By Pepper Parr
August 16th, 2023
BURLINGTON, ON
Earlier in the week Bill Kelly, a broadcaster who spent 17 years at CHML covering local issues and interviewing the people who ran things at city hall in Hamilton and Burlington.
The occasion was Kelly’s last broadcast and he invited John Best, publisher of the Bay Observer to talk about the problems media is having informing the public.
We are publishing that conversation and adding some comment on what these two long toothed broadcasters had to say and how it impacts what is currently taking place in Burlington.
Bill Kelly did a program with CHML for 17 years – signed off Monday morning.
Kelly: I wanted John to be part of this last program to comment on media.
Best:My pleasure, Bill. I sort of feel like you and I are the two old guys up in the balcony on set saying: “ Yeah, let’s give it one more shot.
Kelly: You wrote in the piece you published recently about the elephant in the room and the seeming demise of journalism in this country.We’re being swallowed up by major corporations, who seem to think that subtraction is the best way to grow. And it’s not just to do with the situation with my show. But we’ve seen it happen too many times to too many top notch journalists in various forms, whether it’s print journalism, broadcast journalism, whatever the case might be, and we as a country and we as a society are the worst for it.
Best: One of the points I wanted to make is I think the big national news networks, the New York Times, CBC, not sure about CTV News, with some of the cuts they’ve made; that the national media, news media will probably survive in some form.
I’m really concerned about what’s happening with local news, with your show gone. For many, many years it was a local watering hole. It was the forum of our community and and I just worry generally about local news that we’re already seeing news deserts.
I look at Burlington as a city that really does not have the kind of coverage that a city of nearly 200,000 should have.
Local news actually probably works a little better in the smaller communities where they don’t have any television or radio. And in those cases, at least a local weekly newspaper can survive.
But if we don’t have local news Bill, what we’re going to have is all these people in City halls cranking out press releases that we all get by by the dozens: there will no longer be any kind of an observing filter. It’ll simply go from the PR people directly to the public, and at some point it will be taken as gospel.
And that’s really dangerous. That’s almost Orwellian to guys like me that have worked around the media for most of our adult lives. So it’s a concern and the answers are not readily at hand. I don’t think government funding is necessarily the answer either. So there’s some challenges here for sure.
Kelly: You related to a story when you and I talked a couple of days ago about your time in Brantford. You’ve been the news director at CHCH and a number of stations You had an allstar news staff with Tom Cherrington, Dick Beddoes. and Dan McKaren – Connie Smith was part of the gang. That was when they were reporters. I mean, they were people that were employed to go out and get the story to talk to the newsmakers to report on this.
But when newsrooms are decimated as they have been, especially as you say in some small markets with local news, the people that are left, and there’s not that many of them, have no choice but to simply, you know, reprint the press releases that the politicians or others are putting out. The few reporters that are left don’t have time to question – basically all they’re doing is repeating the spin that these people are putting on it. And that’s not good for the public. That’s not good for us to be informed and know what’s going on. There’s a valuable piece of that that’s starting to erode right now and I think we all need to be concerned about the implications of that.
John Best was news Director at CHCH; he is now publisher of the Bay Observer – published as an online newspaper
Best: So what’s left are extreme bloggers, and then the odd person like my myself, trying to sort of do the journalism I was trained to do many years ago. I publish the Bay Observer and try to keep it reasonably up and down. You know, in terms of balance and you know, I look around the city and the quality of the retired journalists in this community right now you could build an all-star team around them, but after they move on there isn’t much to work with.
We have Mohawk College, God bless them. They turned out some fantastic people, including yourself and Connie Smith. They’re dropping their journalism program because there’s no industry for them to feed graduates into. So at some point, you know when the old crew finally really do give it up, I’m just not sure what’s left in terms of people that can ask questions work their contacts.
Younger people now don’t even pick up the phone. So you know, and that’s one of the tools of journalism. You have to actually speak to people to ask them questions and get answers and you can’t do it all by email, and text. It’s too impersonal and you don’t get to the truth. If you can’t look people in the eye when you’re asking them questions.
