Robert Koopmans
Image Credit: SOURCE/Linkedin
July 22, 2013 - 4:31 PM
KAMLOOPS - Members of a group against the proposed Ajax mine are not surprised by the announcement Kamloops Daily News editor Robert Koopmans has left to take a job with KGHM Ajax Mining Inc.
“I thought he was working for KGHM a long time ago,” Kamloops Area Preservation Association spokesperson Don Barz said Monday. “The writing was on the wall.”
Barz is one of several members that has recently said they believed the newspaper had shown a bias towards the mine for quite some time.
“I personally stopped my subscription a couple months ago,” Barz says, adding he cancelled following a story he says was particularly biased where “the reporter didn't even want their name on it.”
Barz believes the hiring of former RCMP Supt. Yves Lacasse and Koopmans is all part of the “game plan” to try and convince the people of Kamloops the mine is good for the community.
Calls to KGHM, Koopmans and publisher Tim Shoults were not returned as of press time, though Shoults said in an article on the Daily News website the paper “remains committed to comprehensive and balanced coverage of the Ajax issue.”
To contact a reporter for this story, email jstahn@infotelnews.ca, call (250)819-3723 or tweet @JennStahn.
News from © iNFOnews, 2013