Angry in the Great White North

The Wafergate story has already cost editor Shawna Richer her job, and publisher Jamie Irving his credibility.  The Telegraph-Journal as a whole has had its credibility severely damaged.

And yet the apology already issued did not deal with the statements made Monsignor Henneberry who demanded that Stephen Harper apologize for desecrating the host.  I mean, why would he have said those things if the desecration never took place.  Apparently, Monsignor Henneberry didn't say those things at all:

In its troubled report on the communion service at former governor general Romeo LeBlanc's funeral mass in July, The Telegraph-Journal said prominently, on the front page, that Monsignor Brian Henneberry, a senior Saint John priest, had "demanded" that Prime Minister Stephen Harper explain what he had done with the communion wafer that he had been given. The newspaper has determined that Monsignor Henneberry said no such thing and believes that the false assertion was wholly the product of improper editorial manipulation.

The newspaper has concluded that the sensational manner in which it presented its interview with Monsignor Henneberry resulted in a serious distortion of his actual remarks which were otherwise competently reported. Monsignor Henneberry's intent was simply to explain Roman Catholic belief and practice in a factual way after The Telegraph-Journal contacted him. It was not to accuse Prime Minister Harper of wrong-doing or to insinuate wrong-doing.

The Telegraph-Journal regrets this breach of journalistic principles and apologizes sincerely to Monsignor Henneberry for it.

So we go from concocting a story to concocting quotes?

The Telegraph-Journal has more explaining to do.

But in particular, no one has addressed the allegation made by Robert Fife of CTV News that someone in the Liberal Party hand-carried this story to the Telegraph-Journal, where publisher Jamie Irving and editor Shawna Richer allegedly re-wrote the original story submitted by the reporters to incorporate the fictitious desecration story.

Now the allegation made against this unnamed member of the Liberal Party has a new element.  Did this person also fabricate the quotes by Monsignor Henneberry?  Just how many of these fake details were made up by someone in the Liberal Party, and how many were made up by Irving and Richer?  Just what happened at the offices of the newspaper when the decision was made to fake this scandal, presumably for political purposes, and to drive a wedge between Catholics and the Conservative Party?

How high up the chain of command of the Liberal Party did this reach?  Did Michael Ignatieff sign off on this?  And now that it has blown up in the face of the Liberal Party, what has happened to this person?  How could Dominic LeBlanc have agreed to have had his father's funeral used to stage this disgusting piece of political character assassination?  Just what sort of son is he, or was all this deliberately hidden from LeBlanc, perhaps in the knowledge that he would never have allowed this to happen?

I doubt we'll even know whether the allegation of Liberal Party involvement was true, much less the details.  But allegation is hanging out there, no one has ever denied it, and the silence is deafening.   And though the reputations of Stephen Harper and Monsignor Henneberry have been rehabilitated, the lack of transparency means that a shadow hangs over the Liberal Party, and perhaps in particular over Dominic LeBlanc.  I have a feeling that this is not fair, but I don't see how this will ever be set right for all the parties involved until someone comes forth and explains exactly what happened.

Jamie Irving is the key.  He knows what happened.  He's a journalist.  He has an obligation to the report the truth.  He has not met his obligations yet.  There's still time, though.  This second apology suggests that Jamie Irving is still struggling with how to set things right.