The Globe and Mail: Not letting the facts get in the way of a good story [retracted]

Wednesday, September 07, 2005 at 03:52 PM

Leader

~~The Globe and Mail, in its rush to make the Conservative Party look bad, printed this on its front page:~~

~~Those who have been fired "are either people who are dissenting about what Harper is doing or they are former Progressive Conservatives," said Carol Jamieson, a party organizer in Toronto.~~

~~"It looks to me right now that within four weeks, the entire structure will be Canadian Alliance."~~

~~Wow, all that inside information. All that dirty laundry being aired out.~~

~~Problem is, as revealed by Stephen Taylor, Carol Jamieson is hardly a party organizer:~~

These poor reporters without enough time to check their facts neglected to discover that Carol Jamieson is neither an organizer for the Conservative Party... nor (wait for it)... is she even a member of the Conservative Party of Canada!

~~I eagerly wait for the postage stamp size correction buried in the back pages in about two weeks time.~~

~~There is a Carol Jamieson who is running to be a Toronto City Councillor:~~

~~Toronto voters are disappointed with City politicians after years of high taxes, deteriorating services and bad business decisions.~~

~~The MFP scandal is only one symptom of a bigger problem with a Council that lacks the basic business skills to protect residents.~~

Ward 13 residents are ready for a straight-talking, fiscally responsible Councillor. There is much hard work to be done to restore respect for the voters and their hard-earned tax dollars at City Hall.

~~I’m ready to roll up my sleeves and get the job done.~~

There is a Carol Jamieson who donated to the old Progressive Conservative party in 1993 and in 2000 ($102.00 and $305.14 respectively) and to the Liberal Party in 1999 ($400), but nothing since, and certainly not to the Conservative Party of Canada. Might be the same person, might not.

~~There is nothing in her biography, or in the elections database, that suggests there is a Carol Jamieson who is currently a party organizer for the Conservative Party.~~

I spent 10 minutes checking. I might do more checking later. But then the Globe and Mail isn't sending me a paycheque, so maybe I won't bother. Unless the paper wants to send me this week's paycheques for reporters Brian Laghi and Gloria Galloway. Might teach them a lesson the next time they try to pass off this dreck as journalism.

Update: OK, I did ten minutes more worth of research. Carol Jamieson was a prominent Tory (ie, the old Progressive Conservative Party) and earned some notoriety with the Enza Anderson affair:

~~Were Tory supporters hoping to use Enza “Supermodel” Anderson to embarrass the Canadian Alliance?~~

At least two people with Progressive Conservative connections have offered financial and logistical assistance to Enza, the drag queen best known for her third-place showing in Toronto’s mayoral race two years ago.

Cameron MacLeod, a former Tory riding association president in Trinity-Spadina, and Carol Jamieson, a prominent West End Toronto Tory, left Enza’s campaign in early January. They had contacted the Enza campaign them-selves in June to offer assistance.

Frankly, this clinches it for me. I can't see a old-school Tory who would go to such lengths to humiliate the Alliance ever agreeing to work under Stephen Harper. Nor could I see Stephen Harper trusting someone like Jamieson with a high profile job inside the new Party.

I think Galloway is labelling Jamieson a "party organizer" from whatever work she did years ago for the PC party. Jamieson's opinion about what is going on inside the Conservative Party is about as informed as mine. She is certainly no insider, and the Globe and Mail should at least make that clear to its readers.