(The Letter was sent to the Alberni Valley News on October 8 2025)
Update: October 14th – Carpenter Media Editor Refuses to Run my Letter.
Today I was phoned (I believe… it all happened a little quickly) by Senior Vice President & Group Publisher Canadian Division, Mary Kemmis. She said she is in charge of both the Canadian and Alaska Division of the Carpenter Media group and was previously with Black Press. She is based in Smithers, BC.
She explained to me that my Letter to the Editor would not be published as is but spent most of the time explaining what happened during the original incident that led to the resignation of the Alaska reporters.
I thought, and expressed, that it was extraordinary that she had chosen to reach out to me. I have never, in the many many years of writing letters to my local newspaper, been contacted by anyone other than the editor of the paper itself.
Clearly this has struck a nerve, and Carpenter Media is feeling… feelings.
The representative did her best to explain the chain of events that lead to the modification of the story and why it happened the way it did, including her own personal sickness. What she did say was that the “conversation didn’t happen” between the writers of the story and the senior editors that made the changes. She emphasized that Carpenter “did not fire them”, they resigned and were paid out.
She further explained the story “did not meet our standards” and contained “inaccuracies” (as does apparently my letter) in its original form and particularly pointed out that calling Charlie Kirk a “racist” wasn’t appropriate in their eyes as that was a value judgement rather than a statement of fact thrust upon the reader without the reader making up their own mind.
After I said my letter wasn’t about whether Kirk was a racist* but rather about an owner of a newspaper chain directing changes to copy against the wishes of the original writer/journalist, she went to great pains explaining how it was a group of senior editors including herself, who ultimately approved and made the changes and the ownership group never had any role to play. (*which Kirk obviously and verifiably was over and over. She mentioned the oft-mentioned MLK Jr statements)
She did admit that the copy was edited without the writer’s consent and that normal processes “were not followed”. I asked her if she believed it was inappropriate for a reporter to have their copy edited without their consent. She deferred answering yes or no and instead went on to explain the situation. She said at one point that she has gotten to know the owners of Carpenter. She described them as ‘nice guys’ and that they had a personal heritage in printing and the newspaper business. She mentioned how without them coming in to buy Black Press 80 newspapers in Canada would probably not exist today. ( I lamented that the newspaper business hasn’t figured out how to be sustainable over the past 10-20 years)
I also asked her if she had reached out to or talked with the Tyee, she said she didn’t have anything from them in her phone… and then went on to mention that the Tyee article was a reprint of an Alaska Beacon article. (I didn’t realize this originally). She complained mildly about that article also containing “inaccuracies” particularly about being “fired” versus them “resigning” and that there were other factors that might have also contributed to the individuals resigning.
After she spent most of our 19 minute conversation explaining why she was concerned about the Alaska article and the seemingly-unfortunate (my interpretation) chain of events that led to this not “normal” process, I finally asked her if this meant that she would not be printing my letter to the editor.
She said she would welcome a rewrite if I was willing to do so.
Needless to say, I’m thinking about that re-submission….
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Original Letter sent to the AV News
Dear Editor,
I am deeply concerned that the new American owner of this newspaper, Carpenter Media, has crossed a bright red line in journalism ethics that calls into question the independence and integrity of every newspaper they now own.
As reported in The Tyee on October 6th, “Reporters and editors at the [Alaska-based] Homer News and Peninsula Clarion announced their resignations Sept 29., citing a decision by the papers’ corporate owners to bow to political pressure to amend an article about a vigil for the slain far-right activist Charlie Kirk.”
This is an unconscionable and outrageous break of the public trust in the freedom and independence of the press.
It is all well and good for owners and publishers to hire editors and writers with a particular point of view. However, this action by Carpenter Media is absolutely beyond the pale. It goes against fundamental principles of democracy. A free press must question and be independent of any government regardless whether elected politicians like or dislike what is published.
If this is how Carpenter Media is going to run its newspapers then I am sure publishers, editors, and reporters at the Alberni Valley News and other Canadian papers are thinking long and hard about their own professional integrity and the expectations Canadians have.
We readers, as citizens of our democracy, should be thinking about this as well.
It is time for Canadian governments to strengthen Canadian ownership rules for the Canadian press so we as citizens can be confident our news sources follow our own Constitutional expectations and do not get caught up in some other country’s downward spiral toward authoritarianism.