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The Vancouver Sun Will Print Religious Bigotry, So Long as It’s “Opinion”
It seemed simple enough. The Vancouver Sun printed an article containing a lie concerning the Church of Scientology. STAND wrote the paper requesting the article be corrected because “it marginalizes Scientologists with misinformation promulgated to incite hate.”
Simple fix, right? You mistakenly publish an untruth, you retract it, correct it, and we all move on. But no, Harold Munro, The Sun’s editor-in-chief, replied, “This is an opinion column published on the editorial page, and therefore qualifies as fair comment.”
In other words, The Sun will print antireligious propaganda or outright lies about anyone, so long as it’s “an opinion column published on the editorial page, and therefore qualifies as fair comment.”
Anyone, in fact, can make up whatever hate-filled, slanted, biased character assassination on any group they want and The Sun will publish it so long as it’s “an opinion column published on the editorial page, and therefore qualifies as fair comment.”
Simple fix, right? You mistakenly publish an untruth, you retract it, correct it, and we all move on.
Where does The Vancouver Sun get off with this outrageous and hilarious-if-it-wasn’t-so-dangerous editorial policy? Well, for one thing, in 2015, it was acquired by Postmedia, owner of Sun Media, and is now part of its family of tabloid papers.
Harold Munro describes himself as a “lover of constructive conversation” and remarks, “I work with a remarkable team of storytellers.”
One waits in vain for any “constructive conversation” regarding journalistic integrity from Mr. Munro. Meanwhile, his “remarkable team of storytellers” are apparently allowed to churn out just that: stories. And wrong and offensive stories can be printed, no matter how false and inflammatory, so long as it’s “an opinion column published on the editorial page, and therefore qualifies as fair comment.”
Come on, Mr. Munro. It’s time to bring some journalistic integrity back to your paper. Your bigotry is showing, and you are embarrassing yourself.
