Compounding bad journalism: an example from this weekend.

It is bad enough when examples of poor journalism, not so much simple errors but the blatantly obvious stuff, gets published but when that same bad journalism gets cited or used in the works of others it not only exposes the laziness of our MSM, it also shows us the inside baseball, don't criticize/question those in the bubble mentality, that is prevalent among our so called professional journalists.

On Saturday Susan Delacourt filed a piece in the Toronto Star under the headline: "Tories planning a spring election?"  in which she wrote that a source had told her that a Conservative Party fundraiser had called them up on the phone and let it slip that there would be an election on March 29, 2011; 'letting the cat out of the bag'.  Delacourt went on to write that the CPC had denied the Mar 29 date but basically ignored the denial and continued on with the premise of a March 29th election going so far as to formulate just how a March 29 election date was possible by counting back the days on a calender and checking the House of Commons schedule before 'assuming' that PM Harper would be paying a call on the Governor-General asking for Parliament to be dissolved forcing an election. 

When I initially read that story on Saturday morning I started a blog post where I Fisked the article line by line but soon gave up as it became clear that the entire story was too much of a joke for anyone to take seriously.  It looks like I was wrong and that I have seriously underestimated the ability of some in Canada's main stream media to show even the most basic common sense in their reporting. (more on this later)

First off the entire article was based on hear-say, which should always raise red flags as to the reliability of the information. Hear-say evidence is so unreliable that rarely, if ever, is it allowed to be used a court of law.


Next the story is based on the totally implausible premise that a person working the fund-raising phone bank, who may not even be a party supporter, would themselves have such deep knowledge of the most secret party policy & time-lines and then would divulge that secret information to some random person who they have never met and who told them that they were not even a party supporter.  (Seriously, that does not make sense in any way, shape, or form)

And lastly, the entire theory of a March 29 election is flat out IMPOSSIBLE because Canadian federal elections always take place on a Monday, unless it is a statutory holiday which is not the case.  One might think that those reporting on Parliament might know that, but obviously they don't or this story would never had seen the light of day or had any type of afterlife.



But this blog entry is not about the Delacourt story, it is about how others in the media have decided to compound this bad journalism by using/citing her story with the (impossible) March 29 date in their own work ignoring the obvious problems and the many criticisms from out of the bubble.Delacourt's article was blasted in blogs and comments across the land within hours of its publication and one didn't even have to venture past the comments at the bottom of the page at the Star to realize that the story was bunk and its value questionable. Yet it lived on.


First the Toronto Star: "Reports over the weekend said Prime Minister Stephen Harper is considering a federal election for this spring with a possible date of March 29."  ( Not to be critical but shouldn't that read report, you know without the S?) Not that I am surprised that the Star would use the nonsense from Delacourt as they were the ones that published it in the first place, but considering all of the criticism her original piece garnered wouldn't you think that an editor somewhere might pick up that there might be a problem and that perhaps it would not be the best source to use in another story? Of course that would assume that they bother listening to any criticisms or even care about truth or accuracy.


The next example comes from Jennifer Ditchburn of the Canadian Press, but her use of the 'March 29th' date was not to come in print form as one might expect from the Canadian Press reporter with the Parliament Hill beat. Instead Jennifer would go on national television to tell the entire country about the March 29, 2011 election day theory based solely on Delacourt's article . Listen to what she said below.

She starts out by praising her "fine colleague Susan Delacourt" and then proceeds into the March 29 election date theory laughing with Jane and Craig. While Ditchburn seems to just be reporting what her colleague wrote and may not have known how badly that article had been trashed, although I find it hard to believe that a reporter could read that article and not have concerns or questions, she gets something fundamentally wrong about Delacourt's story. Listen to it again and note that it appears that she is saying that an election will be called March 29th and not held on March 29th. Interesting because if you read the article it is quite clear that it says an election would take place ON March 29th as the very first line reads: "The Conservatives are planning for a March 29 election..."  and later on reads: "“She replied that the election would be on March 29th..."  and still farther into the article reads:   "A March 29 election would have to be called sometime before Feb. 22 for a minimum, 36-day campaign. But since the Commons is not sitting that week in February, it’s assumed the election would be kicked off simply by Harper paying a call on the Governor-General and asking for Parliament to be dissolved."

