider various issues surrounding the protection of Sable Island and, within 90 days, recommend that Sable become either a national wildlife area (under the Canada Wildlife Act) or a national park (under the Canada National Parks Act). The public will have no role in this discussion.
Only after the decision was made will the public be invited to “comment on the conservation, management, and operational issues associated with the designation” recommended by the task force.
Suffice to say that people who attended Monday’s announcement came away with a very different impression: that the public would be consulted about the decision, not after it.
Where have we heard this approach to natural justice before? Oh yes:
‘Let the jury consider their verdict,’ the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.
‘No, no!’ said the Queen. ‘Sentence first—verdict afterwards.’
‘Stuff and nonsense!’ said Alice loudly. ‘The idea of having the sentence first!’
‘Hold your tongue!’ said the Queen, turning purple.
‘I won’t!’ said Alice.
‘Off with her head!’ the Queen shouted at the top of her voice.
[* The pdf is a scan of the original document. This means the text is not searchable. The document is not very long. If any Contrarian reader is a really good typist, or has optical recognition software, and would like to convert it to text, I will p[ost that version, which will ensure that people can find it using text searches. Please send the text to comments[@]contrarian.ca. Thanks!]
An ethical guide to grief porn
University of Wisconsin Journalism Professor Stephen J. A. Ward, who was founding chair of the Canadian Association of Journalists’ ethics advisory committee, offers sensible guidelines for coverage of emotional stories like the Haitian earthquake [previous discussion here, here, and here]:
The best disaster journalism is engaged and objectively tested journalism. Journalism based only on emotion can be incorrect or manipulated. Journalism based only on a studied neutrality is not only an inhuman attitude toward a disaster. It fails to tell the full story.
A journalism of disasters is not a journalism of Olympian detachment. It is not a journalism fixated on stimulating the emotions of audiences. It is a humanistic journalism that combines reason and emotion. Humanistic journalists bring empathy to bear on the victims of tragedy – an empathy informed by facts and critical analysis.
Hat tip: Ruth Davenport
Protecting Sable – II
Lots of developments in what promises to be a continuing thread here.
The ineffable Zoe Lucas has started a discussion forum on the question of a National Park vs. National Wildlife Area on her wonderful Green Horse Society website, your definitive source for news and information about Sable. Discussions also continue on the Hands Off Sable Island Facebook Page, now approaching exceeding 500 members.
At the department’s initiative, I spoke this morning with Harold Carroll, Director of Parks for Nova Scotia Natural Resources, who explained that the consultation process announced Monday will unfold in two phases:
- First, federal and provincial authorities will review the impact that either designation will have on various legislative commitments the two governments have. This would include such things as the offshore accord and offshore oil and gas regulations. On the basis of that review, the feds, in consultation with the province, will decide whether Sable will be a park or a wildlife area.
- Second, once the decision has been made, the feds and the province will consult the public on how to implement it.
The type of designation – park or wildlife area – is is a critical decision, and I’m disturbed that the public will be consulted only after it has been made. All the more reason why forums like Contrarian, the Green Horse Society, and Hands Off Sable Island should continue to carry out the public discussion Ottawa and Halifax would apparently deny us.
Submissions to Contrarian on this (and any other topic) can be sent by email.
A few readers have complained that I overstated the case by saying Parks Canada Minister Jim Prentice would turn Sable into a National Park, and would encourage private enterprise to provide access for tourists. But these are almost exactly the words Prentice is quoted as using in his news conference. Moneyquote:
“Sable Island would be well-protected, and it would be an area that we would encourage visitors to come to and they would be well taken care of while they’re there,” he said after a news conference at Citadel Hill in Halifax.
He said he expects private businesses would transport people to the island, about 290 kilometres southeast of Halifax near the edge of the continental shelf
I have asked the Department of Natural Resources for a copy of the Memorandum of Understanding which, somewhat unusually, was not posted on federal or provincial websites when the announcement was made.
Finally, let me acknowledge that many thoughtful people with long records of support for Sable, including the Ecology Action Centre’s Mark Butler and author Janet Barkhouse, disagree with me about the wisdom of National Park designation for Sable. Let the discussion and debate continue.
