Photograph by: CHRIS WATTIE, REUTERS

The reputation of Canadian journalism took a bit of a dive recently, but not because of their factual reporting on the Bev Oda affair, which correctly identifies the particulars of her very serious charges of parliamentary misconduct. I’ve already expounded at great length about the reasons I believe Oda is guilty, at the very least, of misrepresenting CIDA, and at worst may be taking the fall for decisions made out of the PMO.

No, journalism didn’t suffer by reporting on these happenings in Ottawa, which are a vital aspect of our democratic checks and balances of power and accountability. It suffered by taking a rather editorial slant with the propagation of the picture of Bev Oda getting caught smoking a cigarette.

One of the primary responsibilities of journalists is to report news and information in as unbiased and non-prejudicial manner as is humanly possible. Inevitably, that task becomes more difficult when reporting on news about a cabinet minister accused of serious misconduct, as opposed to something more emotionally neutral like the amount of rainfall over a 24-hour period.

Although it’s an unwritten rule, the basic understanding to photojournalism 101 is that if you’re going to take a picture of a politician in a manner that is unflattering or otherwise embarrassing, it better have a good reason to be in the public interest. Catching the prime minister picking his nose, or the opposition leader scratching his rear end, or the backbencher blowing his nose might all be embarrassing, but they’re all normal behavioural habits of human beings.

If we were to start taking compromising pictures of political leaders doing things that we ourselves all do at certain times, it wouldn’t speak well for our sense of ethical practices. After all, it’s easy to catch someone in a strange or ugly micro-expression, or doing something that looks otherwise ugly with the camera shutter speed set to half a second exposure. For this reason most photojournalists try to restrict themselves from indulging.

There are moments, however, when an embarrassing photo is in the public interest, mainly because the politician sought out the photo opportunity in the first place. When Robert Stanfield botched a football catch in 1974, hands grasped awkwardly together, a look of consternation on his face, that was most certainly legitimate. Similarly when dexterity-challenged Stephane Dion could not score on a goalie in a photo-op street hockey game in Montreal, despite taking numerous second chances, that was also news.

In other words, if a politician is going to stand there and invite photographers to document his or her futility, it’s all fair game. But that’s not what happened when Bev Oda chose to smoke a cigarette. That was clearly the worst kind of exploitative, paparazzi journalism that permeates the kind of tabloids usually reserved for the British Royals.

What’s interesting about this is that there were many liberals who complained about the smoking photos of Barack Obama that proliferated the internet in 2007. The photos were clearly unflattering and contrary to the clean-cut image of the suave orator, giving him a kind of disheveled, rougher appearance one might expect from a man waiting in the unemployment line.

Let’s face it, smoking has become a cultural taboo in North America. People still partake, but guiltily and huddled away from doorways and windows. Because it’s a physical addiction, most people sympathize with smokers to the extent that they will leave them to their semi-private habit so long as it doesn’t interfere with their own right to uncontaminated oxygen.

A shot of Bev Oda smoking accompanying any story about her being accused of lying in parliament is tantamount to editorializing and biased journalism. It isn’t just juxtaposition; it’s inherently exploitation of the worst and most serious kind, because it makes the subconscious suggestion that this person, a cigarette dangling casually on the precipitous edge of her lips, is just the sort of person who would do such an unethical thing.

In other words, the picture is prejudicial, with the intent to influence the outcome of events. In this case, that would be to have her judged in the court of public opinion and found wanting, not for what she’s actually done, but for the appearance of it.

At least seven of the 24 names on this sub-list for inside the Queenswayers are plain awful; few of the rest are beyond mediocre.  Your thoughts in the “Comments”, any names?

The Hill Times’ top 100 most influential people in government and politics in 2011
…
MEDIA

CBC’s The National’s At Issue Panel

The CBC’s At Issue Panel is one of the most-looked-forward to political panels because Andrew Coyne, Allan Gregg, and Chantal Hébert’s comments on the day’s top issues are insightful and accurate. Politicos usually take note of the 13-minute panel and is a must watch among the country’s top decision makers.

QMI Agency bureau chief David Akin

As the bureau chief of the wire agency for the largest news publisher in Canada, David Akin is influential in shaping the news agenda. He’s also a top social media user and often breaks stories on Twitter and through his blog.

La Presse bureau chief Joel Denis Bellavance

Joel Denis Bellavance is a well respected and well connected reporter who often break stories that the English media follows. As one insider said, if Mr. Bellavance has a story, “you can almost rest assured it came straight from the PMO.”

CBC reporter Rosemary Barton

Since veteran broadcaster Don Newman left his seat at the CBC-TV’s Rosemary Barton has taken on an even bigger presence for the national public broadcaster. She’s been called upon to fill in for Power & Politics host Evan Solomon, and she often breaks stories that shape the news agenda. Ms. Barton is new to the list and is also an influential Twitterer, engaging her followers with witty commentary and political news.

George Cope, CEO Bell

With the $1.3-billion purchase of CTV, President and Chief Executive Officer Bell George Cope steps into a whole new league as he leads the transformation of the country’s largest communications company. The deal will split the assets of CTV Globemedia, which includes The Globe and Mail newspaper, which will go to the Thompson family’s Woodbridge Company Ltd., although BCE will keep a 15 per cent stake in the newspaper. BCE will have full ownership of CTV and its specialty television, digital media, conventional TV and radio. Mr. Cope plans to broaden the media corporation’s content assets across its Bell mobile, online and television services.

Le Devoir reporter Hélène Buzzetti

Hélène Buzzetti has a keen political sense and often breaks stories which the English national media later follow. Her stories are a must-read for her in-depth analysis of the federal political scene from a Quebec perspective.

