How say you Mr. James Bezan?

James Bezan, Member of Parliament Selkirk-Interlake

Hill Office
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6
Telephone: (613) 992-2032
Facsimile: (613) 992-6224
Email: james.bezan@parl.gc.ca
Website: www.jamesbezan.com/

Constituency Office
374 Main Street
Selkird, Manitoba
R1A 1T7
Telephone: (204) 785-6151
Facsimile: (204) 785-6153

Good Day Readers:

First met former Selkirk Record reporter Jill Winzoski while covering the high profile Mark Stobbe second degree murder trial in Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench earlier this year. She always came across as a dedicated, conscientious and professional member of the media.

Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk

Love, truth and politics collide in rural Manitoba
By Michael Harris
Thursday, November 8, 2012

A few days ago in this space, I introduced you to Jill Winzoski, a young reporter working freelance in the catfish capital of the world, Selkirk, Manitoba.

Jill lost her job, and a long-dangled staff position at the Selkirk Record, because her federal MP James Bezan didn’t like her “biased” reporting against the Harper government. At one point, the paper’s owner suggested that Jill do a glowing “day in the life of Bezan” article in an attempt to jolly along the unhappy MP, who had complained about Jill before.

“I told Maxwell, (Record editor Donna Maxwell) and she flat-out refused to allow me to do it,” Jill recalled.

Good on Maxwell. The young reporter had promised already not to write about federal politics in a desperate bid to try to keep her job. Things went from bad to worse right after Jill signed a petition critical of the Harper government’s Canada/China trade deal.

MP Bezan had had enough. He wanted a new reporter assigned to him at the Selkirk Record or he wouldn’t deal with the paper anymore. He got more than he asked for; Jill got the boot. The MP said that was never his intention and I am sure several family members admire his compassion. His remorse travelled a very measured distance — just far enough to make sure he wouldn’t be blamed for the sacking.

The newspaper is hanging its hat on a technicality over what happened. Since Jill never had a staff job, she wasn’t fired — just … discontinued. As for James Bezan, he of course had nothing to do with anything, blah, blah, blah …

Today, I would like you to meet Jim Mosher. He works for The Enterprise, a small paper that “covers Highways 6,7,8, and 9 — plus Regions and Beyond” in rural Manitoba. The picture of Jill below was taken by Jim on the Friday Jill lost her gig back in October.

Jim is a veteran reporter who has written extensively for over 20 years about Manitoba subjects, including the perennial problems of Lake Winnipeg.

When Jill fell afoul of her MP, Jim understood better than most. He once worked for a paper called The Spectator. When it comes to the the practise of freedom of the press, the rules at the Spectator were pretty much like the ones operating at the Selkirk Record. Jim also lost his job. It was not something he wrote that put him out of work. Jim got the axe for printing the wrong kind of letter to the editor, an unpardonable sin for which he refused to apologize: “The Spectator fired me two years ago after I printed a letter critical of Sun Media. They decided to expurgate my name from most pieces I wrote in my ten years with them …”

The Orwellian government of “1984″ knew what to do with people like Jim — down the memory hole he went.

You will learn a lot about Jim by the time you finish reading this piece, but there is one important fact that should be stated from the very beginning. Jim loves Jill. Outside of each other, they have a lot in common. Jim and Jill have gone down the hill over their separate efforts to practise free speech and freedom of the press here in Canada. Still, Jim thinks his love for Jill is something that everyone who is reading this should know. Now you know.

So ask yourself: Did Jim do what you are about to find out he did because he was in love? Or did he do it because he was horrified by what is happening to journalism in his neck of the woods — and arguably, in quite a few other places where newspapers can actually afford liability insurance (his paper can’t) and reporters aren’t asked to do puff-pieces to keep the local MP happy?

Under the headline, A SAD DAY FOR US ALL, Jim wrote his heart out over what had happened to Jill and to journalism. He wrote about “Stephen Harper’s penchant for shutting out criticism — often using deplorable tactics.” He talked about Winzoski’s right as a private citizen to sign an online petition, even if she did toughen up the subject line. He reported that Conservative MP James Bezan had stopped advertising in the newspapers in his riding, the Interlake Enterprise and the Selkirk Record.

“Instead,” Jim wrote, “he advertises in Interlake Publishing newspapers, owned by Quebec-based Sun Media, an outlet that is stridently pro-Conservative.” He wondered why this “strong and engaged woman’s email” to James Bezan ended up in the hands of Jill’s employer. “It appears, however, that MPs can share correspondence with anyone of their choosing, unless it bears the letterhead of a parliamentarian, in this case, James Bezan’s.”

Before finishing his article, Jim said that MP Bezan had every right to advertise where he pleases, although “it may not be surprising that he chooses to advertise in newspapers that do not disparage or criticize the Harper government.” And he noted something that quite a few people seem to have forgotten — not all of them in rural Manitoba.

“The prime minister once famously said that Canadians would not recognize their country once he was finished — that to a gaggle of American businessmen, but let’s not lose the point. We are getting it, nevertheless.”

If Jim wrote those words because he loves Jill, my observation would be that love sounds a lot like Journalism 101. In any case, whether it was love or principle, it didn’t matter. In the end, Jim’s paper blinked. His exclusive story was rejected. Perhaps someone there worried that MP Bezan would not be pleased. I guess it could also have been the love thing. Whatever it was, Jim was kind: “Not blaming my owners for that one; I may have done the same thing, though I like to think not.”

As for MP Bezan, he has yet to respond to my email or a call to his home placed last Sunday before the first Jill column was published. But he did issue a press release accusing iPolitics of taking his emails to Jill Winzoski out of context.

Actually, context is the least of James Bezan’s problems. He has turned himself into Richard Nexen over the Harper government’s ruminations about doing dubious business with China. On the one hand, dead against selling a Canadian company to a country with a dismal human rights record, on the other, proud as punch over the PM’s dynamic Big Deal with Communist China. It’s called riding two horses with one behind. James Bezan is not the first political acrobat to try it and he won’t be the last.

And so back to just plain Jim. He could soon be in the same position as Jill, looking for a job. And that is why the story of Jim and Jill counts. These small town journalists are still fighting battles that some of their big city cousins have long since stopped contesting. Now we have media companies giving radio shows to politicians, entire news services set up to promote the government, and TV panels filled with partisan hacks posing as experts and insiders.

Last word to Jim. This is what he had to say about the risks he has taken to tell this most inconvenient story to Canadians. “The timeliness of this matter is beyond personal loss or gain … We have all become too slavish in media, particularly of my country ilk, in regurgitating the press releases of our MPs.

“Jill was decidedly not that kind of reporter. She dug deeper than most of us, me included. We get tired and lazy — just want to fill the white space.”

Meanwhile, one of the owners of Interlake Graphics, which launched three free weeklies in 2010, including the Selkirk Record, told the Winnipeg Free Press about the company task. It was to get onto the radar screen of the provincial and federal governments to ensure they were part of the media buys for governments ad campaigns.

Jill just didn’t understand what all that white space was for.

Readers can reach the author at michaelharris@ipolitics.ca. Click here to view other columns by Michael Harris.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.

Michael Harris is a writer, journalist and documentary filmmaker. He was awarded a Doctor of Laws for his "unceasing pursuit of justice for the less the less unfortunate among us.

His eight books Justice Denied, Unholy Orders, Rare Ambition, Lament for an Ocean, and Con Game. His work has sparked for Commissions of Inquiry and three of his books have been made into movies.

He is currently working on a book about the Harper majority government to be published in the autumn of 2014 by Penguin Canada.