The fray between Yukon Premier Dennis Fentie and a government CBC employee is not worth discussion.

The last time I rescued the premier from the jaws of the media hounds who wanted his head on a platter for his serving penitentiary time for drug trafficking (Star, Nov. 28/03), all I received as thanks was his standing me up for a meeting that his staff confirmed twice after the initial appointment was made at his invitation.

I have no patience for his rudeness that wasted my time and money to meticulously prepare for this phantom meeting.

But neither do I have patience for CBC's sudsing us with psycho-politics, formerly known as "brainwashing", which accounts for why the government broadcaster has been dubbed the Canadian Brainwashing Corporation.

Its Liberal-controlled Ottawa agenda bashes everything and everybody: anti-smoking; anti-business; anti-property ownership; anti-justice; anti-guns; anti-decent white men; anti-Bush; anti-American; anti-English language; anti-industry; anti-labour; anti-Christian religion; anti-Charter rights. When was the last time you heard CBC promote Canadian literature as "Canadiana"?

In turn, this national public radio endorses a social engineering agenda patterned after the politically-correct Marxist-Leninist philosophy as laid out in the pages of the Communist Manifesto.

However, the issue in this local debate is whether responsibility, integrity and ethical behaviour accompanied journalistic licence.

Freedom of the press is one of the most cherished rights in any so-called democratic country of the Western World. It is upheld in the Criminal Code of Canada. But with it is attached a lot of baggage, as goes with any fundamental right.

Individuals enjoy certain rights which no government or other human being can take away or tamper with unless the people allow it: the right to defend self, family and property; the right to own property; and the feedoms of religion, speech, peaceful assembly and of the press.

Both the United States and Canada were built on these precious rights.

Our English forefathers demanded those rights in 1215 from King John who was forced by the people to sign the Magna Carta which obligated the government to stop interfering with people's liberties and pursuit of happiness.

"Butt out," we would say today.

We, the people, are supposed to be behind the wheel driving the bus; the government is supposed to be the vehicle being driven. We, the people, should decide where the bus goes, which route it takes and how fast it takes to get there.

But freedoms are fragile. They are all cross-wired. Abuse one and you lose them all. Unless each freedom is respected, nurtured and guarded ferociously, each right will die, and we, the people, will be tossed into the ash can of slavery.

Just because an individual has the God-given right upheld by the Criminal Code to self-defence doesn't mean a person can legally go on a wholesale, cold-blooded slaughtering binge. Another God-given law states, Thou shalt not kill, which is also incorporated into the Criminal Code.

Basically, it's common sense and a sense of decency passed down through the Christian religion.

As for freedom of the press, I may not agree with what another writer says, but I will defend his right to say it...unless he has wantonly shirked his duty of decency and responsibilities as a journalist when saying what he said for the mere sake of being hurtful, hateful and ignorant.

Whenever irresponsible journalists and reporters stupidly and wittingly abuse their precious rights, it tarnishes the whole profession. It serves to accelerate the restrictions the government continually imposes on the media, which is fast approaching journalism Stalin-style: which court cases can and cannot be reported and which slant has to be put on the printable ones; whose identities are and are not to be protected; and which perfectly-good English words have been hijacked as off-limits.

When public tempers flare up over reporters making the news instead of reporting it is a good time to drag out the Journalist's Code of Ethics for a review to see where people stand intelligently, rather than emotionally, in this war on words.

University students, who graduate from a four-year journalism program now, have never been introduced to the journalist creed that once governed the profession. But what can be expected from a socialist-sponsored public education system that is bent on destroying freedom of the press and all our other cherished freedoms and has dispatched plenty of brainwashed missionaries to advance the cause?

Here's the code that ethical journalist still observe, either by training or by instinct:

"I believe in the profession of journalism.

"I believe that the public journal is a public trust and that all connected with it are, to the full measure of their responsibility, trustees for the public.

"Acceptance of lesser service than the public service is betrayal of this trust. I believe that clear thinking and clear statement, accuracy and fairness, are fundamental to good journalism.

"I believe that a journalist should write only what he holds in his heart to be true.

"I believe that suppression of the news, for any consideration other than the welfare of society, is indefensible.

"I believe that no one should write as a journalist what he would not say as a gentleman.

"I believe that bribery by one's own pocketbook is as much to be avoided as bribery by the pocketbook of another and that individual responsibility may not be escaped by pleading another's instructions or another's dividends.

"I believe that advertising, news and editorial columns should alike serve the best interests of readers and that a single standard of helpful truth and cleanness should prevail for all.

"I believe that the supreme test of good journalism is the measure of its public service.

"I believe that the journalism which succeeds best--and best deserves success--fears God and honours man; is stoutly independent, unmoved by pride of opinion or greed of power, and is constructive and tolerant, but never careless.

"I believe in a journalism that is always self-controlled, patient, always respectful of its readers but always unafraid and is quickly indignant at injustice.

"I believe in a journalism that is unswayed by the appeal of privilege or the clamour of the mob.

"I believe in a journalism that seeks to give every man a chance, and, as far as law and honest wage and recognition of human brotherhood can make it so, an EQUAL chance.

"I believe in a journalism that is profoundly patriotic while sincerely promoting international good will and cementing world-comradship.

"This is a journalism of humanity of and for today's world."

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Copyright 2004 diArmani.com