6161 Shirley Street -- the site of the standoff in 2004. Photo: Holly Fraughton

Freelance columnist Stephen Kimber sits in his tidy office at the University of King's College, computer screen flickering in the background. When I mention the VandenElsen case, he sits back in his chair, a look of bemused contemplation settling across his face. This is a subject he's been wrestling with for a while.

In May 2004, Halifax Regional Police officers went to a Shirley Street residence to serve a Children's Aid apprehension order. The parents of the child, Carline VandenElsen and Larry Finck, refused officers entry and barricaded themselves inside with their infant daughter and Finck's elderly mother. The stand-off disrupted neighborhood life and forced evacuation of residents. After 67 hours, it finally ended. But not before a series of bizarre events occurred -- a gun was fired inside the house, the baby was dangled out of a window, and Finck's mother died (of natural causes) -- all of which were fuel for the media frenzy.

Kimber wrote his first column on the issue in the Daily News shortly after the stand-off ended. Initially, he praised police conduct, but questioned Children's Aid's motive for taking the baby. He eventually spoke with VandenElsen, and the more he heard from her perspective the more critical he became of the authorities.

Kimber says, "It struck me -- I don't really know at what point -- that what we really needed was a public inquiry into this whole thing." He began calling for an inquiry into the case in his columns. None received any official response. "The questions kept growing, and I knew they weren't going to be dealt with by the courts."

So when Kimber was approached in May 2005 by Heather Laskey, member of a local committee advocating for a public inquiry into the case, he agreed to join. The MCF Inquiry Committee -- named for the initials of the baby's name, Mona Clare Finck -- is a loosely formed group with no official chair. Its main activities to date have been holding a press conference and placing an advertisement in the Chronicle-Herald, paid for mainly by committee members.

Other members of the group include Susan Studdard and Joyce Dempsey, neighborhood residents; Dulcie Conrad and Heather Laskey, freelance journalists; Ian Porter, retired CBC reporter; Kim Kierans, director of the School of Journalism at the University of King's College; and Ray Kuszelewski, Finck's former lawyer. The group emphasizes that they are not advocating for Finck and VandenElsen, but rather trying to address what they see as a problem with Children's Aid.

Almost all journalists, at one point in their career, find themselves in a similar situation. If writing about a subject isn't enough to affect change, is it ethical for a journalist to step beyond their professional role and become activists? Or does this constitute a conflict of interest, because they then have a personal stake in an issue that could conflict with their duty as journalists to be impartial?

Dulcie Conrad, fellow journalist and member of the MCF committee, says that there is nothing wrong with journalists like Kimber participating in activities that influence the community. "The conflict comes if you are looking for something for yourself -- to improve your status or to make financial gain." For Conrad, a journalist should be free to be active in the community.

Freelance journalist Robert Martin believes that journalists should use only their craft to try draw attention to issues. "Find some people who have been abused by the system and tell their stories. Let them hold the press conferences. That's the way to force the government's hand."

David Swick of the Daily News, and ethics instructor at the University of King's College journalism school, agrees that journalists should try and stay detached. "I can understand that columnists get frustrated with the limits of journalism. But I think when you cross that line and make the news instead of commenting on the news, you run the risk of being more easily pigeonholed." Readers may see you as biased, and not trust that your stories are balanced and fair.

Stephen Kimber: "The questions kept growing, and I knew they weren't going to be dealt with by the courts." Photo: Holly Fraughton

Transparency

Kimber's decision to join the MCF Committee was not made easily. He was conscious of the dilemma of moving from reporting or commenting on an issue to becoming a participant. He decided to join, but to make sure his readers knew about his choice.

Transparency is often seen as a deciding factor when considering whether public involvement is unethical. Bruce Wark, journalism professor at King's and columnist for Halifax's alternative weekly The Coast, says that when something seems to be an "extreme injustice" columnists should rely on their conscience to decide if they should get involved. But journalists have an obligation to reveal their personal involvement in the story.

Kimber received plenty of feedback about his columns on the VandenElsen case, but none of his readers, or even the editorial staff at the Daily News, seemed concerned that his work with the committee constituted a conflict of interest.

Kevin McIntosh, Kimber's editor at the Daily News, says that while he supports columnists taking strong positions, he feels, like Martin, that journalists have their forum to express their opinion and to try to initiate change. "What concerns me is anything that could potentially blur the lines or tend to make people doubt our credibility. One of the only things we have going for us as journalists, as far as I'm concerned, is our credibility." Despite this, McIntosh has no plans to ask Kimber to stop writing about the VandenElsen case or to quit the committee, although he thinks it is important that readers are aware of Kimber's involvement in the group.

