Quebec opinion-makers, usually divided by language and politics, are unanimous these days on one point: They don't like what is happening at Montreal's English-language daily newspaper.
For several weeks, The Gazette has been at a centre of a bitter dispute over what staff see as their editorial independence being muzzled by the owners, the Asper family of Winnipeg, who hold a controlling interest in CanWest Global Communications Corp.
In the most recent incident, sports columnist Jack Todd was suspended without pay for a week.
Mr. Todd, who was short-listed this year for the Governor-General's non-fiction award, would not comment, but sources said he was recalled from assignment in Boston after sending a critical reply to a company-wide email announcing new appointments at CanWest.
The controversy began after CanWest launched a policy requiring the main papers of its Southam chain to run similar "national editorials" written from the Winnipeg head office, three times a week.
Both the Opposition Liberals and the governing Parti Québécois have unanimously passed a legislature motion condemning the policy. From the pro-secession Le Devoir to the anglophone community weekly The Suburban, newspaper editorials and cartoonists have taken shots too.
The dispute goes more broadly over the issue of freedom of speech, with staff complaining that stories are modified to reflect the views of the Aspers, who are said to be pro-Liberal and pro-Israel.
Sources at The Gazette mention the following incidents as examples of editorial meddling:
Political columnist Don Macpherson initially wrote about the new editorial rules by saying, "A policy that forbids a newspaper from deciding for itself where the interests of its readers lie is not only bad journalism, it's also bad business."
He had to change the column and the published version read: "A uniquely Canadian policy that allows for editorials written from both local and national viewpoints, and occasional lively disagreement between the two, could be good for business."
Other critical parts were also removed, such as his praise for editorial page editor Peter Hadekel's decision to resign and an explanation that only a management order ended a staff decision to protest by refusing to sign articles.
TV critic Peggy Curran wrote last month about a CBC documentary about Palestinian journalists getting shot by Israeli troops.
The column was held, then she was told that the piece had to be rewritten, sources said, adding that editors wanted to label the documentary "one-sided" until Ms. Curran agreed to call it a "point-of-view documentary."
"They simply tried to censor her column," one reporter said.
The controversy has been reported widely in Quebec and even in the Parisian daily Libération. The Gazette has alluded to it only indirectly.
The paper carried a Canadian Press dispatch yesterday about the Quebec National Assembly motion against CanWest. However, it excised parts that reported its own staff's unhappiness.
Two cartoons of editorial cartoonist Terry Mosher, also known as Aislin, were rejected, including one that said, "Imagine, a newspaper that looks just like, ummm, Global Television."
One journalist said, "People are fed up with feeling like they're working for a paper like Pravda."
Gazette reporters stopped speaking publicly about the feud after an internal memo last week warned them that "case law supports sanctions, including suspension or termination, against those who persist in disregarding their obligations to the employer after warning."
A piece on Monday by city-life columnist Sue Montgomery was seen in the newsroom as an oblique reference to the newsroom dissent. "There are times I fear that the light may not come back. But it's not the end of the world," she wrote.
That sentence apparently refers to a speech last week by David Asper, chairman of the publications committee of CanWest Global, who defended the editorials as "what's best for the nation as a whole rather than local or regional communities."
In a remark that riled many at The Gazette, Mr. Asper paraphrased the band REM: "I can say to our critics, and especially to the bleeding hearts of the journalist community, that 'it's the end of the world as they know it . . . and I feel fine.' "
Neither Gazette editor-in-chief Peter Stockland nor Southam editor-in-chief Murdoch Davis answered requests for interviews yesterday.
Tu Thanh Ha