For many months now the Toronto Star’s Noor Javed and Kristin Rushowy have reported diligently on the racial tensions roiling within the York Region District School Board that have led to Ontario’s education minister ordering an “urgent review” of the board.
These two reporters’ work exemplifies the journalist’s mission to hold public officials to account. Their reporting on allegations of racism and Islamophobia within a school board that has received relatively little media scrutiny in past is of strong public interest and, to my mind, has been accurate, fair, comprehensive and necessary. Most notably, their exclusive reports have shone a light on a Markham principal who posted anti-Muslim content on her public Facebook page and a longtime school trustee who used the n-word in reference to a black parent.
In reporting on trustee Nancy Elgie, 82, who publicly apologized for using the repugnant racial slur, but has resisted calls for her resignation — that includes a petition signed by more than 2,800 parents — Javed and Rushowy have gone above and beyond to be fair, going back repeatedly to the trustee, her family members and other sources to give them opportunity to tell their full story.
The reporters and their editors were thus surprised when critics this week accused them of irresponsible and unfair reporting on Elgie, charging they had not given readers all the facts. As one reader told them, “Finally, the real story has come out.”
The reason for this criticism: A Star opinion page article written by two of Elgie’s children, Stewart Elgie and Allyson Harrison, and headlined in the Star’s print edition “Facts to consider when you judge Nancy Elgie.”
“As Nancy’s children, we ask only that you learn the full story — which has not all come out yet — before passing judgment,” the pair wrote.
The opinion article was wholly sympathetic to Nancy Elgie, as one would expect of an article written by her children.
But the reality is that the reason all the facts they recounted had not come out yet was because they themselves had chosen not to tell the reporters and had indeed asked the reporters not to report specific details of their mother’s head injury. When her children later decided to disclose more details, they opted to bypass the reporters who would have certainly asked them tough questions about why their mother had continued to work as a trustee.
Although they had not been present when their mother uttered the racial slur, the Elgies told Star readers that their mother’s use of the n-word was “accidental” and attributed it to a fall that left her with a concussion from a head wound that required 20 staples to close. “Struggling with words is a symptom of a concussion,” they wrote, adding their mother had had trouble mixing up words when speaking.
On seeing the opinion piece in the newspaper, Javed and Rushowy — and some others in the Star’s newsroom — felt strongly that their careful and difficult reporting had been undermined by their own news organization.
The reporters accept the Star’s long tradition of a distinct separation between the newsroom and the editorial/opinion pages and don’t take serious issue with the Elgies having an opportunity to express their personal perspective in a Star opinion page piece, and nor do I. They understand that whatever the newsroom reports on, the Star’s editorial and opinion pages have wide latitude to present divergent views on the news. That’s what good editorial and opinion pages should do.
But the reporters and their editors question the article’s premise that readers had not been given the full story. In particular, they question the article’s prominent headline suggesting there were other facts to be revealed about the incident, especially since they had previously tried to get the Elgies to go on the record to talk about their mother’s injury. It was only after the Elgies received assurances that their article would be published that Stewart Elgie agreed to talk to the reporters about the full extent of their mother’s injury.
Also, the fact that the Elgies were able to communicate directly to readers on the opinion page sparked considerable controversy from those who believe there are no mitigating circumstances that make it acceptable for Elgie to remain in public office after being heard uttering the racial slur. Not surprisingly, given the racially charged tensions that have been exposed within the York Region board, those critics question why the opinion article was published at all. I suspect many do not understand the mandate of the opinion pages to provide a wide range of voices on controversial issues.
After the Elgie family approached the Star to share their perspective in an opinion piece, Andrew Phillips, the Star’s editorial page editor, and Scott Colby, the opinion page editor, gave it the go-ahead following some debate with the reporters and their editors who expressed reservations about the tone of the article that, to them, suggested Elgie had not been given an opportunity to tell her full story when she very clearly had been.
Phillips and Colby do not believe that publishing the personal perspective of Elgie’s children undermines the reporters’ work – and they have made clear to the newsroom that that was certainly not the intention.
“The piece included significant new information and provided a unique perspective from the family of Nancy Elgie. We have published lots on this issue and the article was another piece of the puzzle in this evolving story,” Phillips says. He believes readers can understand that the article is the opinion of the Elgie children and not an endorsement by the Star of their personal perspective.
In fact, in a strongly worded editorial published two weeks ago, the Star’s editorial called for Elgie to “do the right thing and resign.”
“There’s no kind way to say this: York Region District School Board trustee Nancy Elgie has got to go,” it stated.
Indeed, one can have compassion for Elgie and the passionate personal pleadings of her children on her behalf. But, the Star’s editorial view of this issue remains —rightly I believe —firm: Elgie should indeed step down from public office.
publiced@thestar.ca
publiced@thestar.ca
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