Friday, November 19, 2010

From your MSM: 2 Articles. 1 Shoddy, 1 Cheap,

Yesterday was not a banner day for journalism in Canada.

First up from CTV News comes the Shoddy:

 Term-limit Senate bill shot down in the House.

The Conservative government has failed in its bid to push through a bill that would have limited senator terms to eight years.The bill required unanimous support in order to pass in the House, but the opposition parties denied the Conservative plan to send the bill directly to the Senate for approval.

Hands down the worst bit of journalism I read today in spite of the author(s) trying so hard to explain parliamentary procedure to us dumb Canadians. Reading the above story one might assume that the fate of Bill C 10 (the actual name of the senate term limit bill though this is NOT FOUND IN THE ARTICLE) had been settled and that it was dead, but you could not be more wrong.  Bill C 10 is alive & well and in fact will come up for a vote later today and then go on to committee for study. What happened yesterday was only an attempt to by-pass (fast track) the bill, nothing more, and it has no effect at all on its life.

But you wouldn't know that by reading that CTV story would you.

 

Next comes the cheap from See Magazine and its author former Liberal MLA Maurice Tougas.

(highlighting mine)

The Perils of Leadership


The burgeoning Alberta Party held its policy convention in Red Deer on the weekend.....

An example of what a charismatic leader can do for a party is, of course, Danielle Smith of the Wildrose Alliance. Smith is the Bobby Hull of Alberta politics. Without Smith, the Wildrose Alliance would be a party of right-wing cranks. With Smith, the Wildrose Alliance is a party of right-wing cranks, but with a hot leader. That’s a different thing entirely.


This may be the case with the comely Ms. Smith (how’s that for a segue?). The WAP leader got the full interview treatment from the Globe and Mail on Saturday, and it was revealing — beginning with the 6” x 12 1/2 “ photo. Smith is pictured with the top two buttons of her blouse undone, with the third barely hanging on, as if to say “Join the Wildrose Alliance, and I’ll pop the third button.


Seriously See Magazine? You actually have people paid to write and edit this stuff?


 Bonus update for fun:  Paul Wells on a story in the Globe and Mail.  

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

One thing going for the Wildrose Party is all the free advertising on every Alberta licence plate: "WILDROSE COUNTRY". No wonder the government was thinking about bringing in new design.

Seriously though, it will be an interesting election when it is called.

Clown Party

Bec said...

"Cheap"? You let them (him) off easy, AA, very easy! The sexist, sleazy comments about Ms Smith are pure trash and it is guys like this, that give men generalized labels.

All of the wonderful, good men should pounce on this loser and make a meal out of him. I bet if Adler gets wind of this, he'll be first!

Dennis said...

And can you just imagine the uproar there would be if a conservative had made a crack like that about a liberal woman? Heather Mallick would have had a seizure.

Calgary Junkie said...

Speaking of shoddy ... from CBC's "The National", Wednesday, Nov 17th: (video no longer on their website)

A clip of Harper in the House saying: "A completely irresponsible bill. It sets irresponsible targets.

Followed immediately by reporter Laurie Graham:
"The bill calls for a 25 % reduction in greenhouse gases by 2020. The government
wants a reduction of 17 %."


Hmmmm, what's missing from this "comparison" ? Oh yeah. Jack's base year is 1990,
while Harper's base year is 2005. Gee, that seems to be kind of important for the viewer to know.
It just might affect the percentages that Laurie tosses out, willy-nilly.

Let's help the mathematically and ethically challenged Laurie out a bit.
From the
Environment Canada
website, we get these ghg levels in megatonnes:

1990 levels: 592 Mt. 2005 levels: 731 Mt

Jack's 2020 target: 592 x .75 = 444 Mt
Government's 2020 target: 731 x .83 = 607 Mt
So let's use Jack's 1990 base year for both targets.
Then the gov't is aiming for a (607 - 592)/592 = 2.5 % increase

So the gap between Jack and us is 25 % + 2.5 % = 27.5 %
and NOT the 8 % that Laurie wants you to believe.

Could it be that Laurie WANTS the viewer to think: "Hey, there's only an 8 %
difference between Jack and Harper. No big deal. What's Harper going on about
with this "irresponsible" talk ?"

Nah, she wouldn't be that devious, would she ?
Surely it's just incompetence on her part.

Another example of what we're up against with the CBC spin-machine.

Jen said...

Do you expect anything better from the media. this is the best they can do.
Maybe, instead of giving them a response on their media comment section. put them to the test on canadian history, military and millions of dollars still missing.
Ask them, write down the questions to them; let see how fast their response to their knowledge is read.
Have your information ready with detail backgrounds on it, the date hour website or even the HANSARD REPORTS information.... all ready, so that, when the so call reporters come up with some lame brain answer count each one of them as 'unqualified' for the job but that are hired puppets.

Read this full length-PM is on this page but read carefully to all it.

http://www.parl.gc.ca/39/1/parlbus/commbus/senate/com-e/refo-e/02ev-e.htm?Language=E&Parl=39&Ses=1&comm_id=599

Jen said...

AA, CBC has yet to obey the court ruling 'to open the books'

I amazed that Coyne, Chantal etc sit on the PANEL at CBC and not once did they lambase CBC for disobeying the court ruling; it proves who those reporters are-imo,supporters of CBC that takes
$ 1.4billion yearly from taxpayers to say nothing about/to CBC.


BTW Dennis- not if, we know without a doubt the conservatives will be plastered had they done whatever they should have.
Every depot even the pope himself will hear of it.

Ardvark said...

Thankfully it is getting much more difficult for the MSM to pass this stuff off without getting called on it. No more free passes.