Toronto Star senior writer Susan Delacourt

Susan Delacourt is a Hill veteran who writes for Canada’s largest circulation daily paper. Her stories are full of insider perspectives and analyses. Top political players keep a close eye on her work, as does her large blog, Twitter, and Facebook following. She’s one of few Hill reporters who uses her blog to give insightful political commentary on the day’s top issues.

La Presse columnist Alain Dubuc

Alain Dubuc has been covering federal and provincial politics for more than 30 years and is a must-read columnist for any top political players wanting a French-Canadian perspective on the day’s most important stories.

CTV Ottawa bureau chief Bob Fife

Top political players and government officials often take note of Bob Fife’s stories. As a Hill veteran, he’s cultivated many sources on all sides of the House to break stories that shape the political agenda.

Toronto Star, Le Devoir, The Hill Times columnist Chantal Hébert

Chantal Hébert has covered politics since 1975 and top federal political players trust her honest, ever sharp and insightful views of Parliament and federal politics. She’s definitely an influential must-read and often shapes the political agenda.

The Globe and Mail Ottawa bureau chief John Ibbitson

As the Ottawa bureau chief for one of Canada’s national newspapers, John Ibbitson plays a large role in shaping both the news and political agenda. He has close contacts inside the PMO and often is the first to break stories which are followed closely by top political and government players [see here].

National Post columnist John Ivison

John Ivison is well-known for his Scottish accent, but is also best known for his gritty, insider, and thoughtful must-read columns that often have Hill reporters chasing stories of their own. Top political and government players watch his column closely.

Halifax Chronicle-Herald Ottawa bureau chief Stephen Maher

As the bureau chief for a regional paper, Stephen Maher has been successful at breaking original and exclusive national stories which are later followed by other Parliament Hill media.

CTV Power Play host Don Martin

Don Martin only recently started hosting CTV’s influential political show, Power Play, but is an influential media personality on his own. For years, he’s written thought-provoking insider columns with significant scoops that every politico follows intimately. Apparently, the government’s recent decision on BHP came partly to prove Mr. Martin wrong. He had written a column suggesting the government would allow the takeover. That’s some influence [see here].

Globe and Mail columnist Lawrence Martin

Anybody who follows the federal political scene also follows Lawrence Martin, The Globe and Mail’s influential columnist. Not only is his latest book, Harperland, an insider’s account of the Prime Minister’s control on Ottawa, a must-read, but so are Mr. Martin’s columns [see here].

Political satirist Rick Mercer

Through seven seasons of the Rick Mercer Report, Rick Mercer has not only entertained Canadians by poking fun at politicians, but he’s also influenced public opinion through his political satire. Federal political players and insiders always want to hear what he’s saying, unless of course he’s ranting about them.

National Newswatch founder Will LeRoy

Every morning, it’s almost guaranteed that the first website politicos visit is Will LeRoy’s nationalnewswatch.com news aggregator. Mr. LeRoy’s aggregator is so popular, that he’s attracting top advertising dollars, and is often breaking his own stories with inside scoops and tidbits of information that reporters take note of to follow-up on. He’s hot.

CTV Question Period host Craig Oliver

Craig Oliver has been covering federal politics for more than 50 years, and continues to be an influential journalist. He’s seen as a thoughtful and respected journalist who political players can trust. He often shapes the news agenda [see here, and second comment here--which raises a theme I often raise].

CBC blogger Kady O’Malley

Kady O’Malley is the mother of live blogging and continues to do it best. She has a large following as people tune in to her blog postings to get real time coverage of the most important issues of the day, coupled with insightful commentary [see here].

Corriere Canadese, The Hill Times and The Toronto Star columnist Angelo Persichilli

Angelo Persichilli’s influence comes from the platforms that he has to give his insider’s perspective of the top daily stories. He writes for Canada’s largest circulation daily, The Toronto Star, and Parliament Hill’s influential weekly, The Hill Times, as well as the daily Italian-language paper Corriere Canadese. He has close sources and he breaks news in his insightful columns.

Canadian Press bureau chief Rob Russo

Rob Russo recently won the prestigious Charles Lynch Award for best coverage of national issues at the 2010 Parliamentary Press Gallery Dinner, a testament to not only his outstanding reputation as a newsmaker, but also the respect his peers have for him. Through leading a top-notch bureau, Mr. Russo’s team is often the first to break the day’s news, as a result influencing the federal political scene. The Canadian Press Ottawa bureau is trusted and influential.

Globe and Mail senior reporter and CTV Question Period host Jane Taber

Jane Taber’s stories are a must-read for the exclusive insider perspective of life on the Hill. As the senior political reporter for one of Canada’s national newspapers and the lead on a widely-read blog, Ms. Taber is an influential must-read [see here].

CBC pundit Greg Weston

Greg Weston left his years of writing for Sun Media during the Kory Teneycke fiasco, but has landed well at the CBC. Insiders say he’s responsible for heightening CBC’s profile with the scoops he has and the stories he breaks. He remains a key player among the Hill media, and is an influential player when it comes to shaping the federal political agenda. He’s an old fashioned journalist who breaks stories [see here, more on others too]…

Via David Akin at his blog.

Predate: Word sketches of mine from 2006 (in last link in quote):

English Canadian TV Pundits: 10 words or less

Jane Taber: Katie Couric without looks, brains or money

Jim Travers: Punching above his cranial capacity

Don Martin: Hunter S. Thompson without serious drugs or brains

Susan Riley: