So much for independence of the press. It would have looked better allround if they had simply asked the reporter to correct her story.

That's pathetic.

So, reviewing the original column, I see only one factual error, as per the correction (advertisement) that ran on the front page the next day. The original column did NOT say the BC Experience was pushing buttons. She was wondering what "interactive" meant - something I think many of us struggle with now that the term is so overexposed.

So it looks like a case of a columnist getting fired just for doing her job. I, for one, think the original column is dead on. We regularly host friends and relatives from out of town and rarely recommend the expensive attractions. Her suggestions mesh nicely with ours. Was that a disservice to Victorians? I hardly think so.

Sad.

I have said all along that the really big clout in a newspaper or Radio/TV station, in terms of coverage, stance, etc., comes not so much from the owner of the day but from the advertisers. They are the people who are writing the checks that keeps everyone else's paycheck coming.

I must admit that I have never been a big fan of the tourism biz in general (and I have made some money off of tourists in Whistler).

I thought Vivian's column was a good one.

I was recently taking some German friends around town and could feel their pain that each and every step of the way someone was trying to get their $$$$

I saw the BC Experience - not worth the $15 to get in. The big map is nice, but the rest of it is not much. It felt like a mediocore tourism ad.

I think that the local tourism business would do better to give people more options of what to that was free and enjoyable.

IF this really is the case for why Vivian was let go, then this really says a lot about how weak the TC is (not that many of us have doubted that for years anyway)

This is a very important story. It reveals with shocking clarity the deep rot within our mainstream media.

It's highly illuminating that:

1) A publisher would agree to meet with tourism representatives in the first place to discuss an offending columnm, instead of referring the complaint to the Editor-in-Chief.

2) An editor-in-chief apparently agreed to dismiss a columnist for offending tourism operators instead of asking the publisher to stay out of the newsroom or accept her own resignation, and then assessing the column solely on its merits, based on editorial policy and her readership's interests.

3) That tourism representatives are sufficiently confident of their entitlement to dictate editorial policy at the local CanWest rag that at least one saw no reason to refuse to comment on what took place when questioned by Sean -- indeed going to lengths to explain why the actions were "justified".

Newspapers aren't just any old corporate enterprise, doing what it takes to make a buck for the stockholders. A free press plays a pivotal institutional role in the order and functioning of a free and democratic society. If we continue to permit CanWest's monopoly of major markets like Victoria, a free press requires scrupulously ensuring that news coverage is not dictated by special interests, though all the warning signs have been there that this is exactly what has been happening. Sean's reporting spells out clearly who wins and who loses when we tolerate this, though sadly most of the TC's readership will likely never read about it.

Dawn Steele commented that "If we continue to permit CanWest's monopoly of major markets like Victoria, a free press requires scrupulously ensuring that news coverage is not dictated by special interests, though all the warning signs have been there that this is exactly what has been happening."

You think it's bad at a newspaper in a chain as big as CanWest? Independent and small chain newspapers are way more susceptible to the petty whims of advertisers than a publication like the Times Colonist. Say what you will about conglomeration and CanWest, in this case they are the lesser evils.

Sal is bang on. The sales manager rules the roost at local newspapers. Three years at various BC flyer-wrappers - I have watched sales reps and sales managers pull page flats if they felt it would offend a current or potential client. Know that *every thing* that appears in a community paper first flows through the lower intestine of the sales reps and sales managers. The Smith incident at the TC is most definitely an anomaly and you are a fool if you think you will get an accurate report from a community paper. They are great, hardworking journalists hamstrung by a culture of pandering to advertisers.

Skip

This is sends a terrible invitation out to those who thinks they can lean on the newspaper to control its coverage.

I plan to visit Victoria later this summer. Butchart Gardens is now off the list of possible stops.

Here's a contrarian viewpoint.

IMO the article in question is less about Victoria's free attractions than about Ms. Smith's anger and resentment of the tourism industry's commercialization of Victoria. Otherwise the article would have conformed to the traditonal 'inverted pyramid' style of newspaper journalism, i.e. put the most important points up front (lest the latter parts get cut in copyfitting).

Probably the one who deserves to be fired is the editor. A good editor would demand something better from a "respected" and experienced journalist than an emotional harangue against pricey tourist attractions, with information that's actually useful to local readers tacked on as an afterthought.

Who cares if Ms. Smith thinks Butchart Gardens charges too much for admission, and the Empress too much for tea? That's their business, and those who pay for it. Ms. Smith and her supporters should mind their own.

Bottom line is, if the article's focus truly was Victoria's free attractions, then the last paragraph would have led ... and the word count would have been taken up with more detail about them than with kvetching about the prices of Victoria's paid attractions.

Appreciate your contrarian POV PM,but, remember:

1. Columnists are specifically employed by media outlets to provide interesting analysis, often controversial, opinions and points of view. (Freelance or otherwise.)
2. "Pyaramid Style" typically relates to "hard" or "breaking" news stories, not necessarily to columns, features, or other "soft" items. (Although, a strong "Five-Ws" lead is typical for "hard" news while a feature story or a column typically trys to get the reader to finish the whole piece by employing rhetorical devices and paradoxical, foreshadowing, or anecdotal "lead" sentences.)
3.IMHO: this is sypmtomatic of the widespread syndrome called: "We live in an Economy, not in a Society."
In other words, the ecomomic tail is wagging the social dog! And the tendancy toward monotone coverage is obvious boosterism. An impoverished set of values to predicate a heterogenious society on -- obviouly!
Very few of the PR people I know, the well-trained ones that is -- especially in larger markets -- (which assumes some prior work experience in mainstream media as a reporter, desker, etc., before entering "communications" broadly) would have made the fatal error that Ms. Partridge and her colleagues have made. Both them, so-called communications professionals, and the TC publisher should feel embarrassed in the extreme. Knowing the difference between the practice of public relations (predominantly attends to the development and exhcange of "Good Will) and marketing practices (predominantly attends to monetary exchange) is a key point.
There's nothing wrong with boosterism either. Only when folks like Ms. Partridge and colleagues lose perspective on their roles and boosterism with free opinion -- we're on a slippery, slippery slope My Darlings!

Mr. Kilt