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 […]
How one criminal made a large impact on Canadian politics
His name is Gary Francis, an unimportant man who made a large impact. Francis unwittingly cost taxpayers one billion dollars, helped destroy one Liberal’s leadership dream and changed the way media cover crime. Francis did not do all this himself; he had accomplices, and The Toronto Star. I’d forgotten his name until it appeared in […]
Mixed media coverage of former Ontario NDP premier Rae’s name and possible run for federal Liberal leadership
Bob Rae? He’s popular. The mere whisper that Rae might seek the Liberal leadership had media burst into applause. Rae is a “bilingual big brain” with “vision,” wrote the National Post’s John Ivison. The Canadian Press called him “passionate.” CBC Newsworld interrupted regular programming to broadcast a Rae speech from Winnipeg in which the ex-premier […]
Is it possible that after running in circles for 13 years, Conservatives won an election just in time to get sideswiped by the economy?
Was it an omen? The day Cabinet was sworn in, oil hit $66 U.S. a barrel. That same day, Bank of Canada Governor David Dodge gave a speech in which he worried over “very tight” oil markets and “economic disruption,” even “outright recession.” Economists are now predicting $78 oil by summer. Is it possible that […]
