About that journalist Bro' thing...

The vile hypocrisy on Parliament Hill with regard to explicitly shielding some politicians from public opprobrium, is nauseating.

This happened:

Except for Frank Magazine, there was a reverent hush from all journalists assigned to the House of Commons and Canadian politics beat, though some bienséants guys muttered about Matt Millar's flouting the rules of an implicit gentlemen's agreement around protecting politicians' *personal* lives.

You may recall the histrionic, outraged shriEEEking tirades expressed by Moore when the Museum of Science and Technology hosted a sex-positive and informative exhibit?

PatRiotChick aka @PatOndabak created and promoted the #RideMeWilfred hashtag on Twitter. The cone of silence around James Moore's sexting, from established PPG reporters, just solidified.

The PPG Bros won't address the CPC unofficial "Do as we preach not as we do" modus operandi when Harper Cons' purported christian family values are transgressed by the ongoing sex libertarianism of Vic Toews, Peter MacKay, Bruce Carson, Patrick Brazeau, Pierre-Hughes Boisvenu, Don Meredith (and likely many others) until, in the latter's case, there's a witness/complainant courageous enough to denounce the predatory aspects of power.

Someone whined about violating the *privacy* of the government employee's BlackBerry that contained the self-incriminating sexting between VanGirl & Moore. 

My co-blogger asked:

My response:

Juxtapose how Harper Con MPs reacted when they learned Vikileaks tweets had been posted from a government IPS provider.

Yet not one peep from the CPC benches on this very *personal* exploitation of a taxpayer-funded BlackBerry for non-governmental use.

A journalist that I greatly admire for his rigorous writing disappointingly displayed his complicity with the Brotherhood, exhibiting deference for Moore's recent resignation to spend more time with his family.

Fortunately, Frank Magazine did not obey the Bro's code, and wrapped-up the whole typically disingenuous CPC act, thus.

Seems to me, in light of the commitment that's required to care for a child with special needs, Mrs Moore is the one who could have benefitted from an adventure on the side, to restore and sustain her energies.  But I suspect the Brotherhood would NOT have expressed the same depth of compassion for an outside-the-conjugal-bed idyll she might have pursued, as they overtly did for Mr Moore.

Journalism is NOT rocket science

A tweet by Sunny Hundal put a bug in my ear this morning.

This factual news report was produced by an independent, local TV resource and posted on Youtube.

REAL news are popping up everywhere, putting to shame many of the establishment media workers who have become far too cozy with their corporate overlords and the terms of their quasi-indentured employment.

So complacent and blasé are such pseudo-journos, they'd arrogantly assumed that quaint old notion of ethics with regard to conflict of interests in reporting was no longer relevant.

Karma is indeed a bitch.

Hundal's tweet reminded me of the modest yet thorough Lori Martin and the professional manner in which she handled a random PMO-generated information packet that arrived unsolicited at her newspaper, the Barrie Advance.

My co-blogger wrote this about Martin's extraordinary challenge to lazy, *laissez-faire* reporting which appears to have become standard operating procedure.  Martin refused to be a stenographer for the speaking points provided by a Harper Politburo/PMO communication hack.

There are still many old-school journalists steadily doing the news gathering and reporting they believe in - though ego-driven *enfants terribles* tend to get all the glory.

Michael Harris is of this calibre.  Not a single fact in his best-selling _Party of One_ has been countered, disputed or proven wrong by Harper's army of flunkeys at their keyboards.

Bloggers like Creekside and independent news organizations also hold a wild card: dissemination by social media, which sometimes goes viral.  Unless the Harper regime shuts down access with its new legislation that it will try to ram through Parliament to maintain their CPC partisan control. Though I trust more allies like this one will emerge to challenge PMSHithead's autocratic ploys.

Pressure from unfettered media, as well desperate attempts to spin damaging facts that will leak during the election campaign from those Harper's kleptocracy has bullied, antagonized and silenced, could derail the CPC communication strategy.  And the internal cracks are getting bigger.

Let's be fuelled and inspired by the model of what people power did in Greece which gained momentum and will prevail.

