Town asked to be more fair and unbiased in its dissemination of public information.

April 4th, 2005

Halton Hills - Georgetown - Last night, at The Town of Halton Hills council meeting The Halton Herald addressed council raising the issue of the fair and unbiased distribution of the Town's media releases. Up until recently, The Halton Herald was receiving the Mayor's column, various Town department media news releases and announcements for publication, which we feel abruptly stopped when the Herald started publishing views other that those released by the Town.

We had concerns that, because the papers who endorsed our candidates during the last election, one of which also employees a Town Councillor, Mike O'Leary, were still accessing and publishing the Town's media releases, and in an effort to control the media, we thought perhaps council may have selectively omitted or deleted The Herald from the release list, for publishing views other that those released by the Town. 

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Councillor Clark Somerville, who previously, through his attorney, demanded The Halton Herald use a system that enabled him and others to identify community contributors in our forums, clarified his previous claims during a Feb. 7^th 2005 delegation of Mr. Kirouac, where he claimed he had a conflict of interest with the delegate, while excusing himself from the proceedings, was now declaring before council that there are, in fact, no conflicts of interest between himself and the delegate, and therefore, he would not be excusing himself from that-day’s delegation.

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During question period, Mayor Bonnette ask about associations and who else was supplying releases to the Herald? He was informed that the Region, the Province as well as the Police and Fire department’s were among some of the news media release departments that contributed to the Herald. Councillor Lewis had a question for Staff with regards to how the information is managed. Councillor Joan stated she was a repeat visitor of the site and expressed concerns with some of the content and the anonymity option available to contributors? Councillor Mike Davis asked - what was the criteria for acceptable post and how were moderating edits being managed?

A lot of the questions seemed to revolve around a council agenda to see if the publication met some type of undisclosed criteria or standards - used perhaps to determine the worthiness of the benefactor, in an attempt to distract from the real issue - of the fair and unbiased dissemination practices and processing of the Towns public information.

Councillors Lewis and Davis were the only ones to question the Town’s policy, as they should, because if we let our politicians decide who receives information, based on whom or how it's reported, that essentially amounts to a totalitarian society where autonomous publications are denied their rights and freedoms to access and independently report public information.

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