In defence of our media
A lot of comments over the weekend made mention about our lazy main stream media. I'm taking issue with that point of view.
The piece I wrote about the connections between the RCMP pension scandal and the Abotech affair was very popular over the course of the weekend. A lot people wrote some very flattering things, and I appreciate that you find my writing useful. Along with that, though, were a lot of comments about how the main stream media is asleep at the switch, beholden to the people they should be investigating, interested only in fluff stories, lazy, whatever.
Though sometimes it seems like blogs are ahead of the curve, let me assure you that they are not. In fact, by far and away, most of my stories are in response to things found by our cadre of investigative journalists. Sometimes, though, it seems like I beat them to the punch. When it seems like that is happening, it would do well to remember the constraints under which they work.
Their media outlets represent huge legal targets for libel actions should they trip up. Their own caution as well as the cautious attitude of the lawyers they've hired specifically to be cautious means that a story has to be rock solid before it goes to print or goes out on the air.
They typically have a lot more information to work with -- documents, interviews, photographs, and so forth. All I have is what I find on the web. So I run out of information rather quickly and then publish what I have. They're still working on it, because they've got resources I can only dream of to wade through.
They have a long term view a business slant. Is this story hot right now, or should we sit on it? Editors are doing their best to publish material in such a way as to make their media products enticing for a public with many information outlets to choose from. I don't operate under those constraints.
They compete against themselves. By that I mean that their front page needs to attract a wide range of readers, including readers who are not interested in politics, but in entertainment or sports. So not every political story can go out (nor can every entertainments story or sports story, when it comes to it). Decisions are made to put some stories on the backburner while other stories in the same category use up the limited space.
And yes, their closeness to their subjects can have an effect. I think most of the time it is healthy caution, though I suppose an argument can be made that sometimes the relationship is too close. But the number of times this affects a story is certainly far smaller than some people think.
Look, this is my opinion, of course. But I respect the main stream media. They've got guts, and they take risks.
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Comments
I do not respect the Globe and Mail:
"Forces' terror manual lists natives with Hezbollah"
http://www.damianpenny.com/archived/009176.html
Mark
Ottawa
Posted by: Mark Collins at April 2, 2007 08:22 AM
Steve, that's gracious as hell of you and I can understand what you mean about it not being a free ride for the press, but they still have a hell of a lot to answer for IMHO.
Any one of us here can fill this thread with examples of opinion pieces being presented as news stories, skewed headlines like what Mark posted, important news suppressed, horrendous examples of biased political reporting and, on occasion, outright lies printed (or aired). You can even throw in a bit of treason there, depending on where you draw the line on that charge.
The press wields enormous power yet has little in the way of accountability. Granted, that's largely the fault of the general public who simply aren't paying attention, but I find it hard to get all teary-eyed over the perils of the press. Not when I have to come to sites like this to get my news because I know I'm not getting the whole story from the newspaper/radio/TV.
Posted by: up north at April 2, 2007 09:30 AM
"...Not when I have to come to sites like this..."
That doesn't mean that I MIND coming here. This is a great site, nice people, good layout. What I meant was...
Oh balls.
Back to hiding in the weeds.
...sigh
Posted by: up north at April 2, 2007 09:38 AM
Well, Steve, I have to take exception to your exception....The MSM was ahead of the curve on this and I KNOW thsay have scouts who read the blogs religiously for leads...I sat here Sunday and watched CRV Question period as "ginger" Oliver interviewed the retired mounti who started the pension fund complaint and he tried to spin away all the revelations the mounty made about the RCMP non operative administration going to political insuders and their families...he deliberately tried to cover that this was the result of changes made by Chretien and his appointed monkey Zacc...then his partner in spin Jane "grilled" Stock Day as if this crap happened on the CPC watch....it was disgusting.
Knowing what I got from your investigation, Oliver seemed animated in his attempts to make this appear as an "internal" RCMP problem...no mention of the auditor's report or the external cabinate forces which started the pension fund malfeasance.
The partisanism was so thick I had to turn if off. CTV sucks as a current afairs broadcaster and for my money is a defacto media wing of the Librano crime syndicate.
Posted by: WL Mackenzie Redux at April 2, 2007 09:45 AM
Sorry, Steven.. I rarely see the msm "Have guts & take risks"
Pick up any paper in Canada and you'll see very shoddy ethics & practices.
So many stories are just avoided because they don't fit into thier political bent...but they'll all devote 4-5 whole pages for a week of non-stop Nelly Furtado coverage. That young lady gets more press than the PM!
