Crappy moments in journalism, questioning love of country edition

From the not so great moments in journalism files comes this entry from Jane "tell me about your cats" Taber, who offers regular proof that giving some members of the media the increased bandwidth of blogging isn't really a good thing.

Yesterday, Taber posted this insulting and groundless entry that, hold your breath, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff would be cheering for Canada in last night's Canada/Russia Olympic men's hockey game:

Michael Ignatieff is not conflicted.

In fact he takes umbrage with any hint of a suggestion that he would feel the slightest bit of conflict watching the Canadian men's Olympic hockey team play the Russians in a sudden death quarter final.

I'd take umbrage too, for it's an incredibly stupid question. I'm 1/4 Irish, should I be conflicted when Canada and Ireland meet on the field of sporting battle? Should I have my patriotism questioned? This is reminiscent of the Conservative attacks on Ignatieff's heritage, just like they attacked Stephane Dion's loyalty because his mother came from France. I expect such nonsense from the Conservatives, but not from the national newspaper of a nation of immigrants.

Taber's piece also begs the question, just where is this issue coming from? Who is raising this as a legitimate and newsworthy issue? As Ignatieff said:

Even just asking the question leaves him "stupefied by the proposition." He added: "I mean that."

So, who raised this issue? Rewind two weeks and oh, look, it was actually Jane Taber:

While Mr. Ignatieff faces many dilemmas as a political leader, his biggest right now would be who to cheer for if the men’s gold medal hockey game is between Canada and Russia, given his Russian ancestry.

Yes, that's right, she creates the flawed and insulting premise out of thin-air, with no sourcing to back it up, then forces him to respond to her made-up malarkey that not so subtly questions, without basis, Ignatieff's patriotism and love for Canada.

Stay classy San Diego.

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Misleading and scaring Canadians on pay equity

The misleading headline on this Globe and Mail story about the budget and pay equity is emblematic of the fear mongering campaign being conducted by some for purely political reasons:

Pay-equity changes set to pass with budget

GLORIA GALLOWAY
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
February 2, 2009 at 11:29 PM EST

OTTAWA - The federal budget revives the same pay-equity changes from the fall fiscal update that spurred mass protests and the potential collapse of the Conservative government now surviving with Liberal support.

This headline is absolutely false, and the Globe should change it immediately. As I pointed-out the other day, while the budget talks about the government’s plans to make changes to pay equity it does not make any actual changes, or provide much detail on what those changes may be. From page 211 of the budget document, this is the only passage where "pay equity" appears in the budget:

The existing complaint-based pay equity regime is a lengthy, costly and adversarial process that does not serve employees or employers well. Legislation to modernize the pay equity regime for federal public sector employees will be introduced. The new regime reflects the Government’s commitment to pay equity. It will ensure that the employer and bargaining agents are jointly responsible and accountable for negotiating salaries that are fair and equitable to all employees.

I’ve bolded the key passage. Legislation…will be introduced. As in, at a future date. No changes to pay equity will be made by this budget. Whatever changes the Conservatives plan for pay equity will be introduced in separate legislation that the opposition parties can debate, amend, take to committee, and either pass or defeat.

Journalists don’t write the headlines and so I don’t fault Ms. Galloway, as her own story gets it right and contradicts the headline put on it:

The budget released this week says the government will introduce a new means to establish pay equity. "The existing complaint-based pay-equity regime is a lengthy, costly and adversarial process that does not serve employees and employers well," the budget documents assert.

I feel pay equity is a serious and important issue, and I’ll be expecting the Liberals to closely examine whatever legislation the Conservatives decide to introduce on this topic. I’m confident that. with the three opposition parties being of similar view on the issue, no legislation will pass unless it’s good legislation. And if Harper decides to dig-in his heels on this down the road, so be it.

But because this is such an important issue, I’m disgusted at those in the political arena that are creating fear around this issue, misleading Canadians into thinking horrible changes will be made on pay equity in this budget, and that by listening to the clear desire and will of Canadians to make this parliament work, by passing this budget the Liberals are somehow gutting pay equity.