When it comes to editorial freedom, some journalists aren't as lucky as Kimber. Mark Darling reported in the Summer 1991 issue of the Ryerson Review of Journalism about Alan Story, an investigative journalist at the Toronto Star. Story had a history of exposing scandal and corruption before he went to the Star in 1989. His work in Nova Scotia had helped reopen the Donald Marshall murder investigation, and another story had exposed a scandal which led to the resignation of deputy premier Roland Thornhill. So by the time Story came to Toronto, he was an experienced muckraker.

While working on a story about Toronto's sex trade, Story discovered that a police officer had been involved in the operation of an illicit escort service. The officer had made a deal with his superiors to resign and, in return, no charges would be laid. After the piece was published in the Star, public outrage led the police commission to hold an inquiry into how the force's internal affairs department handled police misconduct cases.

But Story didn't feel that the public inquiry was enough. In April 1990, shortly after the piece was published, he took an unpaid leave of absence to attend law school. While on leave, he prepared a 34-page brief detailing more cases he felt had been mismanaged by the police force. When he returned in September, he offered a copy of the brief to his editors and informed them that he was submitting it to the inquiry.

According to Darling's story in the Ryerson Review, Story's editor-in-chief, John Honderich, felt this was clearly a conflict of interest: Story was no longer reporting the news, he was making it. He was given an ultimatum. If he didn't submit the brief to the commission, he could stay at the Star. Otherwise, he could resign. Story declined both options and was fired.

The Kimber and Story situations ended very differently. This could be because Kimber is a freelance columnist, while Story was a staff reporter. There is a significant distinction between the roles of reporter and columnist. One is paid to report just the facts, the other to express opinion. But that doesn't mean that it's acceptable for columnists to participate in what they write about.

Terry O'Neil, managing editor of the Chronicle-Herald, says, "We expect columnists to have opinions. You can still have strong opinions and not be involved in an advocacy group."

O'Neil, however, also believes that journalists have a right to be involved in the community. But if staff reporters join a certain group or cause, they are not permitted to write about it, because the reader might doubt the credibility of the reporter and the publication. Columnists, he says, should also avoid participating in what they write about, for the same reasons that reporters should, but if their involvement is revealed to the public, they would be permitted to cover the issue, because the reader doesn't have the same expectations of impartiality from a columnist.

Kimber acknowledges that he enjoys certain liberties as a freelance columnist. "Staff reporters get less freedom, and I'm not sure that's horrible." He also admits that if he were a staff reporter in the same situation, he probably would not have gotten involved in the committee for fear of being seen by readers as one-sided.

Ethics codes

Journalists also need to consider their publication's ethics code when they are trying to decide whether they should get involved in groups. That is, if their publication has an ethics code. Many don't.

Typically, only larger news organizations have formal, comprehensive ethics codes, and even then, policies can be vague. For example, when it comes to defining conflict of interest, the CBC code states, "Any situation which could cause reasonable apprehension that a journalist or the organization is biased or under the influence of any pressure group, whether ideological, political, financial, social or cultural, must be avoided." According to this, Kimber's involvement with the MCF Committee -- a social pressure group -- would be a conflict of interest.

Wark, who was president of the Local 213 of the Canadian Wire Service Guild that represented CBC journalists from 1980 to 1985, believes that ethics codes are an important protective tool for journalists. For instance, CBC guidelines say that during a hostage situation, journalists are not permitted to call and speak with the hostage-taker. In this case, the rule is straightforward. Reporters know not to do it and they don't have to struggle with their conscience. Wark also emphasizes, however, that even when a news media outlet does have a code, journalists tend to rely more on the opinion of peers. "That's the problem with the codes and guidelines -- they get written, but they don't always get followed because they're at the bottom of a drawer."

Stephen Ward, professor of journalism ethics at the University of British Columbia, says ethics codes can contribute to good journalism if done right. He sees a good ethics code containing not just general principles, like truth-telling and keeping promises, but specific scenarios. "You've got to get everyone in the newsroom involved in developing the code. And then you have to change it and update it almost every year."

Ward says the real problem with media ethics codes is that "procedures in the newsroom that support ethical standards are vastly underdeveloped in Canadian journalism." He says the media only think about ethics when confronted with a situation -- what he labels "crisis ethics in newsrooms." He points out that other institutions, like the government, are required to develop ethical guidelines for the public. But media organizations resist this, claiming that newsrooms are too fast-paced to meet the same standards. Ward sees that as an "ethical red herring," and a cop-out.

Finck and VandenElsen were convicted in May 2005 of obstruction, contravening a child custody order, and weapons offenses, but are appealing. Mona Clare has been put up for adoption. But the MCF Inquiry Committee continues to push for answers. And the Daily News ran Kimber's tenth column on the topic in mid-September.

At the end of our interview, after Kimber has pondered his involvement in the group, he concludes, "It's not the normal thing that I would do as a columnist, or even as a person. I hate meetings. I'm much happier to kind of pontificate in my little corner than get directly involved."

hfraught@dal.ca