A journalist’s loyalty is to the readers, to whom we are obliged to report what we know, as accurately as we know it.
In Wednesday's Yellowknifer, Alayna Ward, director of community relations for the YWCA, expressed frustration with media coverage of complaints from a handful of Rockhill fire victims, who claimed they weren’t receiving money from donations solicited by the YWCA.
One statement in particular struck a chord with us -- Ward's suggestion that a complaint should not be reported “particularly when it's untrue and unverified for the most part.”
That's a tricky proposition, especially when as Ward noted, verifying what part of the media coverage was untrue would require breaching client confidentiality.
Institutions, whether they be government, or like the YWCA, a non-profit service provider, are understandably loathe to do that – and in many cases, prevented by law from doing that.
So that leaves the media with two choices: when people complain about what these institutions are doing, we either ignore them and cite client confidentiality like they do, or give them a voice and tell their story, however imperfect it may be.
We choose the latter because a world where the media ignores the stories of people – big or small – does not seem like a terribly just one.
We understand privacy issues often shackle powerful individuals, governments or institutions from sharing pertinent information with the media but we must hear people out to maintain our trust with the public.
If people don't feel like they can come to us to expose a problem or issue so the wider public can know about it then, as an institution, we have failed.
At times this means publishing news stories that aren’t particularly flattering to the powerful and established, even if it's the YWCA, which is an undoubtedly vital institution filled with passionate people whose only objective is to help.
We will make one other small point. We believe if readers look through our news archive at old.nnsl.com they will find approximately 90 per cent of the news coverage directed at the YWCA and other like-minded organizations is positive, focusing on programs and initiatives they want the public to know about.
That said, Yellowknifer will not shy away from controversy if there are people coming to us talk to about it.
We will note too, however, that we won't ignore complaints about our news stories either.
If people see something in the news they find objectionable or wrong, they should raise it with the editors so we can discuss a way to address it with the public just as Ward did for the YWCA. The Yellowknifer newsroom can be reached by phone at (867) 873-4031 or by email at editorial@old.nnsl.com.
Journalists aren’t the enemy but we're sometimes wrong and when Yellowknifer makes a mistake we will print a correction and even a follow-up story to get the correct information out there.
We invite communications staff, in governments and other organizations, to talk to us – be heard and get your stories out too – communicate with us.
We are waiting, with keyboards at the ready.