Journalists shouldn’t become the news

“It is not appropriate for Star journalists to play the roles of both actor and critic.”

— Toronto Star Newsroom Policy and Journalistic Standards Manual

It has long been Toronto Star policy that journalists do not take public stands on public issues or become the news. This policy is aligned with long-standing journalistic values and the ethics policies of most credible news organizations in Canada, the U.S. and around the world. These policies hold that journalists must not cross over into direct activism and personal participation in causes that go beyond their writing.

Our policies state that Star journalists must avoid participation in demonstrations or signing of petitions, including online petitions and social media campaigns. Further, “editorial employees” must “avoid active participation in community organizations and pressure groups that take positions on public issues.”

Given these standards, I know I was not the only Star journalist who became somewhat uneasy upon reading that a meeting of the Toronto Police Services Board came to an abrupt end recently when journalist and activist Desmond Cole admonished board members for failing to destroy carding data, then stalled the proceedings by refusing to leave the speaker’s chair.

As the Star’s Wendy Gillis reported, Cole, then a freelance Star columnist, had been making a public deputation about the controversial police practice of “carding” when he announced he would launch an immediate protest if the board did not agree to put stricter constraints on police access to the data collected through what he termed the “illicit” practice.

Until this week, Cole wrote a biweekly column for the Star’s opinion pages.

On Thursday, without any advance notice to the Star, he took to social media to announce he has decided to stop writing the column.

Earlier this week, Andrew Phillips, the Star’s editorial page editor who is responsible for the opinion pages, talked with Cole to make him aware of the Star’s policies regarding journalism and activism and the fact that its standards apply to the Star’s freelancers.

That, too, is clearly stated in the standards manual but seemingly had not been communicated to Cole in the past.

To be clear, Cole was not fired by the Star, as some have suggested, nor disciplined or threatened with any consequences. Phillips apprised Cole of the Star’s policies and told him he hoped he would stay on as a freelance columnist. Unfortunately, Cole chose not to.

While being a columnist provides some measure of latitude to take public stands in line with the views expressed in columns — and certainly Cole’s Star columns have made clear his well-founded, passionate dissent with the practice of police carding — the Star had understandable concerns that Cole’s actions in disrupting a public meeting and becoming the news went beyond that latitude.

As a result of that discussion, which I am told was a “cordial” chat in which Cole indicated he understood his actions were outside the parameters of the Star’s policies, Cole opted to stop writing for the Star.

“@TorontoStar says I can’t be a columnist and an activist at the same time, so I’m giving up my column,” he tweeted Thursday.

In a longer blog post explaining his decision, he wrote, “If I must choose between a newspaper column and the actions I must take to liberate myself and my community, I choose activism in the service of Black liberation.”

I am sorry Cole’s strong voice will no longer be a regular part of the Star.

While the Star has made considerable strides forward in publishing a greater diversity of voices, I believe it still needs more diverse voices in both its news and opinion pages.

I was happy when the Star sought Cole out and asked him to write a regular column in September 2015.

But, as public editor with responsibility for overseeing the Star’s policies, I agree with the Star’s concerns about Cole’s recent actions at the public police board meeting.

While there is some precedent at the Star for columnists — not news reporters — to take an advocacy stance in the community, the fact that a public meeting of a democratic municipal government committee discussing an important matter of public interest was brought to a halt as a result of Cole’s actions would seem to go beyond advocacy to an entirely different level of the journalist/activist becoming the story.

Further, I think those actions went further than whatever latitude to act as advocates the newsroom granted in the past to some former Star columnists, such as Catherine Porter.

As well, it should be noted that the Star had no issues with Cole participating in demonstrations (as Porter had with the consent of her editors. Though, for the record, I was never comfortable with that, either.)

It was only when Cole became the story by his protest at the police board that he took his activism to a new level that became of concern to the Star.

Cole’s actions at the police board made him the story on an important public issue the Star has strived to cover fairly and persistently.

The Star, as an institution, has held the police to account on carding and racial discrimination for many years. It has spent large sums of money to obtain police carding data that showed that black people are stopped and “carded” at a rate three times the proportion they represent in Toronto’s population. The Star has won important national journalism awards for its groundbreaking work on this issue. And this organization has consistently used the power of its editorials and columns to call out police for this practice and to call for racial and social justice and equality for all.

As a freelance columnist for the Star, Cole also had a powerful platform to influence public opinion on this issue and others.

I understand there is some debate in the Star’s newsroom and among others about whether the Star’s long-standing policies regarding journalists taking public stands as community activists are outdated and should be revisited, especially as it applies to columnists who are, after all, empowered to take public stands in their writing.

I see merit in that discussion. I believe all newsroom policies should be open to regular debate and discussion as journalism evolves. That has happened several times here over the years.

But no news organization that cares about its integrity should make or amend policy on the fly simply to accommodate any one voice or any one cause. Any further consideration of the policy must take place within a wider discussion about the Star’s overall journalistic values and reader trust in journalism’s digital evolution. publiced@thestar.ca

The Star had concerns over Cole’s disruption of police board meeting and becoming the news