I know this is just a CBC poll designed to drive readership to their website, but have a go if you feel like seeing how yours compares to mine.

I’m not sure how realistic the results are though. After all, there are questions pertaining to social conservatism that, no matter how you answer them, are not represented by any of the political parties. Further, the economic questions are not represented by the parties either. Cutting spending and government jobs? Nobody is offering that.

Missing from the CBC poll is a question about selling the CBC.

I guess I put this off longer than I wanted to, but it’s probably time to clear the air regarding me and my journalism career. A number of people have cast aspersions on my integrity lately, implying my opinions are somehow shaped or formed by journalism school, going as far as to suggest that what I write has to do with trying to get a job in media. Those comments are not just wildly off-base, but they’re actually personally hurtful.

First of all, I didn’t really know I was going into journalism until I was laid off from the construction site at the end of November 2009. I had always been interested in writing and journalism, but I was also a high school dropout and a construction worker, so my options seemed relatively limited. Being laid off gave me an opportunity for the first time to wonder if I still had the opportunity to change my life and do something with my writing.

Before I started journalism school last September, I didn’t have any delusions of grandeur. Although the National Post picks my stuff up now and then, it isn’t as though I’m going to finish school and go work on their editorial board. Actually, the truth is that in about a month from now I’m probably going to be looking for work at any newspaper that will have me, whether that’s in a big city paper or a town of 2,000 people.

A bit about journalism school for a moment. Although there’s some political stuff in it, most, if not all, pertains to the manner in which journalists are expected to conduct themselves. And as far as the people in my program go, I’m probably the only one who’s interested in politics at all. Sure, some of them probably lean to the left, but then again so do most people in Canada. And if it seems as though most journalists lean to the left, that’s probably because writing and media is an occupation that attracts a greater number of people from that demographic. (It’s not high finance, after all)

The idea that journalism school is some kind of brain-washing camp or echo chamber for the left, is patently ridiculous. In fact, it’s so misguided that I can’t really begin to describe it. Would every single person in my program be happy to be offered a job at the CBC? Of course they would. As they would CTV, the Globe and Mail, the Vancouver Sun, the Toronto Star or Canadian Press. They’re in school to get a job, not to join a political movement.

So, do people really think I’m going to join the media and conform to some kind of imagined left-leaning editorial directive? To be quite honest, I’m more worried about the getting hired part first. Beyond that, I’m concerned about the perception of a political pundit trying to back his way into journalism after having written politics for four years. It usually happens the other way around for a good reason. For the same reason some people mistrust any CBC reporter who offers an opinion, it’s possible that people won’t trust a reporter who’s done the same thing in the National Post.

But people who think I’m being changed by journalism clearly don’t understand me. When I went to Afghanistan, I got to spend time around journalists, some of whom have been doing this for 30 years. It’s not as easy as it looks.

You can’t just present a story based on what you think is right. You can’t just grab the facts you think are relevant or talk to the one person you think should be listened to. You can’t dismiss a story because you don’t like what a person is saying, even if it’s something you disagree with. When I went to report on George Galloway and was barred admission on my media credentials by rabble blogger Derrick O’Keefe because he accused me of being a propagandist, I didn’t turn around and submit a story about leftwing censorship. Because that’s not the mandate of a journalist, nor is the story about me.

Writing for journalism is hard. If you don’t think so, you try it for a day. Try picking a story, finding the most important part about it, interviewing all sides to it, finding the right balance, gathering the background information, ensuring all your facts are correct, and then writing 350 words using the correct newspaper style and spelling. And then try doing that several times a day, and know that you’re expected to do that every single day you want to call yourself a journalist. It’s hard.

I just finished writing a 2,300-word business article for a trade magazine. It doesn’t matter what I think or what I believe. I had to gather facts and information and opinions from the business world, and my credibility and integrity depends on the fairness, accuracy and truth of every single word of that article.

So there’s my rant. If you think my opinions are being self-censored or influenced by my getting an education in journalism, you’re free to believe that. But don’t tell me about it. I’d rather you and I just go our separate ways, because I don’t think I can respect a person who can’t show me — and my chosen profession — the respect I deserve.

There’s a bit of an argument going on between Sun Media’s Brian Lilley and Glen McGregor of the Ottawa Citizen over the proper designation of the state-funded and state-owned CBC. Sun Media refers to the CBC as the “state broadcaster” in news stories, which McGregor said is a loaded term that is associative of the “Soviet-era Tass, a propaganda arm for the government.”

McGregor then did what any curious journalist would do, and punched the term “state broadcaster” into FP infomart, the journalist’s resource tool that scans news archives from across the country. His results turned up five uses of the term between 1996 and 2010 by Toronto Sun writers. But then, suddenly it would seem, following the use of the term by Sun Media executive Kory Teneycke, the reference jumped to 39 times with the majority being used by Brian Lilley.

Not to be outdone, Lilley did a search himself, and came up with other uses of the term from Paul Wells in Maclean’s, Susan Delacourt and Rondi Adamson in the Toronto Star, John Doyle in the Globe, and a Reuters story. Lilley makes the argument that the term has become “accurate and factual” through popular usage in media.

An update on McGregor’s blog acknowledges the sleuthing, and responds that all of Lilley’s examples were used in columns, and did not constitute news reporting, save for the last one. As he writes:

I don’t really take a position on its fairness. I wouldn’t use it in my reporting because it is a loaded term that has connotations that transcend it’s intended meaning. But, others clearly differ.

Indeed. For once, I’m going to take the side of Glen McGregor. Although I don’t like the fact the CBC is owned by the state and subsidized by the state, it is reaching to describe it as the “state broadcaster.” It certainly is a loaded term, and generally shouldn’t be used in news articles that strive for impartiality.

The CBC’s editorial is clearly not reflective of the current ideological underpinnings of the “state” who sponsors it, so not only is the term not impartial, it fails the second criteria for news reporting: accuracy. It isn’t a pulpit that the prime minister can use to speak from, it doesn’t advertise Conservative Party propaganda or views and it can even be said the broadcaster has an editorial directive that pushes to the left of centre.

That’s not to say the CBC is a public broadcaster either. Lilley makes an accurate point when he says a public broadcaster is akin to a PBS channel, that takes donations for broadcasting member-requested content. The CBC broadcasts whatever it feels like, regardless of what the public wants, so although it’s publicly funded it isn’t entirely accurate to refer to it as a public broadcaster.

The problem lies in the distinction of the CBC as being state-owned and state-subsidized versus being independent to broadcast free from state-interference. This is a critical distinction, since McGregor is correct that calling it a state broadcaster is insufficient in and of itself to clarify that for readers.

So what would be a more accurate description of the CBC in Lilley’s articles? Although longer, using the term “state-owned broadcaster” or “state-funded broadcaster” or words to that effect, would properly position the CBC as accurately being owned and funded by the state, without suggesting it’s a mouthpiece for it.

Afterthoughts

From the comments of McGregor’s blog:

• “Denny” writes that it’s more accurate to describe the CBC as being a state broadcaster than it is a not-yet-existent Sun TV “Fox News North.” Good point, although two inaccuracies don’t make an accuracy.
• “William” writes that many newspapers and magazines (including Maclean’s, as Andrew Coyne has admitted) are funded by Ottawa through Heritage Canada. Since all of CBC’s funding doesn’t come from the state, it could be argued that Maclean’s magazine is a “state magazine” under the same criteria.
• “Albert Veldpaus” makes a good point that if CBC is the “state broadcaster”, then logically TVO is also the “state broadcaster”. I’ve often wondered why TVO usually gets a free pass in these discussions.

From the comments of Lilley’s blog:

• “Gabby in QC”, who isn’t known for agreeing with me very often, agrees with me: “In a way, I agree with McGregor the CBC shouldn’t be called the “state broadcaster” for the simple reason it doesn’t present the “state” POV.”

Before I attend to the purpose of this blog entry, a few of you may have noticed the absence of Mark Collins lately. This is a permanent change to the blog at my request. Although Mark is a fantastic blogger (in fact I’m the one who begged him to blog here in the first place) and provides amazing information and research on many topics, I decided that my blog has been a part of cultivating my writing and journalism career. I wanted to keep my blog as a source for people to read my writing samples, and unfortunately too often people were confusing Mark’s entries with mine.

I’m hoping Mark will start a new blog where he can continue his work, but I understand he is keeping busy at the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute blog where he is keeping people up to date on Afghanistan and military issues. I know he is also a frequent guest blogger at Small Dead Animals, so if you’ve been missing his content please venture to either of those locations.

The CBC is reporting that the National Roundtable on Environment and the Economy, created in 1988 under the Mulroney government, has advocated that Canada should proceed with its own climate change initiatives. They said we can’t afford to wait for U.S. support before we battle climate change:

“Harmonization, where possible and when feasible, makes sense for Canada,” NRTEE president David McLaughlin said. “But in the face of persistent U.S. uncertainty as to its own climate policy future, Canada will need to look to its own options, in the right way, at the right time.”

Canada has pledged to reduce its emissions to 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020, less than 10 years away. Waiting for the U.S. to chart its course puts Canada in danger of not meeting those targets, the paper said. Worse still, it might require a higher carbon price in Canada than in the United States to achieve those targets.

You know climate change will always be a tough sell in Canada, particularly when record temperatures are being broken this year. Record cold temperatures I mean:

A deep freeze that has engulfed Eastern Canada shattered records Monday and made it dangerous for anyone to go outside unprepared.

The culprit is a frigid Arctic air mass gripping the region and leading to warnings for people to bundle up and avoid frostbite or hypothermia.

[...]

Meanwhile, on the other side of the spectrum, it was an unseasonable 0 C in Whitehorse, Yukon, on Monday evening — a far cry from the city’s January average of -17.7 C and its coldest day on record, when the mercury dropped to -52.2 C in January 1977.

But in New Brunswick, with the wind chill close to -40 C Monday, the only good walk was a short one. In such cold with brisk winds, exposed skin can freeze in as little as 10 minutes.

A glance at the CBC website notes that the “unseasonable” warmth in the Arctic is being attributed to global warming, but the record cold is just weather.

Don’t look now, but BC Liberal leader hopeful George Abbott is calling for a referendum on the hated carbon tax, saying the province can’t remain competitive as the only jurisdiction in “North America to address the issue [of climate change].” Not the province’s current carbon tax is likely to drive down emissions given the province’s paradoxical relationship with energy.

Just so you know, the Pembina Institute, who advocated for B.C. to set its carbon tax to $200 per tonne of CO2 emissions (a 48-cent tax on each litre of gasoline), fully agrees with the recommendations of the NREE. Which should scare you, just a little bit.

Of all the esoteric rules in Ottawa to hunt down, Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis seems to have found the winner. Apparently, the MP has emailed the ethics commissioner over the only Conservative Party TV ad that isn’t offensive, because it appears to have been filmed in the prime minister’s office.

Presently the rules forbid parliamentarians from using the House of Commons “as a prop for election and party purposes.” But, in a surprising defence of the ad, Kady O’Malley notes an April 29, 2010 report from Mary Dawson, the federal ethics commissioner, which states “the Code refers only to persons, and not to entities.” So the Conservative Party appears safe from this latest Liberal thrust.

That isn’t the only controversy arising from the Conservative ads that haven’t yet aired on television. According to the Chronicle Herald, the CBC is upset that the Conservatives are using file footage from the broadcaster without permission. A little strange, considering the footage can hardly be identified as being the CBC’s, and besides the broadcaster is a crown corporation. So surely the footage belongs to everybody.

”The journalistic integrity of CBC-Radio-Canada — of the national public broadcaster — and its political neutrality require that our material not be used in partisan advertising,” CBC spokesman Marco Dube said Tuesday.

Excuse some of us in the bleachers for guffawing at the mention of the CBC needing to defend its “political neutrality.”

But what’s strange about Karygiannis’s request to have the ad with the House of Commons footage banned is that it’s the only one that really inspires a positive message and doesn’t depend on half-truths and character assassination.

Although the claims about the stimulus spending, saving jobs and GST benefits are debatable, the image of the Prime Minister working late, by himself, in the dark hallways of Parliament Hill are very effective (though they do seem to invite a Rick Mercer spoof). And by all accounts, it’s fairly accurate. The prime minster isn’t exactly known as a slacker.

Compare that one to the attack ad that asserts Ignatieff will jump into bed with the NDP and Bloc Quebecois at the first opportunity to form a coalition government. Does anyone actually believe this is still a possibility?

Worse yet, the quotes from Jack Layton and Michael Ignatieff being used by the Conservatives are taken out of context, and suggest not only a lack of proper patriotism but an active will to destroy Canada. Indeed, it’s exactly the kind of yellow journalism that most conservatives are accusing the media of perpetrating on a regular basis. It’s an utter waste of political donation dollars.

I’d like to see more ads like the one Karygiannis wants banned. The kind that talk about the positive aspects of the Conservative record. The rest is just mud-slinging in the playground.

A plaque of the deceased Nepean police officer. Source: CBC News

Sometimes you come across a story so crazy, so utterly unbelievable and ridiculous that you actually check the link to see if you’ve stumbled across a spoof. Today’s story in the Province is one such example, involving a decision by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal awarding a cop killer $9,500 for “discrimination.”

The tribunal ordered Corrections Canada to pay the compensation to Peter Michael Collins, a 48-year-old man who shot and killed police Const. David Utman at a shopping centre in 1983 in cold blood.

Collins, who apparently has back pain, filed a complaint that required him to stand up for a head count by the corrections officers whose job it is to ensure prisoners are accounted for, and haven’t escaped. But that was too much for Collins, apparently, who couldn’t manage the once-a-day stand at attention, complaining of “adverse differentiation” on the basis of his disability.

Though the murderer is able to stand and walk, the tribunal heard that actually getting up can be painful. And since the correctional service admitted a failure in accommodating this disability, all that was left was for the tribunal to award damages.

But the tribunal was persuaded by Collins’ evidence that the act of standing up causes him additional pain. On that basis, it ordered the correctional service to pay Collins $7,000 for pain and suffering.