It’s a fabrication; a transparent attempt to score political points against the Liberals with falsehoods and by sowing fear. I don’t think it’s worth frightening people on this issue just to score political points against your opponents, and those who claim to support pay equity should give their heads a shake.

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Globe In and Out editorial is the farce

The learned minds of the Globe and Mail editorial board are in full tut-tut mode today, wagging a disapproving finger at “all parties” for making a farce of the last round of ethics committee hearings into the Conservative Party’s In and Out scandal, and chastising Liberal committee chair Paul Szabo for issuing 31 summons for witnesses ahead of next week’s hearings.

In issuing an astounding 31 summons for apparently reluctant witnesses - some of them senior Conservative operatives and officials - to appear at hearings that restart next week, Mr. Szabo has made terribly gratuitous use of his powers. And in sanctioning him to do so, the committee's opposition majority has all but ensured that the hearings will take on an even more adversarial tone than before, particularly when partisans are not just asking the questions but also answering them.

But hey, before you get too upset, the Globe does reluctantly admit that maybe, just maybe, a bunch of senior Conservative Party officials refusing to cooperate with a parliamentary committee, forcing the committee to resort to summons, might not be totally the Liberal Party’s fault:

But the Conservatives have to bear some of the blame. The party should have respected the authority of Elections Canada to investigate alleged improprieties during the 2006 election campaign, when the Tories may have inappropriately funnelled national campaign expenses through individual ridings. Instead, they have done everything in their power to undermine the agency's credibility - claiming without evidence that it is on a partisan crusade against them. In so doing, they have invited the opposition to take a stronger interest in the matter than they otherwise would have.

I don’t know, maybe it’s the fact the Globe editorial board endorsed these clowns in the last election, maybe they’re feeling buyer’s remorse. Maybe they’re interpreting fair and balanced to mean taking shots at all sides, whether they make sense or not.

But to attack Szabo for making “terribly gratuitous use of his powers” is ridiculous. He was forced into this action by the Conservatives, and their refusal from Day One to cooperate with either Elections Canada or parliament on investigations into their alleged scheme to circumvent election spending limits and enrich campaign coffers at taxpayer expense.

The Conservatives stonewalled in committee after committee, delaying these hearings for many months. When they came, they mercilessly attacked the integrity of an officer of parliament appointed under their watch, whose name they put forward. And about this next round of hearings, it’s the Conservatives that have refused to have their MPs testify (and MPs can’t be summoned). And I have little doubt they put the word out their officials on the witness list to refuse to voluntarily comply with the requests to testify, forcing Szabo to go the summons route.

This is the party of accountability and transparency that you endorsed, Globe editorial board.

Why are the Conservatives refusing to cooperate with parliament? Why did they force summons? And why won’t their MPs testify? Those are the questions they should be asking, and the actions they should be condemning. Blaming Szabo is like making the fireman share the blame with the arsonist.

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On X-Rated newspaper folds

From the department of unfortunately-placed newspaper folds comes this entry from the Review section of today’s Globe and Mail.

The story is on some ancient stone club from B.C., dating to 1800 BC that could be sold to a collector in the U.S. Accompanying the story is a colour photo of the club:

Normal enough so far. However, as you can see the top of the club is cut off by the newspaper fold. Here’s what’s above the fold:

Opps. Bad Globe and Mail! Naughty naughty.

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The media needs longer attention spans, and so do we

Lawrence Martin is bang-on in the Globe today, talking about the Afghan detainee document cover-up at DND and another disturbing DND story I hadn’t heard about, their monitoring of a Canadian anti-war activist, Steven Staples.

A pattern is emerging, said Martin. Too often both DND and the rest of the Harper government are using Access laws to cover-up wrongdoing and embarrassing information.

Writes Martin:

The government, it need be recalled, promised a new era of transparency and accountability. After Liberal malfeasance, it was elected, in at least some measure, for this very reason.

Some might wish to remind the generals and others of the pledge. And they need to be reminded more than once. In many cases, what happens is that officials wait for the media blow-over effect. They realize that, after a couple of days, journalists will move on to other fare. Stories such as Steven Staples being put under surveillance will be forgotten, and they will be off the hook.

The media's memory has to be longer. They can't allow it to happen.

He’s exactly right. I’d never even heard of the Staples case, and the detainee document story has gotten minimal play. The media have been too busy going ga-ga over Conrad Black, but that’s another rant.

Whatever happened to investigative journalism? To the analysis piece? To keeping the pressure on until there are answers? Until the media start picking-up the ball I think it’s up to us as bloggers to keep highlighting these issues, keep talking about them and keep the pressure up.

The fact that neither O’Connor, Harper or any other elected CPC member has even commented on the document classification issue is glaring, but it’s not surprising. Without the spotlight of QP to provide easy stories for a lazy press gallery, Deceivin’ Steven is hoping it will just go away and be forgotten by fall. And I like his odds, frankly.

We can’t let that happen.

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Dear Jane Taber,

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Globeandmail.com needs remedial headline writing class

Call this a pet peeve of mine, but the headline on this Globe web story was like nails on a chalkboard to me:

Cutting health tax will put province in debt, McGuinty says
KAREN HOWLETT
From Monday's Globe and Mail
June 3, 2007 at 9:56 PM EDT

RICHMOND HILL, ONT. — Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty signaled Sunday that he plans to fight a negative election campaign as he accused the Progressive Conservatives of being “reckless” for pledging to cut the controversial health tax imposed by the Liberals.

“We've seen that movie before,” Mr. McGuinty told reporters.

Umm, guys, we already are in debt. By a healthy amount I believe. What Dalton is talking about is deficit, which is not at all the same thing.

If your annual budget for the year is not balanced, ie. you’re spending more than you’re taking in, that’s a deficit. That’s Dalton’s concern, Ontario is now in surplus and he feels this move would lead to a deficit. Debt is the accumulated deficits from all the years you spent more than you have that you carry over, are paying interest and are making payments on.

So Ontario, while in surplus, is still carrying a lot of debt from all those years it was in deficit. We are already in debt. We’re not Alberta. McGuinty’s concern is falling back into deficit. It would be kind of nice if the Globe headline writers knew the difference.

They had another wonky headline for awhile on Friday that was later changed, along the lines of Giant Airbus 380 lands for the first time. Many puzzled Globe commenters, who knew the plane’s first flight had been months ago, wondered just how the thing had stayed up in the air so long…

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Review: The New Cold War

Been spending a lot of time on airplanes lately, which gave me a chance to read The New Cold War pretty quickly, and it really helped pass the time in an interesting and very educational way.

Written by Globe and Mail reporter Mark MacKinnon, who is now covering the Middle East and was formerly the Globe’s Moscow correspondent, The New Cold War offers a fascinating look at the state of democracy, or the lack thereof, in Russia, parts of the former Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe.

The book starts in the former Yugoslavia with the revolution that overthrew Slobodan Milosevic, painting a common thread to other successful revolutions in places like the Ukraine and Georgia, and less successful ones in places like Belarus, as well as the deteriorating democratic situation in Russia itself.

It’s an engaging, well written book (as befits a fellow former Charlahack) and, as someone who considers himself at least decently abreast of global events, I was surprised at just how much I didn’t know what was going on in that part of the world.

Just how far Vladimir Putin has gone in rolling-back democracy in Russia is astounding, and troubling. And there really does seem to be a new cold war happening, as Russia uses its natural resources to try to force its former satellites into line, and out of the Western sphere of influence. The way that each successful revolution passes on its lessons to the next was very interesting to read, and the lessons drawn.

And it was unsurprising to learn that, despite the high-minded deals of democracy espoused by President Bush, when U.S. interests are at stake they’re still more than willing to back a despot.

A very enlightening read, well recommended.

A review copy was provided by the publisher to facilitate this review.

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