Ottawa, November 25, 1999 - The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) announces the appointment of Joan Rysavy to its British Columbia Regional Council.
Smithers community activist Joan Rysavy is an energetic participant in major causes across the province. She is currently the Immediate Past Chair of the Board of Trustees of Vancouver Hospital and Health Sciences Centre, which is the second largest hospital in Canada and an innovator in the amalgamation of alternative and traditional medical practices, and has just been appointed to the UBC Faculty of Medicine Community Advisory Council, whose purpose is to develop a new vision and strategic plan for British Columbia's only medical school and faculty. She is currently an Associate Planner with Air Canada’s connector Central Mountain Air and has served, among other things, as a Board member of the Environmental Appeal Board, a member of the Municipal Family Court Committee for the Bulkley Valley, Director of the BC Winter Games held in Smithers, and as President of the Smithers Chamber of Commerce.
The B.C. Council, like all other CBSC Regional Councils across the country, is made up of three public and three broadcast representatives. The Chair of the B.C. Council is Sally Warren, former CRTC Regional Commissioner for British Columbia and the Yukon, author of Dumped! (1998) and a CBSC public member since 1997. The ViceChair is Hudson Mack, Anchor and Assistant News Director of CHEKTV in Victoria, a CBSC broadcast member since 1997. The other public member is Mason Loh, Q.C., a lawyer and former Chairman of S.U.C.C.E.S.S. (United Chinese Community Enrichment Services Society), one of the largest social service agencies and Chinese Community organizations in Canada, and incumbent Chairman of the College of Traditional Chinese Medicine & Acupuncture Practitioners of British Columbia. The other broadcast members are Debbie Millette, who began with CJOHTV (Ottawa) before, in 1981, joining Global Television’s Vancouver affiliate CKVU-TV, where she is currently Program Manager, and Dean Cooper, VicePresident and General Manager of CKOVAM and CKLZFM, Kelowna, who has been President of the Kelowna and B.C. Chambers of Commerce and continues to serve on the Board of Governors of the B.C. Chamber of Commerce.
CBSC National Chair Ron Cohen stated: “The past five years have been an important growing time for the broadcast industry’s self-regulatory body and a series of significant content decisions have been generated by the BC Regional Council, including the important news stories relating to the BCTV coverage of the child pornography acquittal and the service of warrants on former Premier Clark. It is of crucial importance to the CBSC to attract strong and diverse community representation to ensure that our broadcast content decisions take broad social perspective into account. None of our ongoing challenges could possibly be met without the dedication and thoughtfulness of our Regional Council volunteers. We are fortunate to be able, on a continuing basis, to attract individuals such as Joan Rysavy with such outstanding records of public service, commitment and leadership.”
Canada’s private broadcasters have themselves created industry standards in the form of Codes on ethics, gender portrayal and television violence by which they expect the members of their profession will abide. In 1990, they also created the CBSC, which is the selfregulatory body with the responsibility of administering those professional broadcast Codes, as well as the Code dealing with journalistic practices first created by the Radio Television News Directors Association of Canada (RTNDA) in 1970. More than 430 radio and television stations and specialty services from across Canada are members of the Council.
– 30 –
All CBSC decisions, Codes, links to members' and other web sites, and related information are available on the World Wide Web at www.cbsc.ca. For more information, please contact the National Chair of the CBSC, Ron Cohen, at (###) ###-####.