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Pro-life Journalist Can Stay at Ontario Legislature

John-Henry Westen

TORONTO, November 2, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a surprising victory for pro-life journalism, The Interim newspaper columnist Frank Kennedy, arrived at a compromise with the Queen’s Park Press Gallery, thus maintaining his press credentials at the Ontario Legislature.

Kennedy, who has been the Queen’s Park correspondent and columnist for The Interim, Canada’s life and family issues newspaper, for nearly 20 years, was not confident going into the specially called meeting of the press gallery to consider the veteran journalist’s standing within the group.

In October Kennedy was informed that he had offended some of his fellow journalists after he distributed a pro-life bookmark in their mailboxes. The bookmark featured the famous picture of the out-stretched hand of baby Samuel as doctors were performing surgery in utero. He was told by press gallery president Alan Findlay that they were considering rescinding his part-time membership and expelling him from the group.

Kennedy told LifeSiteNews.com last month that he expected to get the boot from the press gallery considering many of his colleagues’ pro-abortion bias. But he and Interim editor-in-chief Paul Tuns both prepared defences of Kennedy’s right to represent the paper at Queen’s Park.

Kennedy argued that he was being expelled for his pro-life views and defended his presence at the press gallery along freedom of expression and freedom of the press lines. Tuns, who had prepared a statement but was not allowed to attend the closed-door meeting this afternoon, lobbied individual journalists immediately before the meeting, arguing that expelling Kennedy for distributing a pro-life bookmark was a disproportionate punishment.

Findlay told Tuns prior to the meeting that the gallery was going to vote on whether to permanently expel Kennedy for his small act of pro-life activism but said that The Interim could replace him with another journalist. Tuns told LifeSiteNews.com that option was not realistic.  “It’s not as if we have dozens of reporters that we can shift around,” said Tuns. “We are not the Toronto Star and we don’t have a large staff of writers.”

Although the proceedings are confidential and it cannot be reported who said what, Kennedy told LifeSiteNews.com that the case to expel him broke down quickly as many other members of the media found the punishment heavy-handed. He reported that some of his support came from surprising sources including media outlets that are not typically pro-life. One journalist told LifeSiteNews that Kennedy made an impassioned plea to be allowed to stay and stressed the important role that niche journalists can play in the political arena.

To satisfy Kennedy’s critics, a compromise was settled upon during the one-hour meeting. Kennedy is allowed to remain as a part-time accredited journalist but will receive a written reprimand for what the gallery considered inappropriate activism on his behalf. The wording of the reprimand has yet to be decided. Furthermore, Kennedy has agreed to no longer distribute pro-life literature, including The Interim Newspaper, in the mailboxes of the members of the press gallery although he will be allowed to leave a quantity of them in a common room at the press gallery.

Tuns said that he is pleased with the compromise and said the real winner are Interim readers who will be able to continue reading Kennedy’s Queen’s Park musings and occasional breaking stories including the cover story of next month’s issue.

Kennedy reports in the upcoming issue that the province has funded Canadian abortionist Henry Morgentaler’s security expenses for his Toronto and Ottawa abortuaries. “If it wasn’t for the type of digging that Kennedy does on these types of stories, taxpaying Ontarians would have no idea that their money is going to subsidize Morgentaler’s private enterprises,” Tuns explains. “No one else in the media is uncovering these stories.”

See Previous LifeSiteNews.com story
Veteran Pro-Life Journalist to Be Ousted from Ontario Gov't Press Gallery
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/oct/05102101.html

See the Baby Samuel photo that caused the uproar
http://www.lifesite.net/fetaldevelopment/samuel.html

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