Angry in the Great White North

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.