Irvings fire editor over breastfeeding cover

Irvings fire editor over breastfeeding cover
Last updated Oct 12 2005 06:32 AM NDT
CBC News
The Irving newspaper group in New Brunswick has pulled the latest issue of Here
magazine from store shelves and fired its editor after a photo of a
breastfeeding baby appeared on its cover.

The photo is an extreme close-up of a tiny baby suckling at its mother's breast.
The cover promoted a story about World Breastfeeding Week, which began Oct. 1.
The story also highlighted the low rates of breastfeeding in New Brunswick.


Original Oct. 6 cover

Irving news executives replaced the photo with a cartoon drawing of a woman
holding a baby in a blanket.

Former Here editor Miriam Christensen says she was fired Oct. 6, after Brunswick
News executives recalled the paper bearing the original cover from delivery
trucks and stores across the province.

Christensen had given notice of her plans to resign for other reasons a few days
earlier.

Christensen is surprised at her former employer's reaction to the photo, and
says she didn't think an image of a nursing baby would offend anyone.

"I never thought they would pull it. We had a professional photographer in Saint
John go to this woman's house, who was more than kind to agree. The photos were
beautiful, they were all beautiful and I really like that one in particular. I
just thought it was a really sweet moment."


Replacement cover

Brunswick News vice-president Victor Mlodecki told CBC the original cover was
inappropriate for some of the locations that might have distributed it.

Moncton coffee shop Joe Mokka is one of the few places that received copies of
Here with the original front page.

Café manager Gail Morin says her customers didn't seem to mind the photo.
"Nobody's ever approached [me]. I wouldn't take it down, even if they did. It's
natural, it's nature. It's nothing wrong with it."

Freelance journalist Brent MacDonald wrote the cover story and is angry the
photo was pulled. He says the cover was an important part of the piece. He says
he won't work for the paper any more.

"That photo was pulled, the image of a mother breastfeeding her baby, and it
really didn't do any justice to the story, or the real issue here, that mothers
in New Brunswick aren't breastfeeding their babies and babies are being
shortchanged."

Here is a free weekly magazine targeting urban youth in New Brunswick. It was an
independent publication for five years until 2004, when Irving-owned Brunswick
News bought it.


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