Challenges of reporting cited by National News Council in investigation of complaint over Northern View's Fire coverage of Sunday

Prince Rupert's Northern View newspaper has heard back from a
self-regulatory body that investigated a complaint into their
recent coverage of the waterfront fire

The National NewsMedia Council, a self-regulatory body for the Canadian news media has delivered a decision on a recent complaint that was made related to the Northern View's coverage of Sunday's waterfront fire.

With the findings of the Council determining that the weekly paper had taken sufficient corrective action to consider the issues raised as resolved.

The details of the decision were posted to the Northern View's website on Thursday afternoon which reviewed the findings of the Council in a file known as 2020-18 Beatty v Northern View.

The background to the complaint noted that the applicant was concerned about the nature of the article on the fire which included a sub headline "No word whether its associated with blockade protests" the applicant observing in his complaint that it was included without any factual basis.

The Northern View article (which you can read here) provides the background to the decision and the areas of interest that the Media Council reviewed, making note of the updated versions of the article that addressed the speculation that had been raised by the initial sub-headline.

 Among the key themes to their review included the following passage:

The NNC recognizes the challenges faced by newsrooms when reporting important information to the community in a timely manner, and that the details of this story were still emerging at the time of the complaint. That said, ethical journalism takes care to avoid exposing groups to discrimination, particularly when such groups may be targets in a highly polarized political and social context.

The final notes of the Northern View article delivers the verdict of the Council on the issue

The NNC also notes that the news media organization followed best practice by noting in the headline that the story had been updated, and that it took steps to close comments on a story where facts are still emerging and potential for inflammatory conjecture is high.

The NNC considers this matter resolved due to corrective action.

The ruling has not as of yet, been included as part of the archives of the National News Council website.

On their website, the formation of the council is described as providing for two aims: to serve as a forum for complaints against its members and to promote ethical practices within the news media industry.

The regulatory council was formed in 2015 following the amalgamation of a number newspapers across Canada, established to provide for a consistent and fair approach to complaints against member news organizations.

The Northern View, a Black Press publication, is one of the many newspapers nationwide that are currently listed as members of the Council.

When it comes to the resolution of complaints, the National News Council's guidelines provide a snapshot as to how they approach their work:

News media organizations are not obliged to publish every letter received 

The Council supports the broad leeway of editorial writers to express strong or unpopular viewpoints 

The NewsMedia Council cannot compel a news media organization to make an apology 

If the complaint is upheld, the news media organization will publish, at minimum, a summary of the decision and link to the full decision on the NNC website, and add that link with an appropriate editor’s note to the article if it is online.

More on their complaints process can be explored here.

While their findings may make for the final word on the Fire coverage from the self-regulatory body, members of the community, as well as the forum of Social Media probably will still have a few observations to make.

Though anyone wishing to share thoughts with the Northern View team will most likely have to stop into their Fraser Street offices for a personal chat.

The Northern View article on the decision of Thursday has closed the comments section and so far, the story has not been included on the Northern View Facebook page and made available for the comment process that their social media portal provides for.

For more notes on the media in the Northwest see our archive page here.