A Smoking Gun?!?! Could it be?

So close, yet still no cigar.

Old-school investigative journalism techniques have been most effectively demonstrated for the young'uns by Curtis and Maher in this recent piece.

Several people listed as donors to a Conservative riding association in Montreal say they did not make the donations attributed to them by the party.

The donations – in the amounts of $333.33, $666.66 and $733.33– appear on the 2009 Elections Canada filing of the Conservative riding association of Laurier-Sainte-Marie, a downtown Montreal district [where] Conservative candidate Charles K. Langford, a businessman and professor, came fifth in the riding in 2008 and fourth in 2011.

From 2006 to 2009, the Conservative riding association collected $583,318.96 from 931 donations, many from people connected with engineering companies and law firms. It also distributed $376,739.36 – mostly to other ridings around Quebec. The Megantic-Lerable riding of Industry Minister Christian Paradis, for instance, received $41,841 in 2009.

[...]The Conservatives collected many donations at a big fundraising dinner held at Montreal’s Queen Elizabeth hotel on May 20, 2009, according to the riding’s financial officer, Benoit Larocque.

[...]Senator Leo Housakos, who was then Harper’s key organizer in Quebec, organized the event. Housakos, a close friend of Harper’s then-director of communications, Dimitri Soudas, did not respond to queries about his role in fundraising for the riding association.

Soudas was recently mentioned in disclosures offered by witnesses in the Charbonneau Commission inquiry into corruption in construction contracts awarded in Quebec.

More DJ! posts with regard to alleged CPC corruption, dodgy fundraising, voter suppression and illegal election undertakings can be found here, here, here, here and here.

Stephen Maher and his other colleague Glen McGregor deserve Jubilee Medals ... perhaps the Order of Canada for their steadfast investigations and reporting into the nefarious and possibly felonious activities of the CON party.

Tar Sands: difference between The Tyee and StunTV is journalism

The Tyee responds to Ezra Levant's shallow, confrontational StunTV "Straight News Hard Talk" questions about its journalistic approach to covering the tar sands.

In your online reply to my comments, you say the Tyee's reporting is balanced. Have you ever published a pro-oilsands article?

The news reporting we publish does not set out to be pro or anti oil sands. We are interested in reporting that helps everyone get a better idea of whether the oil sands are sustainable, where the wealth they generate goes, how the oil sands might affect climate change, and such. We start with questions and are pleased to publish whatever answers we unearth. If the answers we arrive at aren't considered 'pro' oil sands by you or others, well, that's where the facts took us.

Here is another - and also hilarious! - spoof about the tar sands, one that features Harper government Enviro Minister Peter Kent.

Class Act

Some rightwing reactionary who put his own trademark imprint on the Republican Party died this week. DJ! wrote about him here:

[...] a toxic fabricator, a con man, and a dumpster-diver. He's a self-styled JackAss reporter; he's a balding, schlumpy and braying male version of Ann Coulter; a wannabe Christopher Hitchens without the creds. Yet his presence amongst the Limbaughs and O'Reillys serves a purpose; he makes them look like serious newsman in comparison with his own disgraceful method of gotcha! reporting.

Still applicable though in the past tense.

He engineered a malevolent hoax; this is what the target of his deliberate character assassination had to say about his death.

“The news of Mr. Breitbart’s death came as a surprise to me when I was informed of it this morning. My prayers go out to Mr. Breitbart’s family as they cope during this very difficult time.”

Shirley Sherrod is a class act, something Breitbart never was.

'Journalism' FAIL!

Why am I not getting paid when journamammals like this jackass presumably do get paid to get it wrong.

Ontario Conservative leader Tim Hudak is following in the path of his federal counterpart Stephen Harper and staying out of the abortion debate.

Last week, the Association for Reformed Political Action, a national non-profit Christian organization, posted text from a 2009 email written by a Hudak leadership campaign staffer that stated, "(Hudak) is pro-life and has signed petitions calling for abortion defunding and conscience legislation."

Hudak, later questioned by reporters at a press conference at Queen's Park, said he "may have" signed petitions in his riding calling to end abortion funding in the past, but would follow Harper's lead and leave the issue alone if elected Oct. 6.