So what was Ditchburn really trying to say on during her Question Period segment?  I was not so sure at first and thought that maybe I would not be able to use her comments for this blog post as she seemed to be just reporting on what Delacourt had written, as I and others have done, but I subsequently found out later Sunday evening what she did intend to say about the March 29th date and also answered my question about the suitability of using her comments at the same time.

It all came to be when she responded to a Tweet I had made earlier in the evening.

albertaardvark: To @SusanDelacourt @jenditchburn & others pushing the Mar 29 election theory... Elections are always held on a Monday! That is all.

jenditchburn: @Albertaardvark I think the person meant Mar. 29th as the day for dropping the writ.

So there you have it.  Ditchburn was indeed trying to say that the election would be called March 29th and not be held on March 29th; making me wonder, considering how wrong she was about its contents, if she had actually read the Delacourt article that she cited on national television, but leaving no doubt at all that her comments fit into a blog post on bad journalism.

Related: another fine example of journalism from Jeniffer Ditchburn. Guergis had a history in the clubs with the hometown playboy.

 -------------------

As stated earlier, many bloggers had written about the Delacourt article. In time I will try to link to them all below. (let me know in the comments if there are others)

http://bcblue.wordpress.com/2011/01/30/who-exactly-is-this-don-burroughs-in-stars-delacourt-story/

 

http://hincheysstore.blogspot.com/2011/01/for-my-200th-post-have-i-got-story-for.html

http://unambig.com/conservatives-to-call-election-says-unknown-person/


http://bigcitylib.blogspot.com/2011/01/who-*#*#-is-don-burroughs.html (NSFW)

and of course Blue Like You where you will find plenty of comments on this subject in the comments!

Kennedy screws Ignatieff again.

Epic fail. Gerard Kennedy screws Ignatieff again!

David Atkin is reporting that Liberal and NDP MPs are getting more than their fair share of a $2-billion federal infrastructure fund. More detail and a defense of his data and methods can be found at his great blog here. This all coming on the heels of The Canadian Press reporting that Opposition ridings have received more stimulus funding than the governing party. Specifically "the major infrastructure component of the Building Canada program has allocated $1.4 billion to large projects in opposition ridings in Ontario, and just $436 million to Conservative ridings. The CP has another report here with more details. Combined with last weeks claims by Ontario Infrastructure Minister Smitherman and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities saying the same thing, the Liberal claims are dead.

Another embarrassment to the Ignatieff led Liberal Party courtesy of infrastructure critic Gerard Kennedy who was the point man for the Liberals leading the charge on stimulus pork-barreling.

How many times has that been now for Kennedy?

He first did it to Ignatieff during the convention when he conspired with Dion to give over his delegates to him during the LPC convention destroying Rae, and putting Dion over the top in a head to head vote against Ignatieff.

He did it a month ago when he dragged Ignatieff out into the wrong field in Burlington for a photo op where Ignatieff looked like a fool by pointing to a field where no work was scheduled to be done for 7 years.

And now we have this fiasco which the Liberals are going to have to burn the midnight oil trying to figure out how to spin their way out of by the time the news cycle starts Monday.

Good luck with that my Liberal friends and if you want some free advice here are a couple of tips.

#1 Don't try to now claim that the Conservatives spending more money in opposition ridings is only an attempt to bribe opposition voters into voting conservative. It will ring hollow and even your media buddies will call you on it if you are silly enough to try it.

#2 Don't take any more advice from Gerard Kennedy or put him in charge of any more research projects.


h/t Sandy


Update: Former Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish, now a councilor in Mississauga, Ont.: She says that having first-hand knowledge of political “spin” and the “slings and arrows of the press,” she is a non-partisan now who can set the record straight. Ms. Parrish says that Mississauga is receiving a huge amount of dollars from various stimulus programs and it was city staff, not federal and provincial politicians, who decided which projects to fund. So there! “The feds and the province decided how much we’d get. Council decided where it would be spent. And we are grateful for that autonomy,” she writes.

