Dear editor,
I feel compelled to address a number of issues this week that relate to the 51暗网 but I have chosen to concentrate on a couple of lines in last week鈥檚 editorial:
鈥� 鈥淩eaders may have found it surprising to learn that a reporter with the 51暗网 was a board member with the Friends of Jasper National Park鈥�.
The Friends of Jasper National Park, and many other community organizations in Jasper, have had members of community newspapers as part of our board of directors 鈥� and our organization 鈥� for several years. I don鈥檛 feel that most community members would find this surprising. It is the diversity of our boards that allows each of our organizations to be strong, to include a variety of viewpoints and to move ahead as we have all been able to.
It was upsetting to see one of our board members leave 鈥渧oluntarily鈥� this past week after being strongly encouraged by her employer that this position would be a conflict. I feel that it is important for anyone in a small community (or anywhere, for that matter) to be able to make the choice about what they do in their personal time, regardless of what they do for paid employment.
Many people in Jasper tend to wear many hats (from employment to volunteer commitments to boards to council) and are able to make it work. Should there ever be a conflict of interest that arises, staff/volunteers/board/council members are welcome (and encouraged) to sit out of a discussion or a decision. In the case of the newspaper, another reporter has always approached Friends about stories related to our organization so that there wasn鈥檛 any conflict of interest or any bias in our favour.
鈥� 鈥淐an anyone, let alone a journalist, truly claim to be 100% impartial?鈥�
I find this question to be ironic as the story printed in the paper this week that involved the Friends was reported because of, what I feel, was a personal bias. The Friends were approached about this story (which the reporter heard about through office chat between his co-workers, not in an official capacity) and we decided against commenting because, in our opinion, it wasn鈥檛 an issue for our organization to begin with and then because of the nature of the way it came to be. Most importantly, we didn't want to sensationalize a story that revolved around the sensitive topic of our commemorative bench program, where benches are donated to commemorate a lost loved one.
I also shared information with the reporter that the bench was removed because of an error on the Friends鈥� behalf, but this was not reported. Once we told the reporter that it was a simple miscommunication, I was told that 鈥渄escribing it as a 鈥榥on-issue鈥� and a 鈥榤iscommunication鈥� makes the story all the more compelling.鈥� The story went ahead 鈥� with inaccuracies - because of this bias.
The Friends always strives to uphold our values of respect, cooperation, honesty and integrity, involvement, quality and fun and we hope that other organizations do so as well.
Heather Aussant Roy
Co-Manager, Friends of Jasper National Park
