After a nine-year-old girl died in a house fire on Sandy Bay reserve north of Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, cbc.ca was one of the first to report the tragedy. As soon as the story went up, user comments began popping up on the site: “Native people do not have the knowledge to look after a house” and “… the house went up completely in 15 minutes due to the large amount of alcohol in the building.”In a news conference the Southern Chiefs Organization, which represents dozens of bands in Manitoba, publicized its grievances over the offensive comments on cbc.ca. The event was sparked by a complaint the SCO received from a resident of Sandy Bay who discovered allegedly ignorant or hatred-filled comments were going unmonitored.

The organization asked the provincial government to launch an investigation into CBC’s Manitoba website, suggesting charges should be laid against the public broadcaster, which, in some members’ opinions, should be held to a higher standard than other news organizations. Lyndenn Behm, SCO’s communications coordinator, says there’s been no apology from CBC since the posts on February 11. He says Aboriginals, First Nations and the residents of Sandy Bay also deserve an apology.

The response

CBC’s approach to its online comment sections is to provide as open a forum as possible for an exchange of views. But spokesperson Jeff Keay says, “We’re rethinking that now.” He adds that the broadcaster isn’t sure it sees the value in the discussion due to an “excessive degree of intemperate commentary.”

Online news providers are not held to the standards of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), so sites must develop their own guidelines and make individual judgment calls based on the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms and libel laws. This can mean a choice between curbing free expression (and losing traffic) or allowing potentially defamatory comments (and being legally vulnerable).

The legal area concerning online user comments isn’t just a “grey area,” says Bert Bruser, media lawyer for the Toronto Star, “it’s a mess.”

Value of user comments to journalism

Mathew Ingram, communities editor for The Globe and Mail, encourages journalists to use and experiment with the comments sections. One of his colleagues who has enhanced her stories this way is Globe reporter Tavia Grant. She has reacted to new information from readers by doing more interviews and then updating her article for a more accurate picture.

Ingram acknowledges that some people use comments sections to vent or ride their hobbyhorse, “but there are people out there who do know something about the story you’re writing about, and who have valuable knowledge, perspective or comments.”

Monitoring online comment sections

CBC outsources the moderation of its comments sections to Manitoba-based ICUC Moderation Services Inc., which deals with the over 200,000 posts made on cbc.ca each month. ICUC says its services work within its mandates of its clients, including trendy companies such as MuchMusic, Coors Light and Calvin Klein, as well as CTV and the Government of Canada.

On the other hand, most of globeandmail.com is semi-moderated, says technology editor MattFrehner. A comment is flagged only if a reader finds it offensive. Flagged comments are reviewed by an editor who either accepts or removes them. Frehner says roughly 85 to 90 percent of stories are semi-moderated, but there are closed stories as well, especially ones dealing with court cases that could be jeopardized by information posted online. The Globe also asks journalists to check for unsuitable posts but moderating 100,000 comments every month is unrealistic. As Frehner says, “You can’t spend your entire day reading comments about the conflict in Israel.”

Despite the dangers, open forums-be they comment sections or live chats-increase traffic. Frehner says that when the Globe hosts an open discussion, with someone such as the political columnist Jeffrey Simpson, there is a huge spike in user participation.

Meanwhile, Neil Sanderson, assistant managing editor of thestar.com, says that his paper’s site receives around 2,000 comments a day and employs five in-house moderators. From a variety of educational programs (none with a background in journalism), moderators are trained to check for 18 different problems, ranging from hate speech to libel. Sanderson also says reader comments are valuable because “from a philosophical point of view, the media depend on freedom of speech. We can’t exist any other way.”

Still evolving 

Roger D. McConchie, a B.C. lawyer practicing internet and defamation law, recommends that online news organizations apply the same rules to user comments that they use for daily print retractions. That could mean publishing an apology on the site or on the page where the “hate speech” or libel has been flagged as well as eliminating the offensive comments from the original article.

While Canada’s internet laws have improved in the last 10 years, news organizations still must work on balancing openness with their own regulations. So the struggle to provide forums for lively and insightful discussions without being interrupted by ignorant and unconstructive comments continues. “I would have never imagined five years ago how widespread and serious the problem for individuals who are defamed has become,” says McConchie. “It’s just grown topsy-turvy.”

