Q&A with Paul Watson, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist, on why he just Resigned from The Toronto Star
Jesse Brown • July 8, 2015
Veteran photojournalist and reporter Paul Watson has resigned from the Toronto Star.
"Resigning," Watson wrote yesterday on his blog, "is the only way I can resume that reporting, complete the work and fulfill my responsibilities as a journalist."
CANADALAND reached him by phone this morning at his home in Vancouver. This interview has been edited for clarity.
Why did you resign from The Toronto Star?
Part of what got me to the place I finally arrived at yesterday is listening to your show and realizing that really, enough is enough.
I was ordered six weeks ago yesterday to stop reporting on what I believe is a story of significant public interest.
It basically deals with complaints from federal workers and others - experts in their field - who were looking for these lost Franklin ships, Erebus and Terror, which sank in the Arctic when Sir John Franklin and 128 men were trying to find the Northwest Passage way back in the middle of the 19th century.
Now, I realize that on the surface that doesn't sound like much, but I came to realize it's part of a broader problem. And you've spoken about it at length on your program and others are starting to speak about it. People are sick and tired of a government that is destroying our democracy by intimidating experts into silence so that the politically connected and the powerful can fill that information vacuum.
So that's the story that I'm working on against the backdrop of the search for the Franklin ships.
Can you give us some context, because people may only be aware of this feel-good story about a government project, this discovery of a shipwreck. So what is the political aspect that you were trying to uncover?
Yes, you might have thought this was a simple feel-good story, an effort to answer a mystery the world has been following for the last 170 years.
But you’d be shocked at how much political sleaze that can generate. The people who’ve been looking for these ships, they’re really hardworking Federal civil servants, archeologists and others who know the truth of how those ships were found and had every right to tell that truth themselves. But because of the country we live in, and because of the government we live under, that message could only come from Prime Minister Stephen Harper himself.
READ MORE: http://canadalandshow.com/article/qa-paul-watson-pulitzer-prize-winning-journalist-why-he-just-resigned-toronto-star
"Resigning," Watson wrote yesterday on his blog, "is the only way I can resume that reporting, complete the work and fulfill my responsibilities as a journalist."
CANADALAND reached him by phone this morning at his home in Vancouver. This interview has been edited for clarity.
Why did you resign from The Toronto Star?
Part of what got me to the place I finally arrived at yesterday is listening to your show and realizing that really, enough is enough.
I was ordered six weeks ago yesterday to stop reporting on what I believe is a story of significant public interest.
It basically deals with complaints from federal workers and others - experts in their field - who were looking for these lost Franklin ships, Erebus and Terror, which sank in the Arctic when Sir John Franklin and 128 men were trying to find the Northwest Passage way back in the middle of the 19th century.
Now, I realize that on the surface that doesn't sound like much, but I came to realize it's part of a broader problem. And you've spoken about it at length on your program and others are starting to speak about it. People are sick and tired of a government that is destroying our democracy by intimidating experts into silence so that the politically connected and the powerful can fill that information vacuum.
So that's the story that I'm working on against the backdrop of the search for the Franklin ships.
Can you give us some context, because people may only be aware of this feel-good story about a government project, this discovery of a shipwreck. So what is the political aspect that you were trying to uncover?
Yes, you might have thought this was a simple feel-good story, an effort to answer a mystery the world has been following for the last 170 years.
But you’d be shocked at how much political sleaze that can generate. The people who’ve been looking for these ships, they’re really hardworking Federal civil servants, archeologists and others who know the truth of how those ships were found and had every right to tell that truth themselves. But because of the country we live in, and because of the government we live under, that message could only come from Prime Minister Stephen Harper himself.
READ MORE: http://canadalandshow.com/article/qa-paul-watson-pulitzer-prize-winning-journalist-why-he-just-resigned-toronto-star
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