January 30, 2025 – for immediate release

The National NewsMedia Council (NNC) has dismissed a complaint about accuracy in a November 11, 2024, news article published by the Toronto Sun. 

In their submission, the complainant, Debbie Hubbard, raised two concerns for the NNC’s review. The submission questioned the news organization’s editorial decision-making for its reporting on a report produced by a civic society organization that examined the ‘explosion of antisemitism’ in Canada and questioned the accuracy of the reporting. 

In particular, the complainant disputed the accuracy of the specific statement that some encampments on the grounds of public post-secondary learning institutions were “no-go” zones for Jewish students and faculty. 

The complainant also expressed concern that the writer of the article had posted screenshots on a social media platform of a private letter rather than responding directly. To this concern, the complainant was notified that the NNC’s mandate is to accept complaints about journalistic works published by member news organizations. For that reason, the NNC declined to consider the part of the complaint about an individual writer’s social media activity, as that is outside the scope of the organization’s mandate. 

To the complainant’s concerns about accuracy, the NNC received a response from the news organization. Their response acknowledged that the article was based on a report produced by a think tank based in Israel. A review of the news story indicated that the article properly declared that the think tank was described as a “Jerusalem-based think tank”. 

Generally speaking, reports about research findings or studies are expected to include relevant information about the organizations that produced the studies. Including such details, such as the name and location of organizations, allows readers to understand the information in context, and identify factors that may indicate a given organization’s perspectives or biases . To that end, reports from advocacy organizations should be met with an appropriate level of skepticism and understanding about the perspective from which they operate. At the same time, each news organization maintains the responsibility to determine the news value of materials their readers may find significant, interesting, or new. 

In this case, the NNC agreed with the news organization that the article properly discloses the fact that the civil society organization was based in Jerusalem. The NNC is of the view that this description adds context for readers to understand the geographical and political context of the organization that produced the report.

With regards to the second portion of the complainant’s concerns about the accuracy of the article, the news organization provided the NNC with links to several previously-published articles to support the statement about students feeling unsafe or excluded in certain contexts on campuses. 

The NNC has long maintained that journalists have the prerogative to select the focus of a given story and to identify credible sources for their reporting. In this case, the NNC recognizes that the news organization pointed to widely available information to support the statements in the piece. 

For these reasons, the NNC did not find sufficient grounds to support a breach of journalistic standards related to accuracy and, therefore, dismissed the complaint.