You may wish to check out the story from within the
Canberra Times about out-going editor Michael Stevens bowing to pressure from a
sporting body last week to not run a back page lead story. A CT sports reporter
got wind of the 2007 Black Opal horse race being cancelled and spoke to the
racing officials concerned. That evening the Canberra Racing Club CEO rang
Stevens expressing concern about how last weekend’s Black Opal race (run on
Sunday) would be tarnished by such so-called
negative
news – even thought
they didn’t deny it. The CT night team was dismayed when Stevens emerged from
his office after the phone call and instructed the sports sub-editors to pull
the story off the back page. They cut the story by
half and softened its
angle” and ran it well inside on the racing and sports results
page.