HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1981-07-22, Page 2ONT.
Established 1872 519-887-6641
Serving Brussels and the surrounding community
Published at BRUSSELS, ONTARIO
every Wednesday morning
by McLean Bros, Publishers Limited
1872
4Brussels Post
BRUSSELS
Box 50,
Brussels, Ontario
NOG 1H0
Andrew Y. McLean, Publisher
Evelyn Kennedy, Editor
Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association, Ontario
Weekly Newspaper Association and The Audit Bureau of
Circulation.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 22, 1981
Authorized as second class mail by Canada
Post Office. Registration Number 0562.
To the editor:
Suspicions are premature
Nick Whyte's suspicions about Ontario
Hydro's plans for a new transmission line
from the Bruce Nuclear Power Development
are premature and a little unfair. '
Mr. Whyte and various other farmers
have complained that the public input
process is beginning at the wrong time of
year for them.
Public input on this line will take three or
four years, and is bound to overlap the
farmers' busy season, perhaps more than
once.
Those who find time to help with
dis cussions this summer are welcome and
we expect their contributions will be useful.
Those who don't will still have a chance to
voice their opinions during the formal public
hearings starting in January, the farmers'
least-busy period.
Once a system plan is chosen from among
the six alternatives, the process repeats
itself; having determined in a general way
the areas in which lines and equipment will
be built, we will work with farmers and other
citizens affected to determine exactly where
the lines should run and transformers
should be located.
Our conclusions, including any differences
of opinion, will then be aired at another set
of forpal public hearings.
I hope Mr. Whyte would agree that the
process allows quite a few opportunities for
the farmers to be heard and influence the
final decision on the route the line may take.
Sincerely,
Hugh Macaulay
Chairman of the board,
Ontario Hydro
Somebody was having fun (?) in the wee hours of Sunday morning when
they started some hay on' fire down by the library corner.
Apparently there was more hay down the main street but the vandal or
vandals (?) didn't get a chance to light them. Perhaps whoever did it
thought it was a harmless bit of fun and that it would be interesting to get
the Brussels , firemen out of bed at 4:10 in the morning.
Brussels has had its share of bad fires in the past, and if Sunday's had
spread, who knows what damage it could have caused? It could have
burned down half the town like the fire in 1905.
Surely there must be better things to do at that time of day than
starting fires and one of the ideas that comes readily to mind is to go to
bed and get some sleep.
Some fun! "Modern" isn't
always, safe or best
In attempting to operate honestly, many
small businesses have been forced to close
shop after heeding the advice of better
business bureaucrats to increase competi-
tion.
Similarly, farmers are finding it tough
going, some "losing their shirt," after
listening to, university trained agri-experts
and other brainwashing agencies suggesting
to go modern.
To top everything, in the quite common
practice of massive spraying of crops to
protect the world's food supply against
ravaging pestilence, The bugs have devel-
oped immunity to most virulent sprays.
Years ago, naturalists predicted this would
happen.
Now the countdown has begun as nature
and her biological and bacterial messengers
square off against the arch enemy still
suffering from superiority complex.
Advertisers already are pushing the new
super sprays. One whiff (if your gas mask
isn't working) could be a trigger to horror; or
an accidental spill and your grandchild's
birth could prompt the question- what is it?
W. Stephen
Listowel
The media have to get it straight
Behind the scenes
by Keith Roulston
There is currently in Canada, an
ongoing investigation into the state of the
media in Canada.
The investigation is to look at corporate
concentration in the media, particularly after
a number of daily newspapers were closed
down a few months ago in what seemed like
a mighty handy arrangement to lessen
competition.
The concern over this issue is particularly
strong among people involved in the media
both on ethical and economic grounds. As
more and more newspapers conic to be
owned by fewer and fewer people such as
the Thomson chain ar the Southam chairi,,
the potential for some newspaper owner
dictating to a nation what it can read grows
more dangerous. There are fewer perspect-
ives on any given news event because there
are fewer voices. There are also, of course,
fewer jobs for journalists, photographers,
editors, typesetter, etc.
While there are real ethical questions that
journalists have a right to be asking about
this concentration of ownership of the news
media, there are some ethical questions they
should also be asking themselves and each
other such as: am I doing my job the way it
should be done? From the evidence I've had
at least, there is reason to doubt they are.
W e've all heard some politician some time
get in hot water over something he said and
then claim he was misquoted, that he didn't
really say that at all. We tend to doubt it
most often, politicans being what they arc,
or at least what we perceive them to be.
However, after twice being interviewed by
reporters from Canada's largest newspaper
lately, I think I'll be more apt to listen the
next time a politician makes that claim. To
tell the truth, reading what I was supposed
to have said after these two gentlemen got
through bringing their Scantynotes to life on
the printed page, shook my faith in our
forms of communications in Canada. It
didn't matter particularly in my case that I
was misquoted since it Was a matter of no
great importance to the future of the world
that I was being interviewed on, but as
someone who came from a journalistic
background, it was really disturbing.
