The only suggestion that they did so was made by a former Sun columnist, Simma Holt, who in her smear laden, yellow-tainted book TERROR IN THE NAME OF GOD suggested that the Doukhobors themselves blew up a train in 1924, causing the death of their revered leader, Peter Verigin. That suggestion has been consistently and categorically denied by the Doukhobors, and Holt has never revealed the source of the information that led to her bizarre conclusion. But Bewley, not known for his high journalistic standards, seizes on that spurious allegation as established fact. Does that indicate a SUN position regarding the Doukhobors? Do you belong to a waspish old-boy network that treats the members of that minority as benighted heathens capable of any vile act and always available to help sell a few more newspapers or further a journalistic career through sensationalistic reporting? After all, Bruce Hutchinson, editor emeritus of THE SUN, was also well known for his bellicose attacks on the Doukhobors throughout his entire reporting career; attacks that carried with them built in conclusions about those early B.C. settlers; conclusions that bespoke an attempt to destroy any credibility the Doukhobors may have had. It seems THE SUN continues with that smug foregone-conclusion attitude as editorial policy. I invite your columnists and editors to join the 20th century in terms of journalistic standards and to try to maintain their objectivity and to screen out of the paper such unproven, prejudicial allegations as Bewley seems intent on presenting us with... '

The epitome of yellow journalism and bad press, of course, was attained by the aforementioned book; TERROR IN THE NAME OF GOD; except for some earlier references in newspapers which referred to the Doukhobors as hardly above the ape in life scale. [This by Frank Oliver, editor of the EDMONTON GAZETTE, the same Frank Oliver who later engineered the dispossession of the Doukhobor properties in Saskatchewan.] Without devoting more space to this unfortunate exercise in prejudicial bad taste, it is worth noting that even other biassed journalists agree that it is full of errors, assumptions and unproven allegations. In the end, all Doukhobors are discredited, condemned as fanatics, and in this respect, TERROR IN THE NAME OF GOD fulfils all criteria to be classified as hate literature. Many reviews, not written by Doukhobors, cite many factual inaccuracies and simple conjecture presented as truth.

In 1958, Koozma Tarasoff tabled a report on 19 newspapers in British Columbia over a two year period in response to an editorial in the VANCOUVER SUN. One of the major findings was: 'Wide spread inaccuracy in the handling of news along with the denial of opportunity for diverse expression has resulted in greater prejudice and discrimination against two of Canada's minority groups --- the Doukhobors and the Sons of Freedom.'

The resultant prejudice created by casual every day press and more specifically, prejudicial histories in school texts, make this especially difficult for children of Doukhobor parents and the parents themselves.

In the well known book THE COMMUNITY DOUKHOBORS, A PEOPLE IN TRANSITION, by John Freisen and Michael Verigin, in the Chapter THE QUEST FOR CULTURAL SURVIVAL, the authors state: 'Part of the difficulty of preserving Doukhobor identity requires the simultaneous eradication of the perpetual press image of them staging nude marches and burning buildings... the press is still attuned to negative vibes.' (P.195]

On Page 197, the authors continue: 'In a study of public attitudes towards Doukhobors in the nineteen-fifties, John P. Zubeck found that negative attitudes among high schoolers increased as students grew older. He also found that such prejudice increased because of sensationalised news accounts about Doukhobor tragedies and the resultant parental exaggeration of Doukhobor faults.'

From this we can see what far flung effects careless reporting can have on people's lives. On Page 191 of the same book, we note: 'Some Doukhobors have changed their names to hide their origins.' This of course, is the extreme result of a feeling of isolation and prejudice from the rest of Canadian society.

This entire document is available for download in .pdf format here.