The Black trial coverage has been a disgrace from coast to coast. Tabloid-ism that makes the UK media look tame by comparison. Not much risks being taken to describe any hot women found in the court room...and these are "high end" reporters.
Take a look at how they all went off in a frenzy about a lifesize chocolate Jesus. This is the same media that wouldn't dare publish a cartoon of Mohammed for fear of the unknown.
The msm media is as watered down as network television programming. Canadian Idol gets more news coverage than Canadian politics.
Maybe you can sympathize with their libel issues..but don't try to tell me that they "take risks"
Posted by: Levesque at April 2, 2007 12:52 PM
Sorry, can't buy into that defense. Generally speaking the majority of the MSM are not only lazy, the are hideously biased. Perhaps they're not either, maybe they are just unethical. Maybe they are all three. Great coverage of the war against terrorism and the involvment and successes of our Canadian troops huh? That's just one example. The MSM seem to constantly have difficulty in determining issues that are really important from those that support each individual jouralists political leanings. Can't buy into it. Won't buy into it until I see positive steps by not only Canadian but western journalists to clean up their act. You know what you've go when you have 3 journalists buried up to their necks in sand? Not enough sand.
Posted by: Ross at April 2, 2007 01:12 PM
Steve, I like your work but your magnanimity towards the mainstream press smells funny. Makes me wonder what your motive is.
Posted by: rob zurrer at April 2, 2007 02:22 PM
Steve, I am somewhat surprised at your magnanimity to MSM,
but those of us who have been observing the media for years will disagree with you assessment of the constraints MSM and the jorrnalists are under.
If for an example there existed in Canada a network such as FOX News, the coverage of the corruption that existed in the government for the past decade would have unearthed years ago.
Personally my sense is that the current corparate ownership of MSM have been the enablers of the Liberal government corruption to exist.
Fortunately the internet is becoming the main resource for people like you who are willing to expend the time to dig in and present facts that never see the light of day from MSM.
So please don't go wobbly on us now Steve.
MSNM has one hellofalot to explain for a decade of left wing spin, giving corrupt administrations a relatively free ride.
Posted by: at April 2, 2007 03:04 PM
Hmm So the gist of the matter is 'MSM' has to be soft & submissive in order to avoid confrontation.
Good luck selling that one..
Posted by: at April 2, 2007 03:48 PM
'Only time, Steve, that I patently disagree with your point of view--and wonder why you feel the need to "defend" much of what is indefensible in the MSM?
So they've got lawyers and editors who have to assess the "newsability" and the legality of publishing certain things? That sounds a lot like lack of freedom of the press to me and the reason why so much of the crap that goes on in Canadian politics doesn't get reported, not to mention the coziness of too many of the main players to the members of the PPG and the Canadian MSM.
Something's definitely "rotten in the State of Denmark" in Canada's MSM and their connections to the LPC, and though I understand that you rely on much of the MSM's research and reporting, there's no defending their failing to connect the dots that you find no trouble connecting.
Heck, I often don't have trouble connecting pretty obvious dots, when the CBC, Globe and Mail (aka the Probe and Fail), TorStar, and CTV are busy throwing the ball from person to person, and issue to issue, pretending that there's no hoop to throw it through.
What's up, Steve?
Posted by: 'been around the block at April 2, 2007 05:20 PM
Steve, when people criticize the MSM, the key word is "mass" and not "media". On most blogs and blog comments criticisms of the MSM are most often -- and appropriately -- directed at particular national broadcast media who, because of their reach and scope, have become highly effective proxy-agents of our Natural Ruling Party.
The most disturbing and anger-inducing tactic involves editorial omission in national news reporting. CBC's Sunday Report coverage of the RCMP pension story is a perfect example. Their entire narrative was: This is entirely about the RCMP.
The scandal was presented through the lens of Chief Supt. Fraser Macaulay, and the horrible way he was treated. The very first words in the segment were his: "This is a very small group..." then McNeil, in studio: "Four members of the RCMP went public this week with allegations of fraud, nepotism and corruption against their own leadership."
Now, her statement is absolutely true. But so much of this story lies outside of the RCMP, and involves Public Works under the Liberals, so the r packaging of one particular angle -- an angle the Liberals are certainly pushing -- and then presenting is as "the" story of the RCMP pension scandal is no less than a watch-the-hand cover-up, a narrative re-write beneficial to the Liberal brand-name.
The vast bulk of the segment was McNail's interview with an understandably upset Macauley; her Oprah-fied focus on, and attempts to draw out his personal/emotional reactions to his treatment pretty much occluded the much larger, and more important issue.