HIGHEST RESPECT
Despite the fact that I got into journalism
not so' much ftom true love for the field as
because it gave me a chance to earn a Hi/ling
at doing what I wanted most, writing, I have
the highest respect for the profession'. In a
democracy few things are' mo.re important
than the communication of information,
information that must be collected and
condensed and repeated by human beings
most often of the kind we call journalists.
Anyone who has seen a gossip grapevine
at work knows what a fragile thing truth is.
What really happened can quickly 'be
distorted beyond recognition as it is passed
along from person to person, even with the
best of intentions. Human perception of the
fact can also be a barrier in the road of
communicating the truth.' A favourite trick
when I was studying journalism was to have
someone burst into a a room in the middle of
a class, assault the professor or do
something equally startling, then leave
quickly. Students afterward were asked to
tell what they saw and seldom was what they
repeated what they really saw. Good
Short Shots
by Evelyn Kennedy
It seems we are always complaining about
the weather, too hot; too cold; too wet. There
is no need to complain about the summer
weahter we have had lately, sunny and hot
with little rain. That is just the kind of
weather for vacationing, camping, and lazy
days at the beach, enjoying those refreshing
dips in the lake. What better time for
daydreaming than when, on the quiet of the
evening you hear the murmur of the waves
as you watch the sun set over lake Huron.
S iaa
Morris Township Birthday Party activities
take place here on July 31st and August 1st,
2nd and 3rd with a variety of events on the
program. Along the main street you will find
that Brussels merchants have 'caught the
spirit of this 125th Birthday celebration and
have arranged appropriate window displays.
You can see interesting antiques from dolls
tci lamps, sleigh bells, china as well as the
reporters must battle the inadequacies of
their own human failings.
But the key 'word is battle. Journalism
instructors in my school pounded into
students consciousness of the fact they had
to recognize their failings and battle against
them. Recognize your own bias in a story so
you can battle that bias to get as truthful a
story as possible. Take down quotes exactly.
Get the names right and don't just guess,
ask. Even a Smith might be spelled Smyth,
we were reminded until we could hear it in
our dreams at night. In one of those
interviews with Canada's largest newspaper
my name was misspelled throughout the
entire. article.
RAISING STANDARDS
Raising the professional standards of
journalists has been a source of concern for
leaders in the field for some time. Any
attempt to licence journalists as doctors or
lawyers are Ifcenced can lead to the day
Huron County. Museum display and many
more.
as....
July 25-31 is Farm Safety Week,
sponsored by the Canada .Safety Council in
co-operation with Agriculture Canada.
Farming is an accident-prone industry in
many areas. Careless handling of machinery
and other things inflict disabling injuries,
pain, suffering, even death, as , well as
property damage. Such accidents are also
costly. Potential hazards are silo gas which
can be fatal. .Concent-
rations of hydrogen sulfide and carbon
dioxide from liquid manure systems can be
fatal to farmers and stock. Farmers are
urged to follow recommended procedures
with silage gas and liquid manure. Artificial
respiration should be learned for it is often
the only means of reviving a person who has
been overcome by toxic gases. Pesticides
and similar chemicals are toxic and can
cause death when improperly used.
Agricultural chemicals kill pests but they
can kill people tool They should be kept
under lock and key. Keep children from the
when freedom of speech and of the press is
muzzled. Saying someone must have train-
ing as a journalist also means controlling
those who can report the news, endangering
our own society.
Yet having a society that distrusts what it
reads in the press or hears on television or
radio because of the incompetence of the
working journalists is equally distructive.
Every time someone is interviewed and finds
his name spelled wrong or is supposed to
have said something that he would never in a
hundred years have said, 'the credibility of
our communications media is eroded a little
more. In a democracy, the whole process of
government by the people is weakened if
people cannot trust the very sources of '
information they must have to make deci-
sions..
Journalists cannot be policed by some
outside body such as government so they
must begin to police themselves. With every
freedom in a democracy goes&responsibility
and for the media that responsibility to be
as accurate as humanly possible. Too many
journalists (from my experience on the big
papers not the small weeklies) aren't even
taking their job seriously.
dangers of equipment., Farm safety means
reduced cost and increase production. Safety
on the farm is not a matter to be aware of
only during Farm Safety Week. Everyone on
a farm should be safety-conscious every day
of the year.
• "so**
The mail strike continues to frustrate,
worry, interfere with businesses's and cause
no end of problems for Canadians. Several
firms that conduct most of their business by
mail are attempting to collect damages,
resulting from the mail strike, from _the
federal government. Now that the two sides
have finally sat down to seriously negotiate
1poenrghear.ps we will not have put up with it much
Three sisters in Glasgow, Scotland, were
in lied when a large chimney stack collapse&
Inning into their 'tenement apartment, and
through their.bedroom floor. They followed
the debris, still in bed, through the next two
floors,• finally ending up in a ground floor
tavern forty feet below. All three survived-:
s • sir to s
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