On Wednesday, November 23, the Public Order Emergency Commission presented a summary report on the views contained in the 9,500 or so submissions it had received from the public.
The summary can be found here:
https://publicorderemergencycommission.ca/files/documents/Presentations/Summary-Public-Consultation-Résumé-Consultation-publique.pdf
The summary report contained a section on public views of medius coverage of the “Freedom Convoy.”
I asked a distinguished colleague and veteran journalist to write about this, and to my great pleasure, he agreed. You will find an entirely too modest, short bio of Dean below. His thoughts follow.
Dean Beeby is an independent journalist and author in Ottawa, specializing in freedom of information laws. His journalism blog can be found at deanbeeby.ca
Dean Beeby writes:
News media flooded the zone during the 2022 convoy protests in downtown Ottawa and at a few choke-points across the country.
So it’s surprising that a newly released report on thousands of public submissions to the Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC) has little to say about their role.
The commission issued an open invitation to the public to provide views and input, in French or English. Emails and snail-mails were encouraged. An online questionnaire was also offered, with three open-ended questions (none of which referred to news media). Anonymity was guaranteed. Between Aug. 18 and Oct. 31, almost 9,500 people took up the offer.
There was nothing remotely scientific about the survey. Participants were invited to describe their personal experience of the convoys. They were pressed to volunteer some minimal demographics. They were asked: “how did you feel?” The report says a “broad spectrum” of Canadians participated, but no breakdown was provided.
These increasingly common government surveys (better termed venting exercises) are a dog’s breakfast to summarize. Pity the analysts who had to distill something meaningful from them.
For what it’s worth, Section 8 – “Media coverage of the protests: misrepresentation and excessive media coverage” – describes the views of protestors, highlighted in six bullet points and one quote. “Media lied about all of it. They wanted people not in Ottawa, to think the protestors were a bunch of redneck hooligans causing mayhem. … these lies are what our gov’t based the invocation of the Emergencies Act on.”
The bullet points cite “low levels of trust for mainstream media.” “Traditional” media were biased, misrepresented the facts. “Excessive media coverage” and misrepresentation caused “emotional distress” for the protestors. None of this is new or surprising.
There’s no question that reporters, especially women, were intimidated and harassed in downtown Ottawa and elsewhere, before and after the protests, in person and online. Some of the images, texts and videos recording these interactions are chilling. There was some isolated vandalism. Media groups spoke out at the time, citing concrete instances of harassment, threats and intimidation (Canadian Association of Journalists – Feb. 4; CBC, Feb. 8; World Press Freedom Canada, Feb. 20).
The POEC public-submission report is silent on these clashes, with no reference to street-level altercations, whether they were somehow justified, or imagined, or the work of bad apples. Section 8 does record that dubious allegation claiming the Trudeau government invoked the Emergencies Act based on torqued media coverage. That’s a stretch.
There’s one dart, though, that stings: “Many do not believe traditional sources of media, because these organizations receive subsidies from the state and are de facto mouthpieces of the government.” This may be a kick at the CBC, dubbed the “state broadcaster” by detractors because of its billion-dollar annual appropriation from Parliament.
But it also likely references Ottawa’s recent bailouts to struggling newsrooms, starting with a $600-million emergency fund. This is fair comment, and will haunt the sector for years.
Otherwise, the shaky survey report does little to illuminate reporters’ lived experience of the convoy protests, and their interface with protestors.
Notably, the document’s only other mention of the news media is in Section 26, “General recommendations from the public” – and here newsrooms can take some comfort.
A sentiment expressed by respondents is condensed in the final paragraph of the 57-page report, as follows: “There should be better support for the press and journalists, who have an essential function in countering misinformation.”