The tribunal awarded Collins a further $2,500 in special compensation, which can be ordered if the tribunal finds the discriminatory practice was wilful or reckless.

In Collins’ case, the tribunal found that two correctional service employees who twice persuaded a doctor to change her medical opinion that Collins should not be forced to stand acted recklessly. It rejected Collins’ claim that the discriminatory practice was intentional.

So now Collins is $9,500 richer, for his extreme pain and suffering at the hands of a cruel world.

It was on an October day in 1983 when 38-year-old father of two, Const. David Utman, was having coffee at a restaurant and happened to encounter an escaped inmate from the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre.

Aiming a handgun at Utman, the escaped inmate ordered the officer to stand up. He then shot him in the chest, killing him. The convict was recaptured and found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Now, more than 27 years later, this same escaped convict who forced a police officer to rise from a sitting position so he could shoot him in the chest, is awarded $9,500 by a kangaroo court of law for making him stand to ensure he hadn’t escaped. The irony is painful.

The breaking news is that U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona was assassinated by a gunman only an hour ago, and the news wires are alight with the fire of that story. As of right now, there is no indication of who killed the congresswoman or why.

The CBC ran the story here, and allowed their comment board to be open. I want you to see the first comment they approved:

Note that it says comments are pre-moderated. Which means that somebody working for the CBC looked at that ridiculously inappropriate comment accusing the right of supporting acts of murder and terrorism and happily clicked the approve button.

Wake up CBC! Have some integrity!

UPDATE

More comments pre-moderated by the CBC include:

“The consequence of right wing gun nuts and the neo-conservative politics of hate??” — 18 agree 3 disagree
“The Right Wingers will rejoice at this madness.” — 17 agree 17 disagree
“So this is the end result of the Rupert Murdoch Tea Party/Fox news ranting and raving. I wonder who is next.” — 35 agree 16 disagree
“Extremely tragic news. Probably a politically motivated shooting. Is the right so afraid of the left that they have to resort to assassination?” — 23 agree 12 disagree
“Republican extremist. Bush voter. Dangerous.” — 0 votes

What’s worse than that is all the Canadians showing ignorance by proclaiming gun violence some kind of American value.

UPDATE 2

Let’s address this for a moment:

This is the infographic that the left are alleging has incited the (attempted) assassination of a congresswoman. But let’s think about this for a moment, shall we?

Is there anything inherently wrong with identifying, targeting if you will, areas of the country that a political movement believes its members should become active in? Only the most simple-minded person would interpret such an infographic as an invitation to literally assassinate anybody.

When will the fall be made final?  Quelle misère out of which it should be put. At Taylor Empire Airways:

…
I am Canadian’ pitchman joins As It Happens…

I gave up on CBC Radio right around the time my twenties disappeared into the rear-view mirror…

Just to age myself I started giving up on their radio about 15 years ago moving into my late 40s. All I can listen to now (despite the global warming fixation) is Quirks and Quarks, almost always pretty interesting. Ah, for Basic Black.

From a 2006 post at Daimnation!:

CBC radio dying too/Sook-Yin Lee sucks
…

In the car, with nothing else to consider, I listened Saturday, July 22, for a while to Definitely Not the Opera. The show was spending large amounts of our money to do special programs from New Orleans.

Host Sook-Yin Lee achieved a truly great moment in postmodern irony. She asked some nice old black guy she was interviewing whether he considered her a lady. He replied that he certainly did unless evidence otherwise came to his attention, for instance that a woman was, say, truly sexually loose. Ms Lee ragged him about this for some time (what a hoot) knowing full well that the fellow did not know this: “Sook-Yin Lee Funny Porn Movie Shortbus”.

How utterly disgusting, arrogant and condescending. And you’re paying for it.

Thank goodness for this:

Of course, the fact that Lee isn’t particularly good looking helps make her being naked and having sex un-erotic.

Chris Taylor has another post, with great photos, of CBC types outside the wire:

CBC Radio, 1943-44

There was a rather different view about reporting one’s country’s wars a while back or, as the French say, autres temps, autres moeurs.

Mark
Ottawa

In light of the current situation, some rather wry humour at the Spotlight on Military News and International Affairs:

Canadian News
…
CBC News
Canada’s troops head to Korea…

Mark
Ottawa

CBC News Network at 1513 ET had footage of a helicopter involved in helping people stranded by snow along Highway 402 in southwestern Ontario. The caption underneath was: “Army to the rescue. Canadian Forces chopper…”

Oh dear. The helicopter was actually Air Force (see the CH-146 at middle bottom here)–as are all aircraft in the CF. This CBC website story is rather better:

Military helps rescue stranded Sarnia drivers
2 Griffon helicopters fly motorists to warming stations

Mark
Ottawa