Irresponsible Journalism – Black Press does it again

Considering nothing gets printed without some newspaper editor approving an article written by someone who is still a student of sorts, puts the blame on Black Press who put quantity of articles over quality of journalism.

In their recent article by Viktor Elias  a final-year undergraduate and graduate student in the School of Journalism is  also the author of the article “CGL pipeline disrupts amphibian migration: Kitimat environmental groups.” posted in 5 community newspapers and or possibly more, Burns Lake, Houston, Kitimat, Terrace and Prince Rupert.  maximizing exposure of a very misleading story.

There was a concerted effort put forward by Black Press to push this story.

First of all the article breaks away from “Principles for Ethical Journalism” – intended to help both seasoned professionals and new journalists to hold themselves accountable for professional work.”

Let’s start with facts and fairness. This article assumes (you do know the meaning of the word assume?) that the sources, of the “two local environmentalist groups raising concerns about the Coastal GasLink (CGL) pipeline construction?   Are actually groups representing a meaningful  number of Kitimat or local residents, and not just a few radicals taking advantage of an inexperienced journalist?

When a journalist gives people the impression that a small handful of people represent the concerns of an entire community, you are in fact misleading the community locally and communities nearby. You as a journalist have a duty to check out your sources, did you do that?

Did you verify how many members the Kitimat Valley Naturalists actually have? Did you check to see if the society exists beyond its founder? Our research shows Kitimat has in 2021 a population of 8,236 and the membership of the Kitimat Valley Naturalists represents significantly less than 1% of the Kitimat population.

Next we checked their websites claim to be a non-profit organization, no such organization is listed as a charity, in spite of their collecting money for memberships. Everything seems to come back to Walter and Jim and Susan Thorne. Hardly representative of the people of Kitimat.

Please do not get the wrong impression, even I care about nature inclusive of amphibians in the Kitimat wetlands, but a more important question is if or not nature is being used by people opposed to natural gas, and consequently are using these critters as an excuse to bash the CGL LNG project?

Worse is that Black Press is giving them the stage to do it.

Indeed the Thorne family did not at any time show that they even did studies into the migration routes and patterns of amphibian life. Yet somehow CGL was able to relocated 725,000 amphibians found on the roadway to what they deemed “suitable release sites within or as close to their source as possible.”

Watch the video below, the claims made by these extremists are absolutely ridiculous they are vexatious and frivolous. Every effort is being made to do this right, but when you oppose the use of gas, then nothing you do will ever be good enough, and every excuse to lie and deceive is on the table. These people are a detriment to society, not an asset and not a benefit to our communities. And here we have Black Press giving them the stage to cheat our communities out of the truth. Shame on you.

I don’t wish to go off track here but this obsessions with stopping natural gas comes at the price of increased use of coal, but these vexatious individuals do not care, they have a one track mind.

My bet is that Viktor Elias never requested to go out on site and see for himself the amount of time and effort are going towards protecting the environment, maybe controversy and keeping people divided sells more stories. Stores like this one are a disservice to our communities.

Now let’s look at the second source Viktor Elias uses, the Douglas Channel Watch. Who is the Douglas Channel Watch, what is their membership? To answer that one needs to look back in history and understand social media. Douglas Channel Watch is a Facebook Page owned and operated by ONE person. It does not exist as an organization, it has no elected board or a website. There is no such organization as the Douglas Channel Watch Society.

The page is owned by Cheryl Brown a well known activist opposing all oil and gas development, period. She is known to have a few followers, a David G McRae (from Victoria BC) then a Patricia Lange back in 2014, and not public since. A Murray Minchin who was also an Enbridge activist also not active since the Enbridge project died.

Membership, none exist on public record, so were down to the has been absentee members and the page owner. It most certainly does not represent the collective will of the residents of Kitimat.

But somehow Viktor Elias still makes it look like the evil empire is CGL with his closing quote “The Kitimat Valley Naturalists and Douglas Channel Watch are calling for a more thorough assessment of the situation and increased consultation with local experts to mitigate the impact on the wetland ecosystem.”

No mention as to whom the local experts are, its just eye candy to appear legitimate. Obviously nobody interviewed these local experts as is evidenced by the absence of their opinions in this article.

Viktor Elias allows a tiny handful (that number is already an exaggeration) of radical left wing protesters to appear to be representative of the people of Kitimat, that is really bad journalism.

Would it be misleading to suggest 2 people opposed to this project are being made to look like they represent an entire community?

Responsible Journalism?

Without northern industry, Black Press would not have existed in almost every town and city between Prince George and Prince Rupert. Granted industry does need to be kept in check, its why government has regulations that we the people elected them to make.

Crappy journalism is when you slam an industry, using sources that might not even exist, and or made by unnamed sources, backed up by hearsay evidence all in the name of having a story to headline?

Given CGL has poured millions of dollars into local organizations and businesses that in turn also supported Black Press one would logically expect a more responsible approach to stories printed as opposed to publishing gossip as your main story.

This story like many others Black Press has published is TABLOID JOURNALISM.

One could hardly make the claim they (CGL) are not a great asset and contributor to a positive lifestyle here in the northwest. We have all witnessed that CGL interactions have been a tremendous turn around from industry in the past, and witnesses how they worked with local communities and for Black Press to allow bashing on this level is extremely irresponsible.