Acting on the word of police, media distorted facts and resorted to cheap hyperbole in covering alleged suspects
Obviously there was cause to be frightened. In August 2003, the RCMP picked up 23 foreign “students” deemed suspicious. One Pakistani had a $40,000 bank balance. An Indian had enrolled at a flight school. Two others were arrested near a Lake Ontario nuclear plant, claiming they were out for a swim. One suspect was “linked […]
Anybody can get justice in this country, so long as they have lawyers, private investigators and a media-savvy mother
Journalists have no training and little aptitude for acting as ombudsmen, though the public would be shocked to hear it. Reporters become jaded in dealing with unsolicited callers who claim some grievance against the government. “Newsrooms are lightning rods for people who line their toques with tinfoil to keep aliens from stealing their ideas,” wrote […]
The Prime Minister betrays an unattractive truth: he is one sore winner
Media are self-loathing. Many journalists shrink from coverage that inconveniences government, though that’s the point of journalism. That’s why reporters are the only private sector employees whose work is constitutionally protected from government supervision. Journalists point out problems. It’s their job to stir the pot, at long hours and low pay, and some media find […]
The one striking trait of our national media is timidity…
Does CBC-TV run a media blacklist? On June 24, 2004, Newsworld broadcast a TV town hall with Paul Martin. I was invited to CBC’s Wellington Street studio in Ottawa for a national call-in show immediately following the election special. Martin’s performance was drearier than usual, and I remarked on-air that he looked like a beaten […]
Justice bills send journalists into armchair criminology
What causes crime? Nobody knows, of course. That’s why the government keeps building prisons. Yet the introduction of new justice bills in the Commons sent journalists delving into armchair criminology, a lively pastime the public is sure to enjoy. “The causes of crime today are the same as they were in Old Testament days,” British […]
Newfoundland sealers get mostly positive media coverage, eh?
As flipper pie season draws to a close, recognition is due on the media skills of Newfoundland and Labrador seal hunters. Parliament Hill swarms with lobbyists and political aides bent on manipulating the press, but they are rank amateurs next to sealers. Journalists were persuaded seal clubbing is an Anglo-Saxon rite and an economic necessity. […]
Is it strange that journalists don’t comprehend tax measures?
Reporters will go anywhere for a story. But when media run to partisan “think tanks” for tips on covering the news, it’s time to stop the presses. A tax announcement in tomorrow’s federal budget is a case in point. Nobody on Parliament Hill understands the Income Tax Act. Most reporters don’t even complete their own […]
National media played along with Stronach while it lasted
I’ve always felt badly for rich people. Naturally, my feelings for Belinda Stronach are close to pity. Not the same pity you might feel for orphans or baby seals, but close. Though not yet 40, Stronach is in the twilight of a brief, bizarre political career that reads like a Trivial Pursuit question: what tycoon’s […]
Some media mourn federal Liberals’ defeat, focus on Grit leadership
They say a human being pushed head-first from an airplane will achieve a constant speed of 300 km/hour–the point at which friction and gravity achieve near-perfect balance. What leadership campaign does this remind you of? Like a man without a parachute, Liberals have the exhilarating sensation of wind in their hair in a perfectly-balanced plunge […]
Does conflict influence media coverage of politics? You bet
Stephen Harper was not elected to make reporters’ jobs any easier, and he’s not. In curbing media stake-outs behind a security cordon and suppressing word of Cabinet meetings and his daily agenda, the Prime Minister angered journalists. Press Gallery members warned they do not take orders from the government (right), that Harper must have something […]
