There’s an important principle taught in journalism school — keep your distance from those in power so you can report honestly about them. But …
Highlighting the chummy relationship between many in the media and the military, the Globe and Mail recently celebrated their reporters receiving a military institute’s prize named for one of Canada’s most famous military propagandists.
Last week Globe reporters Robert Fife and Steven Chase received the Conference of Defence Associations’ (CDA) Ross Munro Media award, which recognizes journalists “contribution to understanding defence and security issues.” Fife and Chase were awarded for leading the charge against purported Chinese interference in Canada. Militarists appreciate hyping this issue since it justifies following Washington in its belligerence towards China. With US military bases and warships encircling the Asian nation, Canadian vessels and aircraft are increasingly present near China’s territorial waters and airspace.
Canada’s Chief of the Defence Staff General attended the award ceremony. Wayne Eyre was pictured next to Fife and Chase holding their statuette (in past years Ross Munro Media award recipients have received $2,500). The Chief of the Defence Staff, governor general, defence ministers and governor generals (as commander in chief) regularly appear at CDA’s annual conference. They are honorary patrons or vice patrons of the CDA, which is effectively an arm of the Canadian military.
Established in 1932, then Minister of Defence Donald Matheson Sutherland backed CDA’s creation. Since its inception CDA has been directly or indirectly financed by DND.
As a DND funded, pro-military, organization it isn’t surprising the CDA named its journalism award after one of Canada’s preeminent military propagandists. After then Canadian Press correspondent Ross Munro survived the disastrous 1942 raid at Dieppe, he was hired by the World War 2 Wartime Information Board to tell Canadians about the “heroic” attack. During a speech in Montréal Munro presented himself as an eyewitness to the exploits of the French Canadian regiment largely wiped out during the raid. But Munro landed with another regiment three kilometers away. Béatrice Richard asks, “how could he claim to have witnessed the French Canadians in action? In essence, Munro became a propagandist working on behalf of the war effort and his story mirrored the army’s press releases.”
Even after the war, Munro continued to peddle the military leadership’s self-serving description of the disastrous invasion at Dieppe, which left most of the 5,000 Canadians dead. In Gauntlet to Overlord: The Story of the Canadian Army, Munro claimed, “lessons were learned at Dieppe … which gave the Allied command the key to invasion.”
In the early 1950s Munro also helped the Canadian military sell its large deployment to Korea. The influence Munro amassed from his time as war correspondent paved the way for him to become publisher of the Edmonton Journal, Vancouver Province and Winnipeg Tribune. More than almost anyone Munro highlights the close ties between the military and media.
The Globe and Mail celebrating its reporters’ receiving a military institute’s award to commemorate a war propagandist says a lot about its relations with the military.
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