The logos appearing above represent professional associations with which the Voice is affiliated. As we reached our 21st year of reporting the news of Pelham’s villages— of its people, businesses, events, and government—Pelham Town Hall suddenly decided that our membership in the first two organizations wasn't enough.
When news reached Town Hall that the Voice had won an award for Best Investigative News Story from the Ontario Community Newspapers Association, relating to coverage of the Town’s East Fonthill adventures in real estate development, and when we reported that CAO Darren Ottaway had made false statements to a group of residents in a meeting at Town Hall, up went the drawbridge and dead went the email.
The stonewalling commenced. Copies of the paper left in Town Hall for the public were trashed. A media table was removed from Council chambers.
It’s possible that the Mayor, Council, and CAO thought that we would eventually stop asking questions. The Town even stopped sending news releases by email, instead placing the onus on the media to register online to receive them. A minor inconvenience, yes, but equally part of a pattern of withdrawal and avoidance.
Then last week the caca really hit the fan. One after another, Canadian and US journalism associations issued statements condemning the Town’s actions, likening them to those used to silence the free press in totalitarian regimes.
At this, Town Hall went into full spin mode.
The Voice was being ignored, so went the tale, because we weren’t members of yet another journalism association, the National News Media Council.
The Mayor then told the St. Catharines Standard that the Voice has said that it followed no journalistic standards.
When the Voice pointed out that this was a misrepresentation, and the Mayor was challenged on the point, face-to-face, he took 20 minutes to ponder the matter, then came up with the brilliant excuse that he had thought that his email with the Voice’s publisher was confidential. Then he ignored follow-up questions about this bizarre assertion.
The next day, perhaps realizing how foolish this excuse appeared, Augustyn added confusion to the fire by asserting that because the Voice had included a caveat—that the NYU Journalism School document under discussion was a guiding force, not a penal code—then his statement to the Standard was not wrong.
Then, apparently still able to talk, if not walk after so many self-inflicted shots to the feet, the Mayor went on the radio Monday morning to justify trashing copies of the paper left in Town Hall, and to sow doubt as to who owns the Voice. (In fact, it’s the same group of local shareholders, and their descendants, as founded the paper 21 years ago.)
The Mayor’s—and the Town’s—efforts at obfuscation are growing ridiculous. Each new dodge and excuse has all the oomph of a man at an auction who, with five dollars in his pocket, has just called out a shaky “$4.99.”
The Town is about to run out of any currency of credibility still jangling around in its empty pockets.
If joining the NNC was what the Town wanted the paper to do, it had several weeks to tell us. It didn’t.
As a gesture of goodwill, the Voice has, as of this issue, joined the NNC.
As a further gesture of goodwill, we have posted our ethics guidelines on our website. A link also appears in what’s known as the publisher’s block, the boxed staff list and other information appearing at the bottom left of every week's first opinion page.
Also appearing in the publisher’s block is contact information for the National News Media Council. Any reader who has a bone to pick with the paper, which cannot be resolved directly with us, is free to contact the NNC to pursue the grievance.
This changes nothing about how the paper will operate.
The Town never breathed a word about the NNC over a month ago when it stopped answering our questions, or last autumn, when the it increasingly instructed the Voice to file FOI requests for information that the paper believed should be made available without such delays.
The Town of Pelham’s campaign to stonewall and delegitimize the Voice, spearheaded by Mayor Augustyn, has never been about which journalism associations the paper belongs to. It’s been about a municipality displeased with the sort of scrutiny it’s been put under.
That scrutiny isn’t going anywhere.
NNC membership, check.
Ethics guidelines for all to see, check.
Now kindly start answering our questions, on behalf of the people you have been elected, and hired, to serve.
