Vancouver dailies sponsor government info centre for media during Olympics

The Vancouver Sun
and The
Province are sponsors of a government-run information
centre which will, during the Olympics, inform international media
about B.C.’s efforts to handle the homelessness problem,  B.C.
political news outlet The Public Eye
reports.

According to The Public Eye, the
information centre, organized by BC Housing and the City of Vancouver,
plans to highlight the ways in which the province is dealing with
homelessness.

The report
reads:

“A spokesperson for BC Housing confirmed
the newspapers, which are published by CanWest Global Communications
Corp.’s Pacific Newspaper Group Inc., are ‘providing promotional ads
about the centre while it is open in February.’ Reached via email, The
Vancouver Sun’s editor-in-chief Patricia Graham stated she didn’t know
anything about the deal. Nor was The Province’s editor-in-chief Wayne
Moriarty aware of that arrangement, stating, “That’s not my
department.” But, that being said, Mr. Moriarty explained, “We have
contra deals with all sorts of agencies and people we report on. And
there’s lots of things the company does in terms of giving space away
and cross-promotion and free promotion that could be viewed as a
conflict if it was run out of a newsroom. But it
isn’t.”

University of Victoria journalism
professor Lynne Van Luven told The Public Eye‘s Sean Holman that the news
organizations should be “standing away from it and looking at it and
writing stories about it.” Carleton University media ethics expert
Klaus Pohle called the deal a “conflict of interest.”

Read the full Public Eye report here.