I never thought I would write something positive about Carolyn Parrish but I guess it is true; Ignatieff unites rather than divides =)

CP. Just one question.

Dear Canadian Press: Since your story about pictures of the PM being removed from a government website has proven to be totally false; I think in the interest of openness, fairness, and public information that you should provide your readers with the names of these 'critics' who spawned this story spawned this story and headline? (edit: added 'and headline' to my poorly worded question. Thanks M)

The Canadian Press

Harper Photos Removed from Government Website.
Only a half-dozen of PM's 40 or more photos survive the cut after boosterism accusations

OTTAWA–The Government of Canada website set up to promote the Conservative economic action plan had a leaner look yesterday: more than 30 photos of Prime Minister Stephen Harper had been removed.

"Critics have complained that the website, actionplan.gc.ca, looks like a partisan promotion – complete with a Tory-blue colour scheme, glowing third-party testimonials, more than 40 photos of Harper and repeated references to "the Harper government" rather than the Government of Canada."


I think it is a valid question to ask and even more-so since we all still have this made up story so fresh in our memories and who there was that other time........


So let us know CP we will be waiting.




Remember it is your job to cover the news, not be the news; or worse, create the news.

----------------------------

Update: This is the so-called evidence found at Impolitical.

Case solved:

The picture still remains on the site and can be found here.

Tracking the Lie: The CPC has cut funding for womens programs.

I need your help. (Please see this previous post) I am going to attempt to track one of the biggest lies that the Conservatives have faced from almost the beginning of their time in government.

The Lie: The Conservative Government has cut funding to Women's programs. i.e. The Status of Women.

The Truth: News release: The budget of the Women's Program has been increased by 42 percent, bringing it to its highest level ever of $15.3 million.

If you see/hear this lie being used please drop a link into the comments and I will update this post as necessary.


It is much harder to spread lies like this if those spreading the lies know they are being watched and know they will be called out on their smears.

_________

Sept 07, 2008 less than 2 hours after the writ is dropped the Canadian Press spreads lies:"The autumn of their first year in power, the Conservatives galvanized one angry constituency with $2 billion in spending cuts that targeted such things as the court challenges program, adult literacy and women's programs - while posting a $13 billion surplus for 2005-2006" * * (26 Google hits for this story)

Sept 08, 2008: Liberal MP Diane Marleau in the Sudbury Star. "I've been travelling this summer as chair of the Women's Caucus. It's evident a lot of damage has been done ... They say they're not cutting the money, but they're not giving it out. Most groups have been weakened and they're the groups that are the most vulnerable." and just for fun another quote from Marleau: "I fear if Harper comes back we won't have much of a country left. We happen to believe government is a force of good in our society."

Sept 10, 2008:" Mr. Dion said the Conservative government of Stephen Harper has turned the clock back on gender equality and women’s representation. He eliminated the national child care agreements, cancelled the Court Challenges program, removed the word ‘equality’ from the mandate of Status of Women Canada and cut funding which forced 12 of 16 regional Status of Women Canada offices to close."

The court challenges program was just for women? Who would have known; I thought it was for serious wrongs such as complaints about having to pay for your own nanny.

Antonia Zerbisias Toronto Star: Read the entire article. She hits all of the scary points."The Harper government also jerked around Status of Women Canada. First it slashed its budget by nearly 40 per cent and stripped "equality" from its mandate. Later, when it restored funding, it had essentially robbed women of important legal mechanisms to fight for equal rights and equal pay."

It wasn't just restored, it was increased by 42% and the entire process cleaned up so more women's organizations could be included in the process rather than just your far left friends who think it is just fine to attack Sara Pallin because she is a women. You are not a feminist AZ, your just another lefty who thinks you know how everyone should think and live their lives.

.

In my opinion...

In my opinion the first line of this Canadian Press news story is opinion.

OTTAWA — It will probably be a very short meeting.

NDP Leader Jack Layton has agreed to sit down with Stephen Harper on Saturday, but said he believes the prime minister has already decided to throw in the towel and call a fall election....

------

But whose opinion is it?

I really have no idea why the CP didn't think it important enough to include the authors name along with the authors opinion, but I am not a journalist and I am unfamiliar with their ways.