LARRY'S CORNER- Hamilton's Former Mayor Speaks

The Role of Media in the City of Hamilton

By Larry Di Ianni
(posted November 10, 2008)

UPDATE: November 18 2008:

In this column, I mentioned the online interactive magazine, Raise The Hammer. I also referenced an ‘uncorroborated’ piece of information that someone from the Mayor’s office was ‘until some recent staff changes, a constant contributor to the opinions in these pages”.

I was contacted by RTH and in the interest of accuracy, let me state that I did indicate the information was not independently corroborated. I also wasn’t precise with the word ‘contributor’. RTH identifies all of its contributors. I was referring to the anonymous participants in the online discussions. This is where, I have been told, someone from that office used to occupy lots of time. However, I repeat, this was given to me as information which I have no way of corroborating. More to the point, RTH recognizes the delicate balance between ‘privacy and accountability, and between freedom of expression and the necessary terms for constructive debate.’ I would add that someone being paid by the taxpayer should not engage in ‘spinning’ political messages on behalf of his party or political master during company time, if that is indeed what was happening. RTH isn’t the problem IF this occurs; the problem is elsewhere.

I thank RTH for allowing me to clarify this.
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Contrary to one of Hamilton’s urban myths that this city is a ‘one-horse’ town when it comes to the media, the Hammer is actually replete with media sources, albeit many of them would fall into the ‘alternative media’ category. Consider this list: The Hamilton Spectator, Hamilton Weekly News (formerly the Brabant papers), ChCh T.V., Hamilton Cable 14, 900Chml, Talk820Cham, K-Lite FM, CKOC, CMFU (McMaster), Mohawk College Radio, The Bay Observer (a new weekly), Raise The Hammer (an on-line interactive magazine), and even CATCH which is more of a political party than a news magazine but it does publish on-line articles regularly. And these are the ‘news’ media. There are others, of course, that are purely culture and entertainment media.

In spite of this plethora of media in our town, if I heard any repeated complaint during my tenure as Mayor and Councillor in Hamilton is that there is media concentration and media ‘group-think’ in our city. Perhaps that is true as far as the mainstream media is concerned, but less so with the alternative media. Even at that, the ‘concentration’ is more the result of poor budgets for news gathering than institutional group-think by the reporters. For example, because the radio and television stations are not given enough staff to research their own stories, the media takes its cue from each other. So, if the Spec covers a story, the others follow-up, making it seem as if there is only one source in the city.

Another complaint I often heard is that the media is too negative on the city. The Hamilton Spectator has often come under particular attack from Hamiltonians who see the paper as too negative, too parochial, filled with left-wing bias, or favouring the status quo and old-boys’ network, depending on which side of the political spectrum you happen favour. There is certainly bias within the paper. I can certainly recount personal stories; however, the paper tries the best it can. The new Editor-in-Chief is attempting to stake out an identity for the paper’s struggling viewpoints, and I can see subtle differences. The paper also tries to broaden its editorials with regular contributions by ordinary citizens and that is always fascinating to read what is on the minds of these fellow travelers.

The various community weekly papers (Stoney Creek News, Mountain News, Dundas Star etc.) formerly owned by the Brabant group, now Hamilton Community News, owned by the same company that publishes The Spectator try to cover their communities in an independent way that occasionally comes into conflict with some Spectator personalities and hierarchy. Recall the furore when the Hamilton Weekly broke the story on Mayor Fred leaking confidential information to a Spectator columnist. The mother paper was apoplectic, I understand. However, the Managing Editor of the Weekly stood by his criticism of the role of the Spectator columnist. The mother paper, however, did manage to kill the ‘scoop’ by the weekly’s reporter and the hub-hub also cost this reporter his regular column as well as a guest-column on this very website. This reporter was often critical of City Hall happenings and what he perceived as a lackluster performance by the Mayor. The Mayor’s office had a hand in exorcising what they felt to be a thorn on their side, I understand. It is interesting that this story of potential political meddling in the media has never been told.

The Hamilton Weekly paper also seemed to give better coverage to the Hamilton Waterfall story than the mother paper has so far done. That is too bad. This is a good news story that deserves major attention.

But other media have also come in for criticism. CH CH T.V., although it does have a lot of local programming and great local personalities, is controlled by Toronto and its reportage often reflects that accusation. CHML does a valiant job of covering the news and offering opinions especially with the intelligent, topical, and avuncular, Bill Kelly having taken over from the hard-edged Roy Green. Hamilton has just added a new all-talk radio station with Talk-820 and that augurs well for those who love opinions. Under my tenure as Mayor, we even began lobbying the CBC to open a Hamilton studio to give us more breadth of reporting for the city. I know that the Mayor’s office was still working on this endeavour until recently, but to what end remains a mystery.

Recently, a new ‘mainstream’ weekly paper has been published called “The Bay Observer” which writes on happenings in Hamilton and Burlington. The paper has a circulation of 30,000 readers I understand and its content seems to be blunt but fair. They have already had one scoop in apparently exposing the lack of transparency related to Hamilton’s Waterfront Trust when it comes to financial matters. Hamilton Council, I understand, will now receive audited financial statements from this group. Just for the record, the Hamilton Trust has been responsible for all the good things that are happening at the waterfront and I have always been a big fan of their work, even though, I agree that transparency is good. This paper has also raised the lack of leadership in Hamilton’s Mayor’s office as an early theme and one has to wonder if their position isn’t filling the void of scrutiny vacated by The Spectator? It will be interesting to see how this paper develops.

It is always entertaining to read Raise the Hammer with its interactive content. This paper covers the news from a ‘progressive’ perspective and then invites readers to offer opinions. The paper’s left-of-center approach is clearly obvious; and their habit of vilifying any opposing views is readily ascertainable. They would strengthen their defence, which is that anyone can post a response to their thoughts, if they forced people to identify themselves. Anonymous opinions aren’t worth as much as transparent ones in my estimation. It is also my understanding that the Mayor’s office used to be, until some recent staff changes, a constant contributor to the opinions in these pages, but I haven’t had any independent corroboration of this.

And of course there is CATCH, a political party masquerading as a ‘media’ outlet. This group lines itself up alongside the media at city hall, records events and then writes articles slanted to their particular perspective, which is usually anti-business, and pro-unfettered taxation of Hamilton’s ratepayers. This group wants to kill the airport land development, eschews user fees on transit preferring that taxes be raised on the general levy to name just a couple of positions. What makes them an odd ‘media’ group is that at one moment they are behaving as reporters, albeit biased ones, and in the next minute some of them line up as ‘citizen’ reps making presentations to Council espousing a particular solution to a pressing problem. They are at the same time monitors and presenters, observers of the game and players in the game. It is this confused identity that some of their readers find perplexing. I find it amusing! They have one adherent on Council who usually mouths their words; and the Mayor fears them, but their influence has waned as people around the table have come to know what they are up to. The group does serve a purpose however. They offer up a different view of the world and they faithfully record verbatim conversations around the table. No one else does that!

The media, mainstream and unconventional, in its totality offer up diverse philosophies and viewpoints for readers to enjoy and be informed or entertained by. All of this is good. The media players, those who are paid and those who are dilettantes also deserve some attention, but that would be food for another column. In the meantime, let us all relish the democracy we have, especially as we approach November 11 and its historic importance, a date that allows us to say thank you to the brave Hamiltonians who fought and sometimes died to preserve the freedom of speech we often take for granted.

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