Cripes. The link in that goes to this page at Association for Reformed Political Action, where right at the tippy top of the page under 'Clarification: Hudak story' it says:

An old ARPA article from 2009 has been getting a lot of attention in Ontario over the past few days in light of comments about Tim Hudak and whether he is pro-life. In light of that, we checked back through our old emails from two years ago to verify what was written. The content was correct, but it should have clarifified that the email came from Hudak's campaign team at that time, not Hudak himself.

Old. Story. From PC leadership campaign. In 2009.

Not. Last. Week.

What did happen last week is DJ! found said ARPA article and blogged it. Kinsella picked it up and the rest, as they say, is history.

Andy Radia is the useless goof's name.

Dirge/paean

Hi folks. I told you this was not a great time in my life to join another blog, so I haven't been around much, but I absolutely have to point y'all to this excellent article by now ex-CTV Québec City reporter Kai Nagata on why he quit and what he wants to do with his life.

Consider Fox News. What the Murdoch model demonstrated was that facts and truth could be replaced by ideology, with viewership and revenue going up. Simply put, you can tell less truth and make more money. When you have to balance the interests of your shareholders against the interests of the viewers you supposedly serve, the firewall between the boardroom and the newsroom becomes a very important bulwark indeed.

...

Take newsroom aesthetics as an example. I admit felt a profound discomfort working in an industry that so casually sexualizes its workforce. Every hiring decision is scrutinized using a skewed, unspoken ratio of talent to attractiveness, where attractiveness often compensates for a glaring lack of other qualifications. The insecurity, self doubt, and body-image issues endured by otherwise confident, intelligent journalists would break your heart. And clearly there’s a double standard, a split along gender lines.

...

Jon Stewart talks about a “right-wing narrative of victimization,” and what it has accomplished in Canada is the near-paralysis of progressive voices in broadcasting. In the States, even Fox News anchor Chris Wallace admitted there is an adversarial struggle afoot – that, in his view, networks like NBC have a “liberal” bias and Fox is there to tell “the other side of the story.” Well, Canada now has its Fox News. Krista Erickson, Brian Lilley, and Ezra Levant each do a wonderful send-up of the TV anchor character. The stodgy, neutral, unbiased broadcaster trope is played for jokes before the Sun News team gleefully rips into its targets. But Canada has no Jon Stewart to unravel their ideology and act as a counterweight. Our satirists are toothless and boring, with the notable exception of Jean-René Dufort.

...

Right now, there’s a war going on against science in Canada. In order to satisfy a small but powerful political base, the PMO is engaged in a not-so-clandestine operation to dismantle and silence the many credible opponents to the Harper doctrine. Why kill the census? Literally in order to make decisions in the dark, without the relevant data. Hence the prisons. Why de-fund scientific research?

...

I thought if I paid my dues and worked my way up through the ranks, I could maybe reach a position of enough influence and credibility that I could say what I truly feel. I’ve realized there’s no time to wait.

I have to resist the temptation to quote the entire thing. And I relate to it both politically and personally. I've made a similar choice recently and am in the process of tearing down a life I could mostly have kept in some manner if I wanted to, although I haven't been nearly as bold or as drastic as Nagata in going about it, and I'm probably a lot more likely to land on my feet. And Nagata's critique is applicable well beyond just journalism.

(h/t Warren Kinsella)

Those Gonaddy Thingies?

Dr. Dawg calls it White Feather journalism. Journos momentarily get a grip on gonaddy bits, do some actual reporting, then WAM! Somebody SHRIEEEEKS, or sneers, or pooh-poohs, and WHOOSH! Offending piece is flushed down the memory hole.

But maybe, just maybe, reporters have finally been pushed too far. I mean, jeez, when an unsigned editorial in the Toronto freakin' Sun is steamed, well.

Some free advice for Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Stop ticking off the messenger.

It's as simple as that.

