Native, third world issues dominate journalism meeting

Page 18

VANCOUVER - The investigative journalist conference held at the Pan Pacific Hotel, March 15-16, drew 151 journalists from throughout Canada.

Various techniques of investigative journalism were discussed. Native self-government and policies workshops were aimed at the mainstream media. The bigger portion of time was taken by third world issues.

The journalist groups condemned press censorship in South Africa and allowed its ambassador, Glenn Babb, to speak, while outside, a group of demonstrators accused the centre of investigative journalism of providing a platform for apartheid, the system of racial segregation in which the 24 million voteless blacks are being dominated by five million whites.

The heavily guarded ambassador compared foreign corespondents with reporters from the Soviet newspapers.

A panel discussion focused on censorship and freedom of the press in South Africa.

In south Africa, the white minority government's Internal Security Act silences its opponents with banning order, prohibiting them from speaking to groups or from being quoted in the press.

The new law allows officials to ban T.V. cameras and tape recorders from black townships.

Babb blamed the foreign corespondents for censoring the news and keeping their audience ignorant.

"What you see is not the full truth in a 30-second clip," he said.

The ambassador was presented with a resolution demanding "the immediate release of our South African colleagues presently incarcerated or banished, the lifting of censorship, and free access by the national and international press to all parts of the South African territory." The resolution was unanimously adopted by the organization that had invited Babb to speak (Centre of Investigative Journalism).

Other speakers at the Conference were: Jack Webster, radio personality and

CBC commentator; Tony Burmon, the CBC producer, who has not been allowed to return to South Africa; Heibert Adam, professor at Simon Fraser University; Leo Kalinda, a reporter who was jailed in South Africa; and Rev. Ray Price, who was fired from the Department of Indian Affairs for leaking information.