PRESS COUNCILS
are theatres of the ab-
surd.

There was never any bet-
ter illustration of that than
the nutty hearing in which
editor Noe! Wright was
hauled before the council by
a wench who attends Simon
_ Fraser University.

by
Doug Collins

The girl in question claims
she is a freelance journalist.
Where. her brilliant work
appears' I don’t. know and
don’t want to know. But |
harbor a peasant suspicion

8 - Sunday, July 21, 1985 - North Shore News

io name-dropping in th

that some people make
complaints to press councils
just to get their names in the
papers. So hers won't appear
here.

The circumstances of the
case would make you snore
so 1 will trouble you only
with the barest details. Suf-
fice it to say that what was
objected to was the tone of
an amusing and colorful
report that Noel did on the
in-camera press council
hearing in the Collins versus
Pinkus affair. (The accuracy
of the report was never
questioned.)

In camera means, literally,
in chamber, or not in open
court, and how any group
that boasts about upholding
the freedom of the press
could agree to such a thing is
beyond me. But that is what
they did. The result was that
North Shore News reporters
and all others were turned
away at the door, Later,
Noel wrote his ‘‘Inside
Story” which was a damned
sight better than your run-
of-the-miil stuff. Anyway,

‘the wench whined about it

and the judges found it was
not up to their high stan-
dards,

That wasn’t surprising.
The very headline made it
clear that in camera hearings
are not the best way to do
media business and that the
real authors of ‘‘Inside
Story” were the press coun-
cil themselves. I could tell

Kick-up heels
at farm party

MAPLEWOOD FARM _ is
having’a party. :

Everyone is invited to
celebrate the farm’s tenth an-
niversary on Sunday, July 21.

This special event will kick
off with’ ribbon-cutting
ceremonies for-the new farm
expansion . by acting North
Vancouver District Mayor,
.Ald. Murray Dykeman. A. cut-
ting of the anniversary cake
will follow. - ;

The party will continue.with
performances by the Van-
couver. Rube Band; Carousel

Theatre's Variety Show; story
telling and musical sing-a-long
by Judy Lea. .

Farm staff demonstrations .

will include cow hand milking,
cream separating and butter
making. Children will have a
chance to milk a goat, and
there will be a special pony fit-
ting and training session.

_ The Farm is open from 10
a.m. to 4 p.m. and is located
at 405 Seymour River Place in

' North Vancouver.

For more information call
929-5610.

Hi-SERVICES, L
fe 7

WE-HaVELQUAT IFIED \
SHIPWRIGHTS FOR:
Wooden boats—°~

are not gay at all) wept over
a Sarnia Observer editorial
that labelled homosexuals
“‘moral degenerates and a
limp-wristed bunch of pan-
sies.’*

One day soon I rust write
a piece about the virtues of
honest bias. Meanwhile | am
urging the Great Spirit to
persuade News publisher
Peter Speck to get the hell
out of the press council.
With the money thus saved,
he could run twice the
number of Sunshine Girls,
and mankind would be that
much better off.

right there during the hear-
ing that they were getting
ready to make dummies of
themselves again, and said
so.

Joe Norris, the old labor
man, was particularly ex-
cited. But Joe could no more
write a news story himself
than beat that new kid Boris
Becker at tennis. Same thing
goes for lan Greenwood, the
chairman. Even more
depressing than that,
though, is that press councils
seem to be bereft of humor.

Go where you will, they
are a waste of time and an

Windsor Star feature called
Star Gazers. The complaint
was upheld on the grounds
that only pretty young
women appeared in the
feature. No doubt it would
have been OK if they'd been
ugly old women.

A Mr. Bright, whose ac-
tions belied his name,
brought a complaint against
the Ottawa Citizen for not
running a letter in which he
claimed that 1983 was the
real 75th anniversary of the
Boy Scouts, not 1982, which
the paper said it was. And
the jolly old ‘“‘gays’? (who

inducement for newspapers
to be even more bland than
they are. Why bring a bit of
color into reporting when it
may mean you have to face a
panel of long-faced bores? If
press councils had been
around in his day, the great
Bob Edwards of Calgary
Eye-Opener fame would
have left the country.

The name of the press
council game is drivel.

In Windsor, Ont., for in-
stance, soul sisters of the
above-mentioned wench
went screeching to the On-
tario press council about a

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