Which is to say, there wasn't any hint that PWGSC under Brison and the Liberals, or Liberal MP David Smith, or Brazeau, or Abotech were in any way connected to the story; the nepotism, the labyrinthe uhh, funding detours through PWGSC, so similar in so many respects to the m.o. exposed at Gomery, was completely excised from the narrative.
There's zero chance that the CBC producers, or the reporter, were unaware of the many angles to this multifaceted story; a decision was obviously made to draw a circle around the RCMP and Zaccardelli and to place the blame there, and to run with that, i.e. to assert directly and through omission that this is entirely an internal RCMP matter, involving just a very few RCMP members.
Here's a select word count:
RCMP: 13
Zaccardelli: 7
Liberal: 0
Public Works: 0
Brison: 0
Abotech: 0
David Smith: 0
Brazeau: 0
Steve, when you point out that media outlets have to ask themselves "is this story hot right now", well, that's a bit circular, isn't it? If the years-long Francois Beaudoin "incident" had occurred, in identical detail, under the Conservatives, does anyone have any doubts whatsoever that CBC, for one, would have deemed the story to be very, very "hot"?
Of course, it occured under Liberals. So not only was the story very, very cold, it was covered with three feet of clay.
Any defense of the MSM should be required to begin with a close retrospective examination of MSM news coverage -- yes, that's right, "what news coverage?" -- of Francois Beaudoin and the BDC. An awful lot of excuses for the MSM would fall flat after that, and it would become a lot more apparent what we're still dealing with.
Posted by: EBD at April 2, 2007 07:33 PM
EBD
The reason the RCMP says it is from within.
http://cmte.parl.gc.ca/cmte/CommitteePublication.aspx?COM=10466&SourceId=196081&SwitchLanguage=1
Posted by: at April 2, 2007 08:03 PM
Your flying on your own on this one Steve.
Have a read of Stephen Taylor's Blog for his recent experience with a segment of the media.
We live in a Democracy with the worst pack of spinners and manipulators of facts throughout all segments of MSM.
They're in one hell of a tizzy right now, their favs are on the skids.
Posted by: Libby at April 2, 2007 08:15 PM
Today on Duffy, blowhard Gerard Kennedy again so obviously monopolized the conversation that Mike had to point out that he was getting flak from messages on his blackberry about Kennedy's bully tactics.
Finally, the tide is turning, and even staunch liberals like old Duff are having to hedge their bets and be fair. Guess they don't want to be flushed along with the liberal leader & his band of Cretinista followers come the next election.
Duff even quipped that he couldn't believe how many of us really, really dislike that overbearing loudmouth Kennedy. Perhaps we should make more of an effort to point out how truly obnoxious that bigmouth is by flooding Duff's blackberry the next time they feel the need to invite him on.
Then again, maybe I'm off base here... liberal talking heads like Kennedy, Coderre, Scott Reid, Dryden & Ignatieff are doing a great job of sinking the liberal ship all by themselves.
Posted by: Alienated at April 2, 2007 09:36 PM
Steve
I fail to see how you have defended the MSM here?
Everything you have stated in the article pretty much sums up why they are a dying medium. And I refuse to feel empathy towards a group that have become the architects of there own destruction.
Posted by: missing link at April 3, 2007 12:38 AM
The Mohammed cartoon controversy disproves your thesis, Angry. The MSM do not "take risks". Only one Canuckistani periodical reprinted the cartoons- the remainder of the MSM displayed a pathetic, craven response as they sold out our post-Enlightenment, Judeo-Christian-secular civilizational heritage. "What, us take a stand for free speech?- no way (unless it involves slagging Bush and/or Israel)".
Feh.
Posted by: Eric Green at April 3, 2007 10:21 AM
Whoa, did someone hack your account???
Did someone offer you a "good" ie paying job?
Re the cartoons they were in the western standard and they are the only msm I give $$$ too.
Other than those getting subsidies from my taxes like CTV and those funded wholly by taxes ie cbc, or newspapers the govt spens gazillions advertising in,.....
Posted by: DrWright at April 3, 2007 01:09 PM
Your MSM sympathetic comments have completely baffled me. What's up, indeed?
Posted by: lookout at April 3, 2007 06:54 PM
Steve, you said lazy, and I heard left wing. I've no doubt the MSM expends prodigious resources it its daily travails. What we object to is the percentage devoted to covering all sides of each story.
If you give me a list of the topics on a newscast I can predict the slant. The MSM by and large ignores anything that is right of centre, unless it reflects badly on the right-side parties involved.
Posted by: Larry at April 5, 2007 08:04 PM
 
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