It is one thing, for example, to expect the media to embrace your cutesy photo-op at a piano with 10-year-old Winnipegger Maria Aragon -- who so wowed Lady Gaga on YouTube that she was asked to perform on stage with the pop star -- but quite another to then turn around and treat its reporters with contempt.

We've got some news for you.

They're not stupid. They're not necessarily the enemy. They don't appreciate being treated like putzs. And nor do they deserve being roped off like cattle.

And, believe it or not, they don't like dragging their weary butts through a daily assortment of time zones -- and paying $10Gs a pop for the privilege -- any more than you do.

But at least they're making an effort.

And you're not.

Today, the Canadian Association of Journalists has posted an open letter.

A few weeks ago, many journalists nodded knowingly at this Tweet by Canadian Press reporter Jennifer Ditchburn.

“My Friday giggle… a spokesperson who emails me “on background” and then says: I can’t answer your question.”

It’s a bit of gallows humour about a problem that began as a minor annoyance for reporters working on Parliament Hill in Ottawa and has grown into a genuine and widespread threat to the public’s right to know.

Most Canadians are aware of the blacked-out Afghan detainee documents and the furor over MPs’ secret expenses. But the problem runs much deeper.

Under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the flow of information out of Ottawa has slowed to a trickle. Cabinet ministers and civil servants are muzzled. Access to Information requests are stalled and stymied by political interference. Genuine transparency is replaced by slick propaganda and spin designed to manipulate public opinion.

The result is a citizenry with limited insight into the workings of their government and a diminished ability to hold it accountable. As journalists, we fear this will mean more government waste, more misuse of taxpayer dollars, more scandals Canadians won’t know about until it’s too late.

The letter details the stage-managed photo ops, the muzzling of civil servants, the nightmare of access to information.

Call to action:

Reporters have been loath to complain about this problem. But this needs to change. This is not about deteriorating working conditions for journalists. It’s about the deterioration of democracy itself.

Last month, reporters gathered in Montreal at the Canadian Association of Journalists’ conference to discuss these issues. On behalf of our members, we are calling on journalists to stand together and push back by refusing to accept vague email responses to substantive questions that require an interview with a cabinet minister or a senior civil servant. We are also asking journalists to stop running hand-out photos and video clips.

We are also calling on journalists to explain better to readers and viewers just how little information Ottawa has provided for a story. Every time a minister refuses to comment, a critical piece of information is withheld or an access request is delayed, Canadians deserve to know.

Finally, we are asking editors to devote the time and money it takes to dig beyond the stage-managed press conferences to get to the real story.

This is not about ideology or partisanship on the part of journalists. Journalists aren’t looking to judge the policies of the Conservative government. Rather, we want to ensure the public has enough information to judge for themselves.

Journalists are your proxies. At our best, we ask the questions you might ask if you had a few minutes with your prime minister or with Environment Canada’s top climatologist. When we can’t get basic information, we can’t hold your government to account on your behalf. In order to have a genuine debate about matters of national interest, people need information. In order for citizens to be involved and engaged and make smart choices at voting time, they need information. It’s time we got some.

They're groping for those gonaddy thingies. I pray it's not too late for Canadian democracy as we knew it.

BONUS: Go read Sixth Estate for another example of White Feather journalism.

The Evolution of News-Gathering in Real Time

If you are interested in developments in North Africa and the Middle East and/or the evolution of journalism and you're not following Andy Carvin on Twitter, you should.

The Guardian has a profile on him.

Andy Carvin is getting a little sick of talking about which verb best describes what he does. "It's somewhere between reporting and collaborative network journalism, and George Plimpton-like oral history, except that I'm doing it in real time in 140 characters. I don't know what to call that and I don't care as long as people don't waste my time trying to give it a name."

Whatever Carvin's particular brand of news gathering should be called, it has made him a must-read source on the Arab uprisings – and possibly the most talked about person at SXSW. "All roads now lead to Andy Carvin," declared media critic Jeff Jarvis at a discussion on the future of news.

(SXSW is an annual festival held in Austin, TX. Carvin was there recently, still tweeting.)

Many, if not most by now, journalists use Twitter, but nobody does it like Andy.