Kelly: And like I’m not oblivious to the challenges facing you know, media and, and these corporations, the head offices, guys and all that sort of stuff. I get that. And I get the fact that they’ve got their hand out and I get the fact that they’re lobbying the federal government particularly, you know, to give us a help give us financial aid, which is one of the reasons for the legislation, which was so controversial these days. But what I don’t hear from any of them is, is the acknowledgement that hey, maybe we’re part of the problem, too.
Maybe we we’ve done enough to corrupt this business already. Maybe subtracting and basically disarming journalists in the fashion that they have over the last not just couple of years but really the last 10 or 20 years has put them into a predicament right now where they are at and you know, they’ve been part of the problem that for the longest time right now because they think more is going to be more beneficial that concerned about the bottom line. So we’re gonna make cuts whether it’s you know, Lisa LaFlame and CTV as you were just talking, Dan McLaren and Connie from CHCH some years ago, and on and on, it goes.
Then people stop listening, or they stop reading and all of a sudden revenues go down. They don’t seem to understand that Joe and Joanne public,are the connection with the media in this country; they are the ears and eyes the authors, the writers, the journalists, the newscasters, the news, anchors do their work for – and if you’re going to blow them out of the equation, you’ve lost the public, they’re gonna go someplace else, and that’s what they’ve done. They’ve gone to social media.
Best: Well, they have and of course, I mean, social media has is the main reason that we’re having this discussion right now. They have simply siphoned off you know, the old paradigm was people would read newspapers and tune into radio and television to get the news. The advertisers knew that that’s where the value was. They knew there was going to be an audience there and it was going to be a reasonably intelligent audience. And so they wanted to put their commercials next to that product.
But with social media now overwhelming the system the vast majority of that money has gone to them. And we just haven’t figured out a way yet. of, you know, making that whole. I’m not sure this piece of legislation in Ottawa is going to solve the problem. But, you know, I never thought in my time that I would actually see see local news under threat. Then journalism essentially is under threat. And I don’t think I thought the practice of journalism would be this fragile in my time, but there it is. That’s kind of a gloomy thing to say, but I don’t think we can ignore the fact that the news business is in trouble.
Kelly: And I know that some people are going to listen to this conversation because I get this feedback all the time. And all they are you taking shots at you know, the social media, people and journalists. There’s some fine people that make contributions on social media, with their blogs or any other number of vehicles. But there’s some that are not credible and not reliable. And it’s very difficult to tell one from another because basically, there are no guardrails with social media and that can be dangerous in and of itself, too.
And you’re right. I don’t want to be a downer with this whole thing but I’m worried about the future because, you know, information is key, information is power and in the absence of that information, anybody with can fill that void with whatever they want. And there’s always going to be an element of the population that is simply going to say, well, I saw it in print, so it must be true. And that can lead us down a very dangerous road.
Best: Yeah, we’ve kind of lost the shared sense of rules. There were, you know, some fairly basic rules about how news was presented and, you know, some people would paint outside the dots here and there, but generally speaking, there was general agreement on on what should be published and what should not be published and how to do it. That’s, that’s changed. I certainly as long as I’m doing what I’m doing, I’m going to try to continue to work with what worked for me so but it’s going to be tougher for the consumer to sort out who’s who’s got the good stuff and who’s misleading the public and creating more propaganda in the news.
Kelly: Well, I thank you for your contributions, as I say you’ve had a long and admirable career in journalism as well. And you’re continuing that traditional debate with the Bay Observer. It’s important that these communities are served with honest reporting, whether it be good news, bad news, or whatever the case might be. It’s key and absolutely true that that we’ve got to maintain that local contents and it’s not just talking about the bake sale that’s going on at the church around the corner. It’s talking about what goes on at city hall with all of these communities and, you know, the journalists, the All Stars that we all refer to were the ones that had that strength and that ability to talk about those issues and to ask the questions; to drill down and make sure that the public is properly informed. You continue to do that. I will too, in some way, shape or form but not on CHML apparently after today, but that’s a decision somebody else has made and we’ll have to abide by that.
