======================================================================== ** November 15, 2006 -- The Vegreville Observer ** ======================================================================== CHED Reporter Slammed after Investigative Work Michael Simpson, Staff Writer Award winning crime reporter Byron Christopher of 630 CHED Radio in Edmonton began conducting exclusive interviews with accused wife killer Michael White, first with the accused when he was behind bars at the Edmonton Remand Center, followed up a series of one-on-one interviews after White got out on bail in the fall of 2005. In an e-mail sent to the past President of the Canadian Association of Journalists, Robert Cribb of The Toronto Star, Christopher outlined the effort he's put into the case. "…most of the time I spent with White, either on the phone or in person, has been my own time. It's been a freelance venture. In other words, much of my time does not show up on CHED's timesheets; nor has the company been charged for my mileage. I did not use a tape recorder during my many talks with White, nor did I take photographs of him, or make any notes. Details of our meetings and what he has told me are in my head, and no where else. I did recover items from his house after White gave me the keys. I made several lengthy searches of the property, recovering a number of things, including a diary White wrote when he was first put into the Remand Center. I do not know if the police are aware of this…" In this email, details of the veteran reporters' lengthy investigation were revealed. Information that even police did not have was gathered, and put on the airwaves in exclusive reports. Christopher says an Edmonton detective contacted him, wanting to know what White had told him, and wanting to know how Christopher had gotten into the Remand Center. In the October 31st issue of the Edmonton Sun, it was revealed that Police had executed a search warrant at CHED, requesting "all hand written notes, all recorded materials, scripts from voice recordings, any information stored on any computer used by Byron Christopher". The search warrant, the third targeting Christopher's work since 2005, outraged the Canadian Association of Journalists. "Journalists are not agents of the state, and police should not be depending on them to provide information needed for their criminal investigations," said CAJ President Paul Schneidereit. "If the Edmonton Police Service wants information about the Michael White case, it should use its own considerable investigative powers." In a news release, Schneidereit explained that "seizing reporters' notes with impunity badly damages journalists' relationships with their sources- relationships that lie at the heart of investigative journalism." Christopher hired his own lawyer to oppose the search warrant. The reporter said "CHED initially wanted to hand everything over to the police, there was no opposition to the warrant, even from the companies own lawyer in Toronto." According to the reporter, he asked the lawyer if she was going to oppose the search warrant. The response he got was - on what grounds? Christopher stated she ought to know, since she was the lawyer. The end result of Christopher's investigative efforts in the Michael White case combined with his refusal to cooperate with police is that he was pulled off the story by CHED News Director Bob Layton before the trial started. In a closed meeting with Layton, Christopher said he was told he was getting "too close." Layton is also a board member of the Edmonton Police Foundation, a non profit organization that works closely with the Edmonton Police Service. Layton helped raise more than a million dollars to buy Edmonton Police its own helicopter, known as "Air One". The radio station appears to have a good relationship with police. Ed Mason, a senior reporter at CHED, came up with the idea of a "Blue Ribbon" campaign last year, which urges people to wear blue ribbons or put them on their vehicle antennas to show their support for police. The CAJ ethics guidelines, approved at the 2002 annual general meeting, under the heading "Conflict of Interest" state "In our role as fair and impartial journalists, we will not hold office in community organizations about which we may report or make editorial judgments. This includes fundraising or public relations work and active participation in community organizations and pressure groups that take positions on public issues." Layton is a member of the Radio and Television News Directors Association (RTNDA). In the RTNDA code of ethics (article 7) "Broadcast journalists will govern themselves on and off the job in such a way as to avoid conflict of interest, real or apparent." (www.rtndacanada.com) A phone call to Layton was not returned. After Christopher was pulled off the story, in an apparent unrelated matter, Alberta's Information and Privacy Commissioner ruled that Edmonton cops must tell Christopher the number of times and why they've searched his name on a national crime database. Commissioner Frank Work said that the Edmonton Police Service improperly relied on a section of the privacy act when they refused to confirm or deny any record of specific searches made on the CPIC or PROBE databases. The ruling came after Christopher filed grievances last September against EPS for refusing to admit to the secret searches. Christopher has done extensive work on the case of 6 year old Tanya Murrell of Edmonton who vanished in from an apparent abduction in 1983. The investigation by the reporter (who was then with the CBC) led police to identify their prime suspect in the case. Christopher has also traveled to Nepal to write a national magazine story on the life of a Canadian medical missionary, and to Europe to cover the return of an Auschwitz survivor to the infamous Nazi death camp in southern Poland. In 1991 Christopher received an award for outstanding investigative journalism from the Canadian Association of Journalists for his probe on a double homicide in Saskatchewan. The reporter continues to devote his own time to investigating the Michael White case. Christopher says he does not take a position as to White's guilt or innocence. The reporter says he didn't when White was charged, and says he won't have a position after the jury returns its verdict.