Although Carvin had a network of blogger contacts in the region whom he used to check information being tweeted, what marks him out is his willingness to retweet unverified material and ask his followers for help to establish its accuracy. "I admit that I don't know the answer to things and see users as potential experts and eyewitnesses. In some ways what I'm doing is not that different from a broadcast host doing a breaking live story with a producer in one ear, talking to pundits and all the while anchoring the coverage, but rather than producers I have followers."

Imagine that, friends of truthiness. Fact-checking! As opposed to making shit up.

Here's an example:

"I see my Twitter account as a newsgathering operation and the success or failure rate is clearly tied to the expertise of the people who follow me. I would rather have almost no one following me and have them all be experts than have a million followers."

That expertise was highlighted recently when he tweeted a request for help identifying a photograph from Benghazi of "a guy holding up the biggest bullet I had ever seen". After some discussion among his followers, US military serviceman sent him a link to an image of a Russian anti-aircraft round that matched it perfectly. "There is no way that I or anyone else at NPR could have done that on our own."

Or so quickly.

It will be fascinating to see if this catches on. And in the meantime, it's just plain fascinating to follow Andy Carvin.

If you do one activisty thing in the next two weeks. (with update)

Squeal about this.

The CRTC seems to be about to change its regulations to enable Fox News North.

A recent, little-noticed news item may result in a deep and indelible blemish on the Canadian mosaic.

Earlier this month, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), without fanfare, posted on its website a potential game-changer in the world of broadcast journalism. The CRTC is seeking to relax restrictions concerning the broadcasting of specious information on radio and television.

Currently, the law stipulates that broadcasters “shall not broadcast any false or misleading news.”

Sounds reasonable enough — and straightforward — as it should, since it concerns the integrity of news reporting.

But not apparently to the CRTC. It is proposing to soften the regulation, banning “any news that the licensee knows is false or misleading and that endangers or is likely to endanger the lives, health or safety of the public.”

In short, with the new wording, broadcasters could air false or misleading news with impunity, provided that it does not endanger the lives, health or safety of the public.

Unfortunately, the CRTC does not specify who will judge whether or not such disinformation poses a danger.

Like the public discourse is not already degraded enough.

WTF is the CRTC thinking/smoking?

Squeal here. And do it soon. The deadline is February 9.

Um, Margaret, can we get a little promotion here?

Update from deBeauxOs - NDP MP Charlie Angus is also concerned - grand merci to AZ. Reminder - deadline is Feb. 9 - this Wednesday.

Tough Love

Kate Heartfield, a member of the editorial board of the Ottawa Citizen, shares with her readers the text of a statement from the Egyptian Ministry of Information about the treatment of foreign journalists. She is correct; it makes sense, in the use of a particular form of logic and obfuscation well exploited by tyrants to justify any rampant abuse of human rights.

When you read the document, if you pause and close your eyes for a moment, you can almost hear a chortle of amusement and bonhommie emanating from the despots who directed their subalterns to craft and distribute it.

Statements issued by a number of international sources alleging an official policy against internatinal [sic] media are false. Acts of violence against journalists, or any person are unacceptable. In instances were international media have been detained for questioning by the authorities, the Ministry of Information, represented by the State Information Service, has worked closely and successfully with authorities to expedite the process of their release. [...]

Regrettably, international journalists have been endangered by the same conditions that have threatened all Egyptians in areas of the country where there have been major disturbances and a breakdown of security. All these matters are the subject of comprehensive and in depth investigation as ordered by the President, and monitored by the Vice-President and the Prime Minister.

By all means, do read the editorial written in response to the forcible detention of, and violent attacks upon, journalists in Egypt as well as to to the paternalistic verbiage produced by Egyptian officials toiling for the Ministry of DisInformation.

SLAPP schtick goes to the movies.

A strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP) is a lawsuit that is intended to censor, intimidate and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition.

The acronym was coined in the 1980s by University of Denver professors Penelope Canan and George W. Pring. The term was originally defined as "a lawsuit involving communications made to influence a governmental action or outcome, which resulted in a civil complaint or counterclaim filed against non-government individuals or organizations on a substantive issue of some public interest or social significance." It has since been defined more broadly in one state (California) to include suits about speech on any public issue.

