THE

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SEED

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Canada’s Number One|

" NEWS photos lan Smith

. FIREMEN WERE quickly on the scene ou 4 blaze at Mosquito Creek Marina Thursday afterneen that heavily

damaged two charter boats.

Fire razes

THREE

BOATS in dry dock at the Mosquito

Creek Marina were damaged Thursday when fire
tipped through one of the vessels used hy radio
station CKNW sports director AL Davidson for
his regular Sea Watch reports.

Insp. Gavin Soanes of the
North Vancouver City Fire
department said the three
crafts were situated side by
side at tie marina, with the

BENG

fire suspected to have ignited
in the middle boat, the Sea
Watch. He said the Sea
Watch sustained = extensive
damage in the blaze which

was reported at 2:50 p.m,

Soanes said the boat
located north of ihe Sea
Watch, the Top Dog, reveiv-
ed heavy dismage dug to ex-
posure to the flames Front
the middle vessel, while uhe
remaining craft, the Sea-
Esta, received ininor dime
to its canvas top.

A CRKNW news employee
confirmed the Sea Watch
and the Top Dog, 44-foor

pleasure crafts, ate owned
by Davidson. The two boats
were both used in the sta-
tion's Sea Watch program,

Soanes said witnesses
reparted Davidson was
abound the Sea Watch prior
to the fire, but said no one
was an board itt the time of
the blaze. No injuries were
reported. ;

The fire is sali under in-
vestigation,

on cruises

PAGE 37

IT'S

NOT EVERY DAY that the defendant is left

to write the only news report of fis own trial

permitied by the judge.

By NOEL WRIGHT
Editor-in-Chief

That, in effect, is what
happened at Thursday's
B.C. Press Council hearing
of a complaint of ‘journal-
istic irresponsibility’’ against
the North Shore News and
its columnist Doug Collins.

The hearing in the Hotel
Georgia was clased to both
the public and the medi
including even the News
own reporter and
phoiagrapher, A request: by
the News to tape-record the
proceedings was also re-
jected, despite a strang pro-
test by the paper’s manige-
ment.

So the Bivtown media
corps--which had turned eut
in force with its TV cameras,
mikes and notebooks--was
reduced te camping jn the
corridor outside the meeting
room, serambling for
Ineagre crumbs of informa.
tion from participants enter:
ing or leaving.

Writing the story of your
own trial isn't the type of
reporting encouraged by the
best schools of journalism,

However, since To wound
up as the only reporter pres
ent. us well as being chief
spokesman for the News,
that’s the best we can do for
you this Cmte,

The show opened with a
rambling 50-minute
discourse by the coniplai-
nant, Dr. Philip Pinkus ot
West Vancouver. a UBC
professar. [t might still be
going on if Council chair-
man lan Greenwood had not
eventually invited him to
wind itup pronto,

Pinkus concentriited at in-
finite length on accusing
Collins of dispensing file

information about the
Holocaust in an August 1984
column. The column had at-
tacked the banning from
Canada of an American
book, ‘The Hoax of the
20th Century’, which ques:
tions the actual oumber
Jewish deaths in Nazi con-
centration camps,

In attacking the ban, Col-
fins had, not unaaturally,
described some af the con-
tent of the forbidden work,
This, said) Pinkus, proved
Collins to be a racist: who
aipported the book's arzu-
tent without bothering to
check the facts.

Collins, deckired the pro-
fessor, was only intent oon
promoting the book"s ‘lies’
whieh, he said, had been
discredited by ottver
authoritative sources. Phis
showed that Collins’ sole
wim owas co foster rast
hatred.

Moreover, Pinkus  ¢litin-
ed, Collins had ‘defamed’
and ‘Hibelled’ hint by Nken-
ing him (Pinkus) to Hider,

Phe reference was toa
later column by Collins. in
response to an abusive ar
tack on him by Pinkus which
was published in the News.
in that column Collins had
noted that Hitler like bann-
ing books and had alleged
that Pinkus did, too.

The News, Pinkus also
charged, had subsequently
refused to print a letter he
wrote rebutting the ‘‘libel”’.

That. E think, was about
the total of your story, Dr.
Pinkus, wasn't it?

Wearing my spokesman
hat in replying for the News,
| stressed that there wis
basically no complaint to
answer. We (the News) were

HOAX: 3