Former Sault Star executives decry gag order

Doug Millroy, editor emeritus of the Sault Star, and four former publishers of the newspaper are among 40 former employees of Southam Inc. newspapers who'll speak out tomorrow about editorial independence.

Millroy and former Star publishers William Dane, Bob Richardson, Clifford Sharp and Paul Wilson are all signatories to a full-page ad that will appear Thursday in The Globe and Mail, Winnipeg Free Press and Halifax Chronicle-Herald.

Editorial gag order

The ad calls on CanWest Global, the new owner of many of the Southam dailies, to rethink its gag order that prevents the company's metro papers from publishing editorials that contradict "national" editorials issued by CanWest Global's head office.

"The gag order is ominous and the list of forbidden perspectives grows longer as time passes," the former Southam executives say in the advertisement.

"We invite you to think creatively about preserving freedom of the press, one newsroom at a time, in a manner fair to media owners and embraced by the public, that also prevents outside interference in Canada’s newsrooms," the ad asks readers.

Help sought from universities, colleges

"We invite readers, listeners, viewers and advertisers to communicate with media owners and one another as to the value you place on diversity of opinion; and then to ask the media to present your diverse views."

"We invite our universities and colleges to help us better understand how free speech and freedom of the press compete with the rights of media owners in the public domain."

Tax incentives

"And we invite our lawmakers to consider such strategies as tax incentives for media companies that meet objective criteria as to the independence of their/your newsrooms. Tax policies protect our culture from foreign ownership of Canadian media. Might they protect our diversity of voices from converging media companies?"

"The caveat is the design of any such remedy must fully safeguard us all from government influence on the conduct of editorial freedom."

Sault Star not part of CanWest

The Sault Star was owned by Southam until last July, when it and 15 other dailies were acquired by a new company named Osprey Media Group Inc. as part of a management buyout led by former Southam/Hollinger executive Michael Sifton.

Further information

To see the ad (Adobe Acrobat required) click here.

To access a website launched by the 40 former Southam executives, click here. This link will not be operational until Thursday.

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