Last Thursday, when Bruce Wark’s column “Otherwordly Media Coverage” came out in The Coast, one of my former high school journalism students quickly shot me a Facebook message. A number of others soon added emails, and phone calls followed. They all were of the opinion that Wark had not sufficiently researched his topic and had missed the part of the story that would have made his writing, which I consider a good piece given what he knew, an even better read.
One of them, a Kings Journalism student, summed up their thoughts:
“I can't help feel The Coast probably didn't do their research before they ran this story. If they had, they likely would have noticed that the articles about the incident were originally by you, and then those trying to ease people's worries, thus putting the story to sleep, were by the "British guy" David Bentley you told us about, and wrote about in your blog last June.”
I’m an admirer of Wark’s writing. I pointed out that only if he had the original stories in front of him would he realize that their tone changed after Sunday, Oct. 8, when the writer changed….and even then he wouldn’t know that the editor in charge of The Chronicle-Herald that night, who had given my story front page play, had suddenly gone on an unscheduled vacation.
As for me, I arrived early Sunday night to start following leads on the Shag Harbour story. I was told management (above the managing editor level) had taken me off and arranged for Bentley to do all follow-ups “because we feel we can handle it better on dayside.” On the quiet, I was told David would have specific instructions and direct supervision. The next day, I ran into Bentley as the shifts changed. He drew me aside and apologized profusely, saying it wasn’t his idea and he didn’t like the smell of it. I asked him why he had not followed up some of my contacts, including RCAF Squadron Leader Bain in Ottawa whose comment had been used for my headline. Bentley stared at me and said Bain did not exist. I was never sure how to take that.
In any case, Bruce Wark was right. David Bentley’s job was to dig up people who could pass as experts and who would deny flying saucers existed. They were to state forcefully nothing had happened over and in Shag Harbour.
Over the years, two theories on what this was all about have slowly developed. One is that The Chronicle-Herald brass felt the people of Nova Scotia were being frightened by my story and the editor’s front page headline for it. They, like many others, thought our use of the acronym UFO meant “flying saucers” and they didn’t believe in such foolishness. You can check my original copy. (Ray’s Place: http://raymacleod.blogspot.com/) The words “flying saucer” never appeared. In fact, the Air Force use of UFO implied no more than what it stood for….an object in the sky that had not been identified.
On the other hand, some believe the newspaper was leaned upon heavily to get off the story for military reasons. The producer of a History Channel documentary of the event (as opposed to one for The Space Channel) shared with me his New York-based thoughts, which included that what went into Shag Harbour was top secret Cold War hardware. It would take a couple of days, he said, for the Americans to get their act together, inform Canada what was going on, and for Ottawa to tell my newspaper to reverse gears on the situation. After all, this was the Cold War and you couldn’t tell the nice people the truth without also telling the bad guys.
Last Thursday was interesting because it meant students remembered enough of what I taught them to look critically, with information Wark didn’t have, at his column. However, it has been 41 years, I’ve given up hoping for the truth on Shag Harbour, and I have to admit I wish it would just go away.
One of them, a Kings Journalism student, summed up their thoughts:
“I can't help feel The Coast probably didn't do their research before they ran this story. If they had, they likely would have noticed that the articles about the incident were originally by you, and then those trying to ease people's worries, thus putting the story to sleep, were by the "British guy" David Bentley you told us about, and wrote about in your blog last June.”
I’m an admirer of Wark’s writing. I pointed out that only if he had the original stories in front of him would he realize that their tone changed after Sunday, Oct. 8, when the writer changed….and even then he wouldn’t know that the editor in charge of The Chronicle-Herald that night, who had given my story front page play, had suddenly gone on an unscheduled vacation.
As for me, I arrived early Sunday night to start following leads on the Shag Harbour story. I was told management (above the managing editor level) had taken me off and arranged for Bentley to do all follow-ups “because we feel we can handle it better on dayside.” On the quiet, I was told David would have specific instructions and direct supervision. The next day, I ran into Bentley as the shifts changed. He drew me aside and apologized profusely, saying it wasn’t his idea and he didn’t like the smell of it. I asked him why he had not followed up some of my contacts, including RCAF Squadron Leader Bain in Ottawa whose comment had been used for my headline. Bentley stared at me and said Bain did not exist. I was never sure how to take that.
In any case, Bruce Wark was right. David Bentley’s job was to dig up people who could pass as experts and who would deny flying saucers existed. They were to state forcefully nothing had happened over and in Shag Harbour.
Over the years, two theories on what this was all about have slowly developed. One is that The Chronicle-Herald brass felt the people of Nova Scotia were being frightened by my story and the editor’s front page headline for it. They, like many others, thought our use of the acronym UFO meant “flying saucers” and they didn’t believe in such foolishness. You can check my original copy. (Ray’s Place: http://raymacleod.blogspot.com/) The words “flying saucer” never appeared. In fact, the Air Force use of UFO implied no more than what it stood for….an object in the sky that had not been identified.
On the other hand, some believe the newspaper was leaned upon heavily to get off the story for military reasons. The producer of a History Channel documentary of the event (as opposed to one for The Space Channel) shared with me his New York-based thoughts, which included that what went into Shag Harbour was top secret Cold War hardware. It would take a couple of days, he said, for the Americans to get their act together, inform Canada what was going on, and for Ottawa to tell my newspaper to reverse gears on the situation. After all, this was the Cold War and you couldn’t tell the nice people the truth without also telling the bad guys.
Last Thursday was interesting because it meant students remembered enough of what I taught them to look critically, with information Wark didn’t have, at his column. However, it has been 41 years, I’ve given up hoping for the truth on Shag Harbour, and I have to admit I wish it would just go away.