This is an apology.
We have retracted a series of stories that we published over the past two weeks, both in print and online, due to an undeclared conflict of interest involving the reporter who wrote them.
The stories involved issues with pre-hospital care in BC and included interview with people who hace advocated for potential changes. The series' first three stories ran in print in our July 31 and Aug. 7 papers, and two of them then ran online.
This series will not continue.
Often, it is easy to assume a news report is biased. That is why I, as managing editor here and elsewhere, have always made sure that the reporters working for me understand that even the appearance of bias is unacceptable. This keeps our reporting fair, balanced, and, most importantly, objective.
In this case, I was not aware that the veteran reporter writing the series, Ted Clarke, had spent several years as the vice-president of an organization advocating for changes to BC’s helicopter air ambulance services. His vice-president position was a volunteer role, and the organization seems to have become largely defunct after 2018. However, during his tenure as vice-president, he advocated for the same changes which were the very subject of this series, some of which was done in interviews with other media.
Ted did not disclose any of this information to me or to our readers. Had I known he was an active participant in the process he was covering as a reporter, the series would not have been published due to that conflict of interest.
This coverage was not objective reporting. It was advocacy journalism in disguise.
There is nothing wrong with advocacy journalism — provided that you, the reader, are advised of the writer’s position from the start.
It is our job as a news organization to ensure through clear explanation that our readers know whether a story is unbiased reporting or an opinion piece where the author is writing to defend and/or promote their position.
This series should have been presented as an opinion or advocacy piece rather than a news article. We did not do that, for which I am sorry.
When this situation was brought to my attention by a reader, I took immediate action. The stories were taken down from our website. We cannot unpublish the stories printed in our paper, so please allow this apology to stand as an explanation that these stories were flawed and should not have been published.
I have put a lot of myself into this news organization over the past year. We’ve had wonderful successes returning The Prince George Citizen to its historical role as the premier news source for our community. That work has been for you, our readers, and we let you down on this one.
We at The Citizen are committed to providing you with balanced and objective reporting. I want to assure you that steps have been taken to prevent this from happening again.
I cannot apologize enough for this oversight.
Thank you.
