Afghanistan? What’s that?

Heard anything from Afghanistan lately?

 If you follow Canadian news media, probably not much.

Canadian soldiers have ended their combat role in Afghanistan, but some are still there, pursuing the worthwhile goal of trying to help Afghans build a civil society that will survive after they leave.

Canadians need to hear more about what we are doing there. We need to understand what we have achieved in the decade in which 158 members of the Canadian Forces and four Canadian civilians have been killed.

There has been one recent piece of news: The father of Sgt. Marc Leger, one of our first soldiers killed there, now wonders whether his death means anything.

And Gwynne Dyer, one of our clearest-thinking columnists, told Canadians this week, “The Taliban is obviously winning the war in Afghanistan now.”

That’s a sobering conclusion, and one that Canadians need to discuss.

But while most news media are backing off, it’s heartening that journalists and the soldiers themselves are creating documentaries and publishing books about this most important story of our time.

Canadian Press reporter Murray Brewster has published The Savage War: The Untold Battles of Afghanistan, a detailed, dramatic and thought-provoking account of his 15 months over several years on the ground.

Lt.-Col. Mike Vernon, a soldier and former CBC journalist, has released Desert Lions, a 60-minute documentary. Although the doc has received the approval of the Canadian Forces, it is not mere government propaganda. Its soldiers are real people with real frustrations and fears.

In addition, we are seeing more books written by the soldiers themselves. March Forth by Trevor Greene and Debbie Greene recounts the slow recovery of Trevor Greene, horribly injured in Afghanistan in 2006. On April 7 I reviewed it in the Winnipeg Free Press.

In 2002 we sent our soldiers to Afghanistan with noble rhetoric and, I think, noble intent. The results have been less than satisfactory.

Our news media need to keep exploring this story.

See no evil? Not on TV in court, anyway

Another judge has forbidden Canadians to watch what happens in our courts.

The Canadian Press reports today:

A Manitoba judge says allowing cameras to broadcast the sentencing of disgraced former hockey coach Graham James for sexual abuse would turn the highly charged case into a spectacle and could violate the sex offender's privacy.
Judge Catherine Carlson denied an application Monday by a media consortium to set up two live TV cameras in the Winnipeg courtroom where James will learn his fate Tuesday.
"This case is highly charged enough. It's not going to become a spectacle," Carlson said in her ruling.

A spectacle? I thought the courts were open to the public.

The problem for the public is that few of us can take time away from caring for children, working, studying, whatever occupies most of our days, to head down to the courthouse.

Media lawyer Bob Sokalski made this argument clearly, though not successfully.

Even if we can afford to attend court, the courtroom is likely to accommodate only a few spectators.

This is a perfect setting for live television coverage, particularly in a case of tremendous public interest such as this one.

It’s not as if television is some strange new medium.  It’s at least  85 years old; that's older than any judge now sitting in Manitoba (I hope).

Television was demonstrated in 1927; the opening of the New York World’s Fair was televised in 1939.

Courts, including many in Manitoba, routinely allow journalists to cover cases through much newer media such as Twitter.

In fact, this ruling barring a nearly-century-old medium was all over social media and news websites moments after it was delivered.

I generally support judges against criticism that they are out of touch with the public will. In my experience, judges are hard-working, honest and fair, concerned above all to be able to deliver clear reasons for their decisions.

So this is not a personal criticism of Judge Carlson. No doubt she has carefully considered all aspects of this question.

But surely the time has come for senior judges and the provincial and federal governments to say the public must be invited more clearly into the court system.

That means televising court proceedings.

Covering sports? Don’t uncover any news

From online media to old-fashioned television, radio and print, sports coverage besieges us.

So you’d think a story about a professional league revealing last week that players on one of its most prominent teams were paid to inflict game-ending injuries on their star opponents would be a big deal.

Wrong.

Sure, there has been a bit of coverage of bounty hunting in the United States National Football League. ESPN, for example, said:

New Orleans Saints players and at least one assistant coach maintained a bounty pool of up to $50,000 the last three seasons to reward game-ending injuries inflicted on opposing players, including Brett Favre and Kurt Warner, the NFL said Friday. "Knockouts" were worth $1,500 and "cart-offs" $1,000, with payments doubled or tripled for the playoffs. The NFL said the pool amounts reached their height of $50,000 or more in 2009, the year the Saints won the Super Bowl.

But sports reporters are spending much more energy covering hockey, curling and golf, and even baseball training camps, than on chasing the disgusting details of this headhunting.

Why?

Robert Lipsyte, in his highly readable 2011 memoir An Accidental Sportswriter, argues that journalists are simply too dependant on the people and teams they are supposed to cover.

Scribes learn early never to attack the sport that gives them work; you can trash most athletes, some officials and owners, a few rules and conventions, but systemic criticism is for “rippers” with other sources of income. (page 216)

And while I’m poking sports journalists, let me express my discomfort with publications and broadcasters that climb into bed with the teams they cover: “news media partner of Team X.”

