Kash Heed, former B.C. Solictor-General seen here March 12, 2009.JOHN LEHMANN
A Global BC reporter breached accepted journalistic principles and risked her station's reputation for balanced reporting in a 2009 e-mail exchange with Kash Heed's former campaign manager, the station says.
In a statement released on Wednesday, Global News expressed confidence in Catherine Urquhart's abilities and said she will return to work on Monday after being taken off the air Jan. 20 over the matter.
"Global News has full confidence in Ms. Urquhart," the broadcaster said, outlining the results of an internal review into the matter.
The statement said Ms. Urquhart will face undisclosed discipline over the June 10, 2009, exchange with Barinder Sall, which came to light with the unsealing of a search warrant filed as part of an investigation of Mr. Heed, a former B.C. solicitor-general, for alleged breach of trust related to 2009 election campaign financing.
"I can honestly say Kash would not be SG [solicitor-general]today if it hadn't been for some key people behind the scenes," Mr. Sall wrote on June 10, 2009, to Ms. Urquhart.
"There were only truly 3 people that played a major role: Me, Peter Dhillon and yourself and Kash knows this," he added.
"Peter was the money guy, I'm the brown tanned James Bond strategy girl-chasing guy and you were like the communications director . . . your stories, coverage and timing gave Kash a lot of profile and built him a following from day 1 at West Van and then leading into the election."
Ms. Urquhart's replied: "Hey . . . that's really sweet of you. Have to say - there were a number of people along the way (cops and reporters - mostly cops) who seemed to have it out for Kash. But I always believed he was a good guy. I'm truly glad it worked out! C"
In the statement, Global says it encourages its reporters to "continually work relationships with their sources" to find stories beyond press releases.
However, the statement said the review concluded Ms. Urquhart "created the appearance of a partisan conflict of interest and thus put at risk the reputation of Global News for balanced reporting" by failing to "negate or dispute" Mr. Sall's comments.
The review found Ms. Urquhart "breached accepted journalistic principles" and Global editorial standards related to the avoidance of a real or apparent conflict of interest with the exchange.
That said, the review concluded there was "no evidence of an actual conflict of interest," and that Ms. Urquhart's reporting was "newsworthy, fair and impartial.
"There is no evidence that her past reports proffered any bias or favourable treatment of Mr. Heed."
The station said it will not have any further comment on the matter.
Ian Bailey