Left-wing Edmonton news site The Progress Report is claiming a partial victory after the Edmonton Police Service (EPS) was directed to revise its media policy years after revoking publisher Duncan Kinney\u2019s press credentials.<\/p>\n
Last week, the Edmonton Police Commission released an appeal decision in Kinney\u2019s case, finding EPS should formalize its media accreditation policy and clarify the process for rescinding a news outlet\u2019s credentials.<\/p>\n
Police revoked Kinney\u2019s access to media conferences, the media relations unit and EPS news emails in early 2022, with Kinney claiming<\/a> then-Chief Dale McFee did so \u201carbitrarily\u201d to \u201cmuzzle a media outlet that was critical of the Edmonton Police Service.\u201d<\/p>\n The police commission did not address that claim, but did find shortcomings in EPS\u2019s policies for granting and revoking media credentials.<\/p>\n \u201cThe commission wishes to close the gap on the ambiguity of this document,\u201d commission chair Ben Henderson wrote in the June 18 decision. \u201cThe commission directs the chief to formalize the EPS media guidelines into a numbered EPS policy or procedure.\u201d<\/p>\n Police were also told to clarify who within the organization makes decisions about revoking credentials, as well as subsequent appeals.<\/p>\n Tom Engel, Kinney\u2019s lawyer, said the outcome was worth the four-year legal battle.<\/p>\n \u201cWe eventually forced them to come up with a policy, and then the commission went one step further \u2014 a few steps further \u2014 which is good.\u201d<\/p>\n While not mentioned in the commission decision, the story overlaps with a criminal investigation into Kinney following the 2021 vandalism<\/a> of two controversial Ukrainian military monuments. Kinney\u2019s trial on three mischief charges is scheduled to begin in October.<\/p>\n At a pre-trial hearing, Engel told court Kinney has undergone a \u201cpermanent career change\u201d in the wake of the accreditation fight with EPS, opting instead to pursue nursing work.<\/p>\n \u2018Disrespectful conduct\u2019 claimed<\/p>\n EPS granted Kinney and The Progress Report media accreditation in 2020. Two years later, after heated exchanges<\/a> between Kinney and McFee at a pair of press conferences, police revoked The Progress Report\u2019s media credentials.<\/p>\n According to the commission decision, then-EPS media relations director Patricia Misutka told Kinney the revocation was \u201cbecause of disrespectful conduct at media events and in interactions with police employees,\u201d as well as reporting that \u201cfailed to meet the truth and accuracy standard of professional and ethical journalism.\u201d<\/p>\n Kinney filed a complaint, which made its way to then-interim co-chief Devin Laforce last July. Laforce concluded the policy was \u201cdeficient\u201d when it came to the revocation process and directed the police media department to create an appeals process.<\/p>\n Kinney appealed, alleging other issues. He claimed the media \u201cguidelines\u201d cited in revoking his accreditation were \u201chastily created\u201d only after The Progress Report was initially granted media privileges, with no indication who authored the document or when it was approved. He also alleged EPS conducted a \u201ctruncated\u201d investigation into his complaint in which McFee and other decision makers were not interviewed.<\/p>\n Kinney further accused EPS of dragging out the investigation until McFee and other top officials left EPS, as well as failing to consider whether the media policy infringed his right to free expression.<\/p>\n The commission found against Kinney on all but two of the grounds. In addition to directing EPS to formalize its media policy, the commission said EPS should decide who in the organization is responsible for deciding media accreditation issues.<\/p>\n \u201cProviding no information to those affected about who makes these decisions is unreasonable,\u201d Henderson wrote. \u201cTo provide public clarity around the revocation and appeal processes, the chief is directed to identify, by position or officer title(s), the decision maker for revocation of media accreditation and the decision maker for appeals.\u201d<\/p>\n The commission also found no evidence the process was unduly delayed, noting EPS could not begin investigating Kinney\u2019s complaint until the police commission probed the ultimately unproven claim that Coun. Anne Stevenson tried to influence an unspecified investigation<\/a> into Kinney.<\/p>\n Edmonton police declined to comment on the commission decision.<\/p>\n jwakefield@postmedia.com<\/a><\/p>\n x.com\/jonnywakefield <\/a><\/p>\n @jonnywakefield.bsky.social<\/a><\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n Bookmark our website and support our journalism: Don\u2019t miss the news you need to know \u2014 add EdmontonJournal.com<\/a> and EdmontonSun.com<\/a> to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters<\/a>.<\/p>\n You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. The Edmonton Journal<\/a> | The Edmonton Sun<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Left-wing Edmonton news site The Progress Report is claiming a partial victory after the Edmonton Police Service (EPS)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[36920,36918,52,830,4122,36919,27277,4252,16690],"class_list":["post-102249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-ben-henderson","tag-duncan-kinney","tag-edmonton","tag-edmonton-police","tag-media","tag-media-policy","tag-media-relations","tag-police-commission","tag-tom-engel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}