Media that climb under the covers with teams in this way, hoping to amass advertising bucks, are no different from people who climb under the covers with others for money.

One bold exception to this harlotry is The New Yorker, from whose advertising sports enterprises are notably absent. Considering the NFL’s bounty admission, the magazine says today:

In any event, any business that evolves a workplace culture where dozens of people from top to bottom collectively lose sight of the difference between fair competition and corruption deserves to fail.

Sports may be the most over-covered human activity, but for my money it’s also the most under-covered.

Story Monday, Story Funday

Yesterday I asked the Creative Communications Journalism majors to propose stories in a traditional “story meeting,” then research and write them the same day.

Story Monday, in CreComm-speak.

I also assigned them to use Twitter in their research or writing, posting at least four tweets during the day.

The resulting topics ranged from curling to polar bears (Canadian, eh?) to senior citizen benefits and International Mother Language Day.

So how did the students use Twitter?

Some used it to seek interviews, successfully or not. Some reported their whereabouts during the day, GPS-like.

Some teased their stories. “Did you ever wonder how teams get seeded for the mens prov. curling champs? I'm finding out today, stay tuned for more,” tweeted Terryn Shiells.

As I followed the students’ Twitter feed I noticed several graduates of our program, now professional journalists, tweeting during their assignments.

As soon as I mentioned them online, I was deluged with “Me, too” tweets from other grads. Naturally, I had to retweet those messages.

Story Funday, student Emily Wessel called it.

The take-away? Work + social media = fun!

Heart of brightness

Since contact between Aboriginal peoples and Europeans, Canada’s story has been immigration.

Today the Winnipeg Free Press recognizes the diverse and fast-growing community of immigrants and refugees from Africa.

The Africa Edition: Our City, Our World contains dozens of stories and pictures – highlighted by Ruth Bonneville’s beautiful front-page portrait – of Africans in Manitoba and Manitobans in Africa.

Among the intriguing tales: Altona feels like home and African restaurants score Jets business.

It’s heartening to find these previously untold stories in the Free Press, and to see the newspaper emphasizing its competitive strengths against other news media.

Despite falling readership and advertising for their dead-trees editions, newspapers retain large pools of trained, experienced, well-paid journalists.

Rather than reporting only the daily grind of news – crime, press releases and sports – newspapers are uniquely positioned among for-profit news media to research and display major projects such as The Africa Edition.

Good on the Free Press for telling us the latest chapter of our Canadian story.

Obituary: Manitoba Press Council

The Manitoba organization that hears complaints against newspapers is dead because the papers refused to continue paying for it.

The Winnipeg Free Press, the council’s largest member and the chief architect of its demise, noted its passing.

Although the meagre five comments today on the paper’s website suggest that interest is limited, we should care that press councils are going out of fashion across Canada.

A quick online survey reveals signs of life only in the press councils of British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec.

Most Canadian press councils, including Manitoba’s, sprang up in the 1970s and 1980s, sponsored by newspapers desperate to demonstrate that they could police themselves (and maintain their high profits) without government interference.

The newspapers’ owners were outraged and terrified by recommendations from the Davey and Kent inquiries that the federal government impose some control over concentration of ownership.

Their ploy worked. The feds shrank from imposing the suggested regulations – and that’s probably a good thing.

Since then, not much has change in the world of press councils.

The standard model contains equal representation from newspapers and the public, with an independent chair.

Councils hear complaints about any content in a paper—advertising, news stories, pictures. They act as appeal boards in cases where someone is not satisfied with a newspaper’s response to an original complaint.

Member newspapers promise to publish every press council ruling about them.

Four years ago Don Sellar, a former Toronto Star’s ombud, lamented the decline of press councils.

More recently Brian Gabrial, director of the MA Journalism program at Concordia University, proposed remedies including broadening the mandate of press councils to include other news media and giving them a vital online presence.

His suggestions make a lot of sense – as long as governments do not sneak into the business of regulating news media content.

It’s not as if press councils have waged war against the newspapers.

The Manitoba body dealt with five cases in the last two years, John Cochrane, its chair, told me on Jan. 5.

That’s not a lot of activity. But the very existence of a press council imposes a discipline on member newspapers. If the papers don’t treat complaints seriously, they risk having them adjudicated in a more public forum, and being required to publish decisions that may criticize them.

Now the Winnipeg Free Press, the Brandon Sun and the Manitoba Community Newspapers Association owe their readers and advertisers an explanation of how they propose to replace the Manitoba Press Council.

If, on the other hand, those newspapers believe that their handling of complaints is always correct and never needs to be reviewed, they should say so – on their front pages.

Student freedom-of-information warriors

Here are the Creative Communications Journalism majors whose work you can read in Open Secrets, the annual co-operation between Red River College and the Winnipeg Free Press.

Thanks to Free Press staffers Mary Agnes Welch and Wendy Sawatzky for guiding and shaping the students’ work.

Photo by Wayne Glowacki, Winnipeg Free Press