The original conceptualization proffered by Canan and Pring emphasized the Right to petition as protected in the United States under the US Constition's specific protection in the First Amendment's fifth clause. It is still definitional: SLAPPs refer to civil lawsuits filed against those who have communicated to government officialdom (in its entire constitutional apparatus). The Right to Petition [granted by Edgar the Peaceful, 10 Century] precedes the Magna Carta in terms significant in the development of democratic institutions. It claims that democracy cannot work if there are, or if interest groups can erect, barriers between the governed and the governing.

According to New York Supreme Court Judge J. Nicholas Colabella, "Short of a gun to the head, a greater threat to First Amendment expression can scarcely be imagined." A number of jurisdictions have made such suits illegal, provided that the appropriate standards of journalistic responsibility have been met by the critic.

It appears multinational empires corporations are exploring new ways of bestowing pre-emptive SLAPP suits upon those who would dare to document their business practices and their impact on individuals and communities. The "rights" of big business to produce big profits and to keep the wheel of greed industry turning have become God-given entitlements, and the US Supreme Court seems happy to oblige them.

The director Michael Moore says that a federal judge’s ruling to allow Chevron to subpoena footage from the documentary “Crude” could have dire consequences on the documentary film-making process, and urged that film’s director to resist the subpoena if he can.

[...]Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of United States District Court in Manhattan said that Joe Berlinger, the director of “Crude,” would have to turn over more than 600 hours of footage from that documentary. The film chronicles the Ecuadorians who sued Texaco (now owned by Chevron) saying an oil field contaminated their water. Chevron said that Mr. Berlinger’s footage could be helpful as it seeks to have the litigation dismissed and pursues an international treaty arbitration related to the lawsuit. [...]

Should the decision of Judge Kaplan be upheld and a subpoena be served for Mr. Berlinger’s footage, Mr. Moore said, “The chilling effect of this is, someone like me, if something like this is upheld, the next whistleblower at the next corporation is going to think twice about showing me some documents if that information has to be turned over to the corporation that they’re working for.”

This seems the right moment to remind greedmongers of this Cree Nation wisdom:

"Only when the last tree has died and last river has been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money"

"Putting my journalism degree to work ..."

That journalism degree?

Palin attended Hawaii Pacific College in Hilo, Hawaii, in 1982 for a semester, where she majored in Business Administration, and transferred in 1983 to North Idaho College for the 1983-1984 school year. After winning a scholarship, she transferred to Matanuska-Susitna College in Alaska for one term before transferring back to the University of Idaho the following year where she finished out her college education and received a Bachelor of Science degree in communications-journalism from the University of Idaho in 1987, where she also minored in political science.

Bachelor of Science, communications-journalism. That's an interesting degree mash-up, particularly since the University of Idaho lists the School of Journalism and Mass Media and the Department of Psychology and Communication Studies as separate programs, under the College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences.

Although you just never know with Palin, since the grist for her memoirs will be the diaries that she has kept up throughout most of her life.

"There have been so many things written and said through mainstream media that have not been accurate, and it will be nice through an unfiltered forum to get to speak truthfully about who we are and what we stand for and what Alaska is all about," Palin, who will write the book with a collaborator, told her local paper, the Anchorage Daily News.

"It will be nice to put my journalism degree to work on this and get to tell my story, Alaska's story," said Palin, who graduated from the University of Idaho. She has kept diaries for much of her life, she added, which would help her write the book. "My journaling really ramped up when I found out that I was pregnant with Trig and then Track was going off to war and I found out Bristol was pregnant. When we had those episodes in our lives come to the surface, it was very therapeutic for me," she told the Alaskan paper.

Harper publisher Jonathan Burnham told the Associated Press that the book – which Palin said she hoped would become a bestseller – would be the story of "the soccer mom and the political operative, and how one became the other". It will be co-published by HarperCollins imprint Harper, and by its subsidiary Zondervan for the Christian market.

Palin will be writing her memoirs with the help of a collaborator? Ya betcha!