Angry in the Great White North

When I read this, I really wondered if this entered into Jayson Blair territory. Maybe Richard Brennan didn't make up the news, exactly, but the difference between what he is alleged to have done and what the infamous New York Times reporter who made up stories did is a difference I'm finding hard to articulate.

As I posted earlier, Richard Brennan, a Toronto Star reporter attached to the Ottawa Bureau, gave an interview to a hard-left online magazine called the Harper Index. In this interview, Brennan accused Prime Minister Stephen Harper of acting like a Republican and of bullying. Of course, Richard Brennan is entitled to his opinion, but I wondered if, as a reporter, he has a special responsibility to keep those opinions hidden as much as possible. Presumably if he can keep his opinions to himself, he can also keep them off the page when he writes up a story.

But when a reporter gives an interview, and in that interview lets rip with harsh partisan-coloured criticism, how would he be trusted in the future to give that fair and balanced report?

But as it turns out, this isn't the first time Richard Brennan undermined his own ability to report on a story through questionable decisions.

Back in 2001, Christina Blizzard wrote a piece for the Toronto Sun. It had to do with the Ipperwash events, in which a First Nations man, Dudley George, protesting at the provincial park, was shot dead by police. The tragic event turned into a political nightmare as allegations were made that meddling from Ontario Premier Mike Harris' office led to the death:

It all started in December, 1998, when the Windsor Star and other papers in the Southam news chain ran a story from its then Queen's Park reporter, Richard Brennan, (now with the Toronto Star): "PCs won't deny moving papers."

"The Harris government has refused to respond to allegations that documents dealing with the fatal police shooting of a native man at Ipperwash provincial park were removed from Queen's Park," the first paragraph of this story read.

It went on to quote legal documents that it said showed the government "refusing to admit or deny allegations that documents 'were deposited in a privately owned house outside of Toronto belonging to or controlled by an acquaintance or relative of the defendant (Premier Mike) Harris or one of his present or former staff or assistants.'"

This hurt the Harris government dealing with the issue. Now suspicions were levelled at Mike Harris that he had staffers remove incriminating material to take to their homes in order to be hidden or destroyed.

So how did Richard Brennan get this scoop? He heard it from...Richard Brennan!

So what were the documents, and who was the source of the allegations against the premier and his staff? Legal and court documents obtained by the Sun show the original source for the allegations contained in this "news" story was the reporter who wrote it - Rick Brennan. Here's how it worked: Some time in the fall of 1998, probably in October, Brennan met with Murray Klippenstein, lawyer for the George family, who had launched a civil wrongful death suit against Harris and other provincial politicians on behalf of the family.

Brennan told Klippenstein a story he had apparently heard about staff members in the premier's office removing boxes of material related to the Ipperwash case, taking them to the home of the relative of one of the premier's assistants, and destroying them. Soon after, on Nov. 12, Klippenstein issued a "Request to Admit," a common legal document that basically sets out the allegations of one party and asks the defendant to admit they are true. In this instance, the Request to Admit asked the government to admit staff had removed documents after the George shooting and deposited them in a private home of an acquaintance of Harris where they were subsequently "shredded, or destroyed in some other way ..."

Now the government responded vigourously to the allegation, demanding to know where the information came from. Klippenstein refused to divulge the source, which was Richard Brennan. In the mean time, Richard Brennan used the "Request to Admit" filed by Klippenstein as the factual basis for the published story.

Amusingly, Brennan actually called Klippenstein to get his reaction to the story.

The government didn't back down, and they won their point. First Justice Gloria Epstein, and then later Divisional Court Justice John O'Driscoll, supported the government's position that you can't just make wild allegations like the one Klippenstein made without some sort of basis in fact:

The matter was next taken to the divisional court where it was heard by Justice John O'Driscoll. He upheld Epstein's ruling that Klippenstein had to reveal the identity of his anonymous source, using even stronger language.

O'Driscoll wrote: "What has happened here is akin to, in my view, tossing a grenade over a wall and then saying it's not relevant to find out whether it's a loaded grenade or simply a dud. In my view, if the relevancy of these questions had originally been in doubt or been marginal, the actions of counsel for the plaintiffs have made them very relevant."

O'Driscoll also ordered the plaintiffs to pay $8,000 in court costs to Harris, Runciman and Harnick.

That was in June 2000. By October, Klippenstein wrote to the government and revealed his source: Richard Brennan. A law clerk provided more information:

Affidavits sworn by Klippenstein's law clerk, Erika Savage, indicate that Brennan was the only source for the Request to Admit and that she had no idea where his information came from that the supposedly removed documents were related to Ipperwash. She also affirmed that Klippenstein had faxed a copy of the Request to Admit to Brennan before his story appeared.

Klippenstein and Savage pointed out they had no reason to question Brennan as a source as he was a respected journalist with many years of experience covering Queen's Park.

Interesting that Klippenstein and Savage voiced no concerns when Brennan then turned his own leaked information into a major news story, using Klippenstein and his "Request to Admit" as a proxy source. If I saw that happen, I might re-evaluate my characterization of the reporter as being "respected".

The story peters out there. Richard Brennan essentially clammed up:

Klippenstein was asked to contact Brennan to get his substantiation for the story. That was done, but Brennan has thus far not replied.

Klippenstein told me that while the story about the removal of documents is no longer part of the George family suit, there are other important issues that need to be addressed.

Right then. Any repercussions?

Well, the Toronto Star did not trust Brennan with the Ipperwash file:

Toronto Star managing editor Mary Deanne Shears said, "the incident took place long before Rick Brennan joined the Star and as soon as the matter was brought to my attention, so as to avoid any appearance of impropriety ... or bias, we decided Brennan would not cover the Ipperwash story."

I can't imagine a situation stranger than this. It is one thing to tell a reporter he can't cover a story because it involves a friend or a family member or an outside business interest. Conflicts of interest happen often, and the challenge is to make sure people aren't conflicted. But this wasn't a conflict of interest. This was a situation in which a reporter skirted close to manufacturing the news. There was enough evidence of something wrong to keep Brennan away from the Ipperwash story. To put it simply, it appeared that the Toronto Star thought Brennan's actions made it impossible for him to have credibility as a reporter on this story.

Since then, the accusation, first sourced by Richard Brennan before he reported on it, that Premier Mike Harris had been involved in the removal and destruction of documents, was dropped:

Finally, just over a week ago, on Sept. 27, a story appeared on page 2 of the Star, saying the George family had dropped the accusations regarding the removal of the documents from the premier's office. There were no apologies, or regrets, for those whose reputations had been smeared.

The Toronto Star's decision to keep Brennan off the Ipperwash story was clearly prompted by a concern that Brennan's actions made it difficult, if not impossible, for Brennan to function as a trusted reporter on this story. Which then comes back to my concern with Brennan's interview with the Harper Index. Can Richard Brennan, in agreeing to be the subject of a news story instead of reporting on one, and in using that opportunity to offer up some extremely harsh and partisan-sounding criticisms of the sitting government in Ottawa, continue to function as a trusted reporter on Ottawa politics?