This is not the end of our conversations either. We’ll just pick it up another time in another place.
I’m sure you’ve seen some of the outpouring of community support on social media. People really appreciate what you’ve done and every bit of praise that I’ve seen online is well deserved and I know you are not going to be silenced. Maybe you and I will actually figure something out at some point.
Bill Kelly and John Best were part of the way news was done that we will live to regret losing. The City of Burlington has a staff of three communications advisers who, as Best describes it, crank our the story the City wants the public to read. If we attempt to be in touch with a city staffer we get shunted along to the advisers who take our questions and come back with an answer which is frequently incomplete. There is no interview.
Both Blair and Stephen have made very valid points. Thank you Stephen for addressing Anne and Dave Marsden. While Anne is the mouthpiece our Pro Bono Ministry as health, safety and access advocates is very much a joint affair. Our Enraged Citizens of Burlington is not tongue in cheek, we have held conversations with many of them. Not everyone is comfortable with putting their names front and centre. However, the success of ECOB tells us that it is possible to repeat that kind of enthusiasm and with our experiences of the last five years understand there will be those whose participation is based on self serving career aspirations rather than the well-being of our city as is the goal of those who we know have kept at it despite those like the Clerk and our Mayor thumbing their noses at the Engagement Charter that many worked hard to bring to be accepted by the City.
Blair is absolutely right about the control Meed Ward has (now had) over the Bill Kelly and as well CHCH interviews. CHML and CHCH have a responsibility to their viewers and listeners. There is nothing wrong with Enraged Citizens demanding equal time. But first we have to be organized and seen to be present before we make those demands.
Peny Hersh and others she can pull in would be a major asset in getting Enraged Citizens of Burlington organized and putting together petitions to Council that CANNOT BE IGNORED, to address the issues that have caused us to become enraged rather than engaged as we are supposed to be.
A great interview that highlights the sad demise of journalism in this country. Equally sad to read that Mohawk is dropping their journalism program. Sadly, social media has done much to sap the vitality of investigative journalism. Now every sixteen year old with a smartphone can now post to Instagram or Facebook, and somehow, that is considered both insightful and informed.
Burlington has long struggled with an apathetic electorate. Part of the challenge is that we have a large commuter population with many residents who have moved here from much larger centres (e.g. Toronto, Mississauga, Montreal), and where previously, they had no community connection or involvement. Unless one has a burning issue that inspires them, a connection with a local councillor or trustee, or has the time and energy to participate, the level of political engagement remains weak.
Anne and Dave Marsden, in a previous comment on another article, suggested, perhaps “tongue in cheek”, bringing back “Enraged Citizens of Burlington” (ECOB). I’ll go one step further. I think we really need a municipal political party in Burlington, similar to what exists in Montreal and Vancouver. A core, vetted slate of candidates with a common platform sharing a uniform funding model and campaign organization, could not only trigger greater participation but would certainly garner public attention.
There really is no major media outlet in the Hsmilton/Burlington area that holds our politicians to account, asks the difficult questions and challenges the responses from the ‘high ground’ of unbiased, well-founded research. I give credit to both the Bay Observer and the Burlington Gazette for trying to maintain the integrity of local reporting. Both need our active support.
I think that both Kelly and Best make the type of insightful observations that only come from years of experience. Ironically, though, Kelly never really challenged Meed Ward but accepted her messages very uncritically. Had he, I doubt that Meed Ward would have been a regular on his program. Meed Ward does not go, if she has a choice, where she is not on friendly ground and does not control the communication. She has never held a press conference where the questions could be difficult, she (in my opinion) holds the pen on all critical statements (joint or otherwise) and rarely, again in my opinion, addresses an issue without practised misdirection and “spin” that would make a ballet dancer envious.
One of the most serious and disappointing of problems is that the people of Burlington just don’t seem to care. Whether it is completely apathetic indifference, the belief that nothing can be done or, worst of all, a fatalism that individuals can no longer make a difference in today’s democracy – the end result is the same. There was a truism that ‘if you encountered a Canadian who would not debate either politics or religion, then they were dead”. Sadly, I am looking for the corpses.