14 Apr The Coast caves

The former idealists who built The Coast into a substantial Halifax institution let down their readers and their craft today by failing to contest an order to help identify people who posted controversial opinions on their website.

Madam Justice Heather Robertson granted an application by HRM Fire Chief Bill Mosher and Deputy Chief Stephen Thurber, who say the posters made allegations of racism, cronyism and incompetence against them.

I want to stress that Contrarian has not read the comments in question, or the article that provoked them, and I have no opinion as to the merits of the dispute. But I think the Coast’s failure to stand up for their readers, and for free expression, stinks.

Mosher and Thurber are presumed to be in the early stages of a defamation action against the posters, but a reasonable person could be forgiven for suspecting their real goal is to identify any department employees among the posters, for the avowed purpose of imposing “consequences,” as they put it. I take this to mean any firefighters in the group should not count on a long career.

In my contrary opinion, that’s an abuse of the court process.

Coast editor Kyle Shaw says the newspaper will comply with the order. No problem there. Everyone has to comply with legal court orders. What’s shocking and disappointing is the Coast’s failure to contest the granting of order. It made no representations to the court. The paper didn’t lift a finger to protect the reader-posters it has encouraged to post anonymously.