BCCLA Slams Terrace RCMP Detachment
Tuesday, September 4, 2012 @ 3:53 AM
Terrace, B.C. – The BC Civil Liberties Association has accused the Terrace RCMP of meddling with the media.
The BCCLA has issued a news release calling on the RCMP to get out the editorial and media policy business. The complaint is based on allegations made by The Terrace Daily Online web publication that the Terrace detachment cut them off from its media releases after an article lampooning the police and Terrace’s mayor appeared on the site.
BCCLA President Lindsay Lyster says the association is also concerned about a letter sent by Terrace RCMP Detachment Commander Inspector Dana Hart to the CRTC in support of Bell Media’s takeover bid of Astral Media.
“The RCMP may well prefer the coverage of one media outlet to the other,” says Lyster, “but retaliation for negative coverage by withholding public information is not acceptable, nor is using an impartial public platform to advocate for the private interests of media outlets that provide favourable coverage. We are calling on the RCMP to review this situation, reinstate the Terrace Daily’s status as a media outlet that receives RCMP press releases, and to correct the record around the force’s apparent support of a private media merger.”
Inspector Dana Hart maintains that his letter to the CRTC has been misinterpreted and he has requested that it be removed from the record.
“It was never my intention to represent the RCMP, nor is it representative of the official position of the RCMP. I was simply supporting a request from a local broadcaster whom has been supportive of our detachment’s efforts to make this community safe. Regrettably others are misinterpreting it for their own political and/or personal agendas.”
Hart says his detachment is committed to providing information to “credible media organizations” regardless of whether or not they are critical of the RCMP.
Comments
This entire article from the BCCLA is one sided.
It leaves out some important information, namely that the Terrace Daily printed editorial after editorial which kept callingthe local RCMP racist thugs. You can read some for yourself some of these by simply searching google.
https://www.google.ca/search?q=site%3Aterracedaily.ca+rcmp
They start around page two in results.
I would say the real issue is that the editor of the Terrace Daily has a huge problem with business, authority, and white people. You never, ever see him write anything negative about first nations or environmental groups, but he’s always willing to run a hit job bordering on libel against white people, business and authority.
So, you end up in a predicament where one of Terrace’s news sources is filtered through a lense very much distorted by prejudice, although that prejudice is a little different than what we’re all used to.
I think this is the article that really started it all, but I have no way of knowing for sure.
http://www.terracedaily.ca/go9879a/SOME_MIRTH_ON_THE_TERRACE_RCMP_-_POKING_THE_TIGER
Read it for yourself.
Thanks Pojeb, very informative Too many folks these days like to bash police. Yes, there are a few bad apples, but damn, there’s a whole bunch of good cops out there!
BC Racer: I agree, what I believe is the BCCLA is made up of lawyers who couldn’t make it in the private sector, appointed by some bleeding heart MP or MLA along the way somewhere.
I think you folks are missing the point. The RCMP, like other government agencies, does not get to pick and choose to whom it provides press releases. However critical of the RCMP the Terrace Daily may be, the RCMP has no right to cut them out.
You don’t see the RCMP submitting their press releases to supermarket tabloids either.
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