An opinion column on Toronto traffic hits speed bump due to lack of disclosure

Toronto Star columns include a note at the end telling readers who the authors are and their affiliations.

This includes freelance writers.

Aside from the obvious purpose of identifying the author, these taglines also help our readers gain a better understanding of the ties — and yes, leanings or biases — freelance opinion writers may have to entities such as business and finance, education, government, politics, health care, tech, the non-profit sector.

This week there was a torrent of criticism and accusations, much of it on social media, levelled at the Star and one of our long-time freelance opinion writers over lack of disclosure.

Jaime Watt, a well-known Progressive Conservative strategist and executive chairman of Navigator Ltd., penned a column on congestion and public transportation infrastructure in our city.

Watt concluded that politics is getting in the way of traffic relief and vital infrastructure in Toronto and what’s needed is to appoint a “czar” to oversee these things.

But by early Monday morning the emails to the Star — and my office specifically — started coming in.

“I would like to express my absolute dismay at the Star’s lack of disclosure” in Watt’s article, complained reader Tristan, who added the column had a “clear political slant.” Tristan said that would be acceptable, were it not for the fact that Watt is an advisor to Toronto mayoral candidate Brad Bradford’s campaign, a detail not pointed out in the article, including the end note.

Tristan called the column a “troubling misstep” by the Star, adding: “disclosure is a vital pillar of the free press.”

Winston, another reader, asked: “What is the value of this degree of publicity that was effectively given away to one candidate?”

“This seems to me to be a failure of transparency and in conflict with the Star’s journalistic standards,” wrote Larissa.

A bit of background is required here. In late February, we reported that Bradford, while mulling a run for Toronto mayor had named Watt as an advisor.

Watt is the founder of Navigator, a firm offering several services including crisis management, lobbying, PR and polling. It has represented numerous clients. (Full disclosure: Torstar, the parent company of the Star, has in the past used Navigator’s services).

In early April, Bradford, now a mayoral candidate, announced that if elected he “will appoint a congestion relief commissioner” who would end traffic chaos” and be responsible for coordinating all construction work, including city-led capital projects, private development and transit projects, news that was covered by media including the Star.

When Watt’s opinion column ran this week with the transportation czar idea, it seemed to many readers that Watt was promoting Bradford’s platform. The fact Watt’s role as an advisor to Bradford wasn’t mentioned here fuelled suspicions the Star and or Watt were hiding something.

It’s important to say that after looking into the complaints from our readers and digging into what happened, my associate Brian Bradley quickly amended Watt’s column the same day to add an end note to clarify Watt is an advisor to Bradford and an explanation alerting readers to the amendment.

I wrote a clarification that ran in the following day’s print edition, noting that Watt’s affiliation should have been mentioned.

But what went wrong here? For answers, I reached out to Watt, as well as Scott Colby, the Star’s opinion editor, who edits his column.

Colby said when he received the column, there was a message from one of Watt’s staff members asking for his thoughts on adding a disclaimer line at the end about Watt “having informally advised the Bradford campaign.”

“Before I line edited the column, I quickly read it over to consider the need for a disclaimer line. I knew Watt had advised Bradford as he explored running for mayor,” Colby said.

Colby said that in his view Watt did not endorse a specific candidate in the column.

“He didn’t even mention any candidates. The column was about the transportation crisis in the GTA and Watt’s solution was to appoint a traffic czar. I read it as being open advice to all candidates,” Colby added.

Colby clearly erred and he acknowledges that now.

Colby’s role includes screening dozens of opinion submissions received daily for factual errors, tone, appropriate language, fair comment, libel, slander and more.

“Without the benefit of hindsight, some decisions are inevitably better than others,” Colby said, adding he wishes he could have a do-over on the Watt piece.

Watt agrees that “a series of things went wrong” in this case.

“When I wrote the piece I was not aware the (Bradford) campaign had taken a position,” he said.

“Had I known Bradford had an idea similar to ours (the czar) there’s no question I would have disclosed that.”

Watt explained how his idea is “different” from Bradford’s, but to me this amounted to more of a distinction without a difference.My hunch tells me Watt likely heard about Bradford’s transportation commissioner announcement from April and simply forgot.

Watt says going forward, especially during election periods, “if I have given any advice to any campaign I would be inclined to put that in the footnote of my column, regardless of what I’m writing about. I think that’s just safer because people might interpret different things in different ways.”

Flubs were made on both sides here.

The lessons?

Colby offered this: opting for complete transparency, even if it doesn’t seem necessary in the moment, is never a bad decision.

Donovan Vincent is the Star’s Public Editor and based in Toronto. Reach him by email at publiced@thestar.ca or follow him on Twitter: @donovanvincent