EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK

Page 6

Newsmakers must be responsible and vocal

It appears that many people see Windspeaker as an objective intermediary ? third party who can step in and "expose" the truth. That's a nice compliment and certainly one we all want to live up to.

A telephone call I received from a Metis woman who felt she was being pressured into voting for a particular candidate in next week's election scheduled for Sept. 1, exemplifies this.

"A lot of us don't have an education," she said, indicating she is unfamiliar with politics and adding that she and other members had received a telephone call asking if they had their Metis card.

The issue becomes complicated here though because we are talking about Metis Urban Housing (MUH) tenants who are feeling pressured. And who should be running for MAA presidency but Larry Desmeules, who is currently under contract with MUH. Desmeules is on vacation this time and has vowed to relinquish his position should he win the election.

Are these self-labelled "uneducated" people confusing simple lobbying with pressure tactics and feeling they'll lose their homes. I think so. After making several calls to tenants who'd supposedly been "threatened," I could find no evidence that they were pressured one way or the other.

The issue here is one of "crossed wires", rather than conspiracy and the fact that to many Metis members, the whole system of ballot-box elections, lobbying and vote-catching is still new and somewhat strange.

Politicians should remember they are dealing with people unused to the slick and sophisticated system of high politics. And members must also remember that the ballot box is secret and no one can ever know how you voted.

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Within our deadline contrictions, we at Windspeaker make ever effort to get all sides of the story when a controversial article is being published. If we didn't do that, we couldn't call ourselves an objective newspaper.

But, more and more are coming up against a brick wall. The chiefs, councillors, officials and representatives who influence important matters are remaining silent. These are the "newsmakers" who could set the record straight by merely expressing their side of the story when we call. Perhaps they think if they don't comment to us then we won't go with the story which implicates them because it will be unbalanced. When they don't comment, it makes it look like they are the guilty party and have nothing more to say on the matter.

Windspeaker reporters don't simply make on or two calls and then drop it if no one calls us back. Four and five attempts are made to give the party being implicated in the story every opportunity to have their say.

And, as was recently printed in the Bear Hills Native Voice newspaper ? if you hide behind your position of power, agreeing that a story is newsworthy yet refusing to say anything that can be quoted, then you have no right to criticize the way the story comes out.

We are here to serve the public, but our newsmakers must learn to be a little more public too.