CTV News gets caught again.

CTV News has once again been caught selectively cherry picking comments. The second time in little over 3 weeks.

The first happened late last month when CTV was caught selectively editing out the first half of a sentence where Michael Ignatieff had commented on US Secretary of Defense 'Gates', and second occurred yesterday when CTV was caught doing something similar. Only this time it was done to the comments of PM Harper but unlike the Ignatieff example, it wasn't done to make the PM look better.

In fact I would say it was a deliberate attempt at the opposite.


Brian Lilley has the details here.

The highlights:

CRAIG OLIVER: Raw street power for 18 days. Despite police intervention,
assault from Mubarak thugs, the cut-off of internet and cell phone
service, and a non-violent army standing by, the peaceful protestors
would not back down. Twice Mubarak went on television promising reforms.
But you the surging crowd would not believe him and continued to demand
his resignation. The president finally fled the city on Friday. The army
announced it would lead a national council and move the country toward
democracy. US President Barack Obama eloquently praised the outcome. 

BARACK OBAMA: The people of Egyptian have spoken, their
voices have been heard, and Egypt will never be the same.

OLIVER: And here is what Prime Minister Stephen Harper had to say.    ( NOTE: Craig compares what Obama said AFTER Mubarak left to what the PM said BEFORE Mubarak left.)

STEPHEN HARPER: I think the old expression is
they’re not going to put the toothpaste back in the tube on this one.


Here is what PM Harper actually said: (and remember this was BEFORE  Mubarak stepped down)

Well, first of all, you know, let me just be clear, as I’ve been clear every time I’ve answered this question, that the future of Egypt is for Egyptians to decide. What I think we all want to see and what I think is clear most of the people of Egypt want to see is a transition to a democratic Egypt. We want to see free and fair elections. We want to see the rule of law and stability. We want to see respect for human rights, including the rights of minorities, including the rights of religious minorities, and we want to see a government that will continue to respect peace treaties and seek peace in the Middle East. As I say, we are all seeing what’s happening. A transition is taking place in Egypt. That transition, in my judgment, there is no going back. I think the old expression, “They’re not going to put the toothpaste back in the tube on this one.” Our, you know, our strong recommendations to those in power would be to lead change: get in front of it, be a part of it, and make a bright future happen for the people of Egypt.


A textbook example of misleading news don't you think? 




Video:  Updated with PM Harper's entire remarks. Thanks Gabby!

BC Blue's thoughts.

Blue Like You.

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!

CTVGate: CTV cuts 2 seconds out of Ignatieff's answer

And what a difference 2 seconds can make.

Watch the video.  (Now available on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Egy2POCd8tM )

  

What Ignatieff actually said: "”We think that Bill Gates, the secretary of defence, knows full well the problems with the F-35s,..."

What CTV chose to put on the air:  ”..., the secretary of defence, knows full well the problems with the F-35s,..."

A big difference don't you think?

Imagine that, CTV left out a major gaffe by a politician. Perhaps it is their policy not to show slip ups of politicians, or than again maybe not as the very next segment aired dealt with another gaffe from a politician, this time our Minister of National Defence.

One was given its own story, while the other seemed to be edited out and never mentioned.

Why the difference in coverage?


Update: Even in their print stories on this subject, CTV manages to leave out Ignatieff's "Bill Gates" quote :
 Gates "knows full well the problems with the F-35. This thing is late, it's over-budget," Ignatieff told reporters at an event in Montreal. While Peter MacKay's comment gets fully reported on in print by CTV.     (HT to Joanne @  BLY)

Update3: How important are gaffes to CTV? Do they think they are worth covering?:  If you look at the pic from Lisa LaFlamme's twitter account below, you can see that in the week previous she made 6 tweets.

2 of those were about MacKay's gaffe and the CTV coverage of them. 

So yes, it does look like CTV not only believes that gaffes are important and worth covering, they also appear to believe that their coverage of those gaffes was worthy of promotion over the other news of the day.

So again I have to ask; why the difference in coverage between what Peter MacKay said and what Michael Ignatieff said?


Update 2: During the same presser and after the Bill Gates gaffe, Ignatieff had the gall to attack Peter MacKay on his gaffe: "Well, I just think our minister of defence should get a map," 

Too funny.  Michael Ignatieff, he does not attack people (40 second mark), he attacks irony.

HT Wilson in the comments @ Blue Like You.

Don Martin, TV Professional

Nothing says true TV professional better than sitting off camera and making faces while the person you are interviewing is speaking.

(But you had better make sure to get that 'off camera' part right or you get this)

The Video has no audio  (Now Fixed) but there really doesn't have to be to see what happened.

I can just imagine the CTV director screaming into his headset;  "Get him off!" Kill the split screen! Kill the split screen!....

