Two fired editors of the Canadian Medical Association Journal have been awarded the National Press Club of Canada's World Press Freedom award for 2006.
The awards will be presented Wednesday, which is World Press Freedom Day.
Former editor Dr. John Hoey and senior deputy editor Anne Marie Todkill were fired in late February after a run-in with the journal's publisher over an investigation which found some pharmacists across the country were invading women's privacy rights during sales of the emergency contraceptive drug known as Plan B.
"Editors should be free to express critical but responsible views about all aspects of medicine without fear of retribution, even if those views might conflict with the commercial goals of the publisher," said Spencer Moore, chair of the organizing committee for the World Press Freedom Day activities at the National Press Club, which is based in Ottawa.
"I'm delighted to get the award. And I'm honoured and feel privileged. But it came as a surprise," Hoey admitted in a brief interview Tuesday.
Hoey and Todkill were nominated by three journalists, including Paul Knox, chair of Ryerson University's School of Journalism and of the Canadian issues committee of the group Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE).
Knox said CJFE members were "shocked and appalled by the CMA's blatant censorship and silencing of voices that disagree with their interests."
Journal publisher Graham Morris blocked publication of a portion of the Plan B investigation, undertaken by the journal's news staff. Hoey and Todkill promptly wrote – and published online – an editorial accusing the journal's owners of censorship.
Hoey then struck a blue ribbon panel to establish for the CMA the boundaries of editorial independence. But before the committee could publish its report – and after Morris demanded changes to an article on incoming federal Health Minister Tony Clement – Hoey and Todkill were fired.
The Canadian Medical Association, which owns the journal, has depicted the dismissals as the result of "irreconcilable differences" between the editors and Morris. But the journal's former editorial board, which resigned virtually en masse, has characterized the firings as the coup de grace in a battle over editorial autonomy at the journal.
Hoey and Todkill are not free to air their side of the story. Some months before their dismissal they were required to sign confidentiality agreements as a condition of employment and the CMA holding company that owns the journal is holding them to those constraints.