Peter Edwards had two choices on September 6, 1995, he could either cover a story about a line-up for swimming lessons at Mel Lastman Square or he could drive to Ipperwash Provincial Park to investigate the shoot-out between police and First Nation protestors. Edwards chose the park. If it turned out to be nothing, he would just go home.

Instead, for the next 13 years, Ipperwash consumed theToronto Star reporter. During a night raid of Chippewas of Kettle and Stony Point First Nations’ protest to reclaim land appropriated by the government in the early 1940s, a police sniper shot protestor Dudley George. The shooter was convicted in 1997 of negligence leading to the death of an unarmed man, yet the penalty was only community service. George’s family filed a lawsuit, and an inquiry into the death, advocated by Dudley’s brother Sam, took place in 2003. Edwards wrote several hundred articles on Ipperwash and, in 2001, published One Dead Indian:The Premier, the Police, and the Ipperwash Crisis, an examination of the role of the OPP and the provincial and federal governments in George’s death.

Edwards spoke to the RRJ Online about his experiences covering Ipperwash, recent coverage of First Nations communities and lessons the media still has to learn.

On the media’s misrepresentation of Ipperwash:

Peter Edwards: [When I arrived,] the first thing that really hit me was the 100 or so First Nations people there-they were really, really nervous. I was the only white person and I stood out with these two cameras on my shoulders. I was curious about the reaction and how, very quickly, people decided that I should be standing out front, because the police won’t shoot a white person from the Toronto Star.

What I was hearing on the radio wasn’t what I was seeing. If [the protestors] have guns and they’re so threatening, why are they so afraid? And why are they thinking the safe thing to do is have a white guy floating around front? [The radio broadcast said] it was an “isolated incident” but when I got there it looked more like a military operation. I remember being really rattled when I saw someone with camouflage paint on his face and a camouflage uniform, with a submachine gun, running around in the woods -and that was the police’s side!

On media arrogance and ignorance:

PE: I was stunned at the deep level of racism…. I don’t know how many times I heard the phrase “thoseIndians.” The idea that people can, out of convenience, make all First Nation people the same is pretty arrogant and pretty dumb. It’s about keeping the [story and its facts] from going beyond what you absolutely know. People aren’t just a bunch of statistics. If someone is breaking the law in a particular community, don’t just target the community-and don’t say those. Sometimes we can subtlety put race in there so much that we slam a whole bunch of people when it’s really only one individual.

On covering the unfamiliar:

PE: When it comes to communities, we have to report beyond crises; we’ve got to talk to people on a day-to-day basis, not just when something terrible happens. It’s not that you can’t write the story, its how you write it. You can’t just quote the first person you talk to-you have to poke around the community to get a broader look. You can’t just take one person and make them a representative for everybody. In fact, some of the people we should listen to more are the ones that don’t shout or aren’t slick, but speak from the heart. We should look for those people instead of the smoothies who have a need to be in the media.

On representing a community:

PE: One thing you find with First Nations reporting, a lot of people will speak for themselves, but they won’t speak for the community. There’s a lot of sensitivity in the community-you wouldn’t speak for your mother or father, and you don’t overstate your own importance. With one kid who knew a lot about what had happened at Ipperwash, the way to get him to talk was to talk to his parents. Once I did, the kid became totally co-operative-without the parents, he wasn’t saying boo. There are real cultural differences, like respect for elders, so every time you do a story, it’s a fresh challenge.

On the media’s suggestion that members of the Yellow Quill First Nations community want Christopher Pauchay-the Saskatchewan man whose two daughters froze to death on the reserve-to heal through traditional practices instead of going to jail:

PE: I would want to know, and I’m not criticizing, which members? Because journalists can go into any community and find any opinion they want. I can find someone who believes Elvis is still alive and J.F.K. is working in a diner in Scarborough. You can find people to say whatever you want them to say, it’s just whether you’ve accurately represented the community. I don’t know whether they talked to a Chief, or social services-who work in the band with personal problems. If it’s someone who’s really in touch with things I would take it very seriously, instead of a person that’s just being flippant.

On advice for covering First Nations:

PE: There are still failings, there will always be failings in everything [the media] does. The biggest thing is to listen, listen to as many people as you can and stay open. Just remember that your job is to go and find the truth.