Angry in the Great White North

The election is over, but the fallout continues.  In particular, CTV continues to be at the centre of a storm.  Liberal supporters continue to claim that CTV unfairly wrecked the Dion campaign by releasing what is the normal start-and-stop process of an interview.  Perhaps Stephane Dion was having extra difficulty because of his hearing or because of his uncertainty with English, but every interviewee gets a round or two with the interviewer to find his footing and establish his pace.

Here is the infamous interview:

Yet despite these excuses, no one issued tapes of Stephen Harper getting into a four-way discussion prior to an interview in order to understand the opening question.

So what is the truth?

This is how it works:

• Re-takes and do-overs are not the norm for interview subjects.
• Reporters will do multiple takes of their standups, but that is the reporter, not the interviewee.  It doesn't affect the content of the interview as provided by the interviewee.
• The interviewee is the main actor in the piece, and no professional journalist would allow an interviewee to change or re-do an answer.
• The only exception is when an interview goes long, and the interviewee is invited to provide the same answer in a more succinct way.  Again, it is not a chance for the interviewee to change his or her answer.

This isn't my opinion.  I've talked to people who do this sort of thing for a living.  Pros at the national levels of the network doing hard news.

Yet Steve Murphy did give Stephane Dion a do-over.  Am I getting bad information?  I don't think so.  Consider the following:

• Stephane Dion asked for the do-over, not Steve Murphy.  Steve Murphy asked for confirmation from other ATV staff before allowing the re-take.  The first do-over was granted as a courtesy.
• Once he had the first do-over, Stephane Dion asked for two more, looking worse each time, suggesting that the "no do-over" rule is a good one for all involved.

And finally, there is one more thing to keep in mind.  If re-takes were really the norm, then why would the Liberals felt it necessary to get agreement from ATV/CTV not to air the segment?

It would suggest that the Liberals knew that normal practice would be to air the entire interview, including the retakes, and they were asking for special treatment.

Did ATV/CTV give that assurance and then refuse to honour the agreement?  I wasn't there, but there is no way that such a promise was given.  No media organization would ever promise not to use material captured on tape.  This is also Liberal spin.  At most, Steve Murphy would have suggested that it was not likely the material would make it into the final cut of the interview.

CTV ultimately decided that it was in the best interests of Canadian voters to air all the material captured by the cameras.  Dion's confusion was newsworthy.  CTV is getting a raw deal from critics inside and outside of the media.