The clip, with audio can be viewed at CTV here. (approx 4:20)



That's Don Martin ladies and gentlemen; doing his best to kill his shot at being the next host of Power Play and proving why he should stick to print media.



Big h/t to Bettie in the comments at BLY.

Ignatieff, Mr. Charisma.

Ignatieff needs work, lots of it, and the good folks at CTV have brought in some outside help to assist.

An American academic has some advice for Canadian Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff: stop talking issues and start talking morality. George Lakoff, a professor of linguistics at University of California Berkeley, told CTV's Power Play that his studies of the language of politics show that the most successful politicians are those who connect with voters by using a few simple principles.

How very nice of CTV for trying to help out like that, but I am not sure if this guy really knows anything about Michael Ignatieff.

"What Ignatieff does is he talks about the details of policy rather than start with the moral principle … and saying: ‘Here is why this is right,'" he said.

"Secondly, you have to connect with people. People have to feel that you're authentic, that you're believable and that you care about them."

Ignatieff talking about the details of policy? What is this guy talking about? What policy? The only thing the Liberals do is complain about conservative policy and whatever meager policy they may have or even agree with, they end up changing their mind later and flip flop on it. Afghanistan, HST, asbestos, free votes, immigration policy, corporate taxes, etc.

As for Ignatieff trying to be authentic; well that is kind of hard to accomplish when you are just playing a role and pretending rather than being truthful and authentic with yourself. Remember Ignatieff's own words ""Nothing is personal in politics, because politics is theater. It is part of the job to pretend to have emotions that you do not actually feel."

Too late CTV, your obvious attempts to resurrect the political fortunes Ignatieff are not going to work. Perhaps you might want to take George Lakoff's advice to be authentic and honest for yourself and just report the news, quit trying to influence it.

Mike Lake and Ralph Goodale.

From yesterdays Power Play with Tom Clark on CTV. View entire clip here. The were discussing the Liberals now debunked claim on favoritism with infrastructure cash.

Note from about the 30 second mark where Mike tries to give Ralph something.

Too funny.

CTV News Staff: Giving advice to Ignatieff.

CTV News Staff: Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff's main task today: turn the doves in his caucus into hawks, and set forth a plan to take down the Tory government in the fall.

Since when does CTV news dictate what the main task is for the leader of the official opposition. Get over yourselves, it is not like you are Krista Erickson.

Does that mean she is a liar?

Did Michael Ignatieff call a 26 yr old hill staffer who worked for Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt a liar? Here is a bit of what he said on the subject.

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff called the minister's allowance of a staffer to take the blame "despicable". "It's presumably the same staffer responsible for the isotope shortage and it's presumably this 26-year-old who is responsible for the whole darned department" "How are we supposed to believe such a fiction?"

The staffer in question has taken responsibility and resigned over the incident.

I am just a knuckle-dragger so tell me dear Liberal friends if I have got this wrong. If Michael Ignatieff thinks that this is all a "fiction", does that not mean that he thinks the staffer is lying? Because that is what I am getting out of it.


Related: Michael Ignatieff: "I don't like people blaming 26 year olds."

Yes Michael, blaming 26 year olds, even if they take responsibility, is not the Liberal way. This is more the Liberal way*.

Any comments on the staffer incident from Judy Sgro yet? Just askin'.



*This works as long as the brother is not 26 because Iggy doesn't like that and what Iggy doesn't like could never be the Liberal way.

Screw GM, Ford, and Chrysler...

We need to bail out these guys. Come on Canada, lets save this Canadian institution.

Back to the Future with CTV and Dion

"Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2008" At least CTV got the year right in their 'updated' story.

Location, Location, Location.

IMHO, you could not get a better location than this ad found on the CTV.ca website.




and for your viewing pleasure the latest CPC ad

The anonymous 'ctv.ca news staff' strikes again.

This is just too stupid not to comment on. "After a week of election speculation, senior federal Conservatives have told CTV News that an election call after Labour Day is "possible."

"Possible"? I know I did not go to a fancy school of journalism but come on, this is just ridiculous.

It is not only possible that the election call will come after Labour Day but it is a 100% sure thing. My guess is that around October of 2009 would be a good bet for the election, but I am not a journalist.

Way to go CTV news staff, but I do have a question. If this story wins some kind of award for outstanding journalism, who will be the one to pick up the prize?

ht/MichealCC

CTV.ca : Changing Headlines

I happened to read about a new poll that was released yesterday and did a little Google search trying to find a full story on it. This is what I found.


"Trouble ahead for Harper's Tories, poll suggests" That doesn't sound so good does it? But clicking in the link this is what I find at CTV.

"Tories preferred on leadership and major issues: Poll" A totally changed headline to a story about the exact same poll. Only this one seems to be indicating the complete opposite from the first one, and after reading the story I have to wonder just how the first headline ever made it's way onto the CTV .ca website in the first place.

Here is the story. Please read it for yourself, and see if you can figure out how anyone could conclude that there is trouble ahead for Harper's Tories.

The Canadian Press

OTTAWA -- A new poll suggests Canadians prefer Conservatives over Liberals when it comes to leadership and most major issues -- even though that preference has not translated into popular support for the governing party.

The Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey suggests 43 per cent of Canadians think the Tories, with Stephen Harper at the helm, have the best leader to be prime minister.

Only 22 per cent of those polled picked the Liberals, led by Stephane Dion.

Moreover, the Tories came out well ahead of the Liberals when respondents were asked which party is best equipped to deal with the economy (40 per cent to 22 per cent), taxes (41 per cent to 20 per cent) and crime (39 per cent to 18 per cent).

They also enjoyed a smaller two- to three-point advantage over the Liberals on foreign affairs, energy and health care.

When asked generally which party cares most about the issues closest to respondents' hearts, respondents favoured the Tories 35 per cent to 32.

The survey respondents preferred the Liberals over the Tories on only two issues: the environment (36 per cent to 24) and poverty (32 per cent to 25).

That appears to reflect Dion's summer-long campaign to promote his so-called Green Shift -- a complicated climate-change plan that would impose a carbon tax on fossil fuels, offset by income- and business-tax cuts and tax benefits to the poor, elderly and rural dwellers. The plan includes measures aimed at halving the number of Canadians living in poverty.

Dion has said the green shift will be the centrepiece of the Liberals' platform for the next election campaign. But the poll results suggest he may be in danger of being seen as a one-trick pony.

"I believe that is a definite risk for Dion right now," said a Harris-Decima senior vice-president, Jeff Walker.

Although Liberals tout The Green Shift as an economic plan, as well as a plan for tackling climate change, Walker said it appears to be seen primarily as an environmental initiative thus far and that's "too narrow a definition."

"Especially in this (weakening) economy, people need to know and hear that there's some plan for the economy."

Despite the Conservatives' advantage on the economy and other issues of importance to voters, the most recent Harris-Decima survey suggests the Tories remain mired in a virtual tie with the Liberals, with 32 per cent and 33 per cent support respectively.

Walker said the Tories appear to be held back by their inability to gain support in urban and suburban Ontario and Quebec, where the Liberals seem to be the "default choice" for voters. But that could change during the course of an election campaign, which could come as early as this fall.

Leadership becomes critically important during a campaign and Harper, having led his party through two elections, is far more experienced than Dion, who is preparing for his first campaign as leader.

Moreover, Walker said the preference Canadians are showing for Conservatives on most issues is really a reflection of the greater trust they have in Harper as a leader.

"Right now Conservatives are very solid in a whole bunch of areas and that's almost a surrogate for leadership. That's why it really will come down to the campaign," he said.

The poll suggests only 14 per cent of Canadians think it's time for an election. Thirty-eight per cent think an election this fall would be "a waste of time" but a plurality -- 41 per cent -- said they can live with the prospect.

The telephone phone poll of just more than 1,000 Canadians was conducted Aug. 7-10 and has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points 19 times in 20.


For your added enjoyment; watch this clip titled http://watch.ctv.ca/news/latest/trouble-ahead/#clip83578 for Craig Oliver's take on this latest poll and whether or not he thinks there is trouble ahead for the Tories.




.

Busted: CTV Bias

Just a little example of media bias from CTV.

Courtesy of SDA


Wow, CTV uses the CPC logo in their story and includes the line "A Conservative party supporter could theoretically donate more than $60,000 over the legal limit under a recently discovered loophole, according to a newspaper report."

FYI here is a bit from the newspaper story (Globe and Mail Article) referred to in the CTV piece. Please note where it says ANY Canadian.

Loophole tears lid off political donations

Gap allows for contributions more than $60,000 over limit

DANIEL LEBLANC

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail

August 1, 2007 at 4:05 AM EDT

OTTAWA — Any Canadian could exceed by more than $60,000 the legal donation to a political party under a loophole discovered by The Globe and Mail.

Elections Canada confirmed yesterday that an individual could theoretically contribute $199.99 to each of the party's 308 riding associations across the country - a total of $61,596.92 - without attracting anyone's attention.

That's because parties are required to inform Elections Canada only of individual donations of $200 or more. Smaller donations to riding associations are lumped together, with no breakdown for cross-checking.

Under the government's showpiece Accountability Act, passed last year, individuals can donate a maximum of $1,100 to a political party.

So why did CTV decide to single out the CPC in their story, when even the original G&M story rightfully pointed out that the loophole could be used by any Canadian?

I would like to see the answer to that, but I won't be holding my breath waiting.