This morning, the Telegraph-Journal published the latest installment in my series on electricity and the New Brunswick and Quebec deal. (The final installment runs tomorrow.) On the newspaper’s website, some readers have chosen to make personal attacks on one of my sources, Bill Marshall, a former senior NB Power employee. I welcome fair comments on my work. (I can also deal with the not so fair comments directed at me, for example that I’m a paid hack on the take from big industrial groups that influenced my stories in some way.) I feel I need to correct the record with regards to Mr. Marshall, who is an honest and good man, who is in my story at my request. I attended a public forum about the NB Power deal, and after the meeting sought out Bill Marshall for help in understanding the broader story of what happened to the utility. I approached him because I had already spent a couple of months investigating the story and what he said made sense. He was also in a position to know something, and I thought the public should have an opportunity to hear it. Simple as that. I am responsible for every word in this story, as I am in every story published under my byline. Criticism of the content of the story is fair comment. Personal attacks are not.
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Dear Professor Lee,
Thanks so much for your wonderful series of articles contextualizing the NB Power saga. I’ve been living away from New Brunswick since I graduated from STU in 2006, but my wife and I still care very deeply about what goes in our home province, and have been at a bit of loss when people have asked us what we think about the (so-called) “NB Power Deal.”
I think that your series of articles represents precisely the kind of journalism that is almost prerequisite for intelligent deliberation in a democratic political order–especially when the deliberation involves such a complex (and in some cases technical) issue. I’m sorry to hear that others do not agree. Thanks for providing us with an example of journalism that actually moves beyond “reporting” and gives the rest of us an example of citizenship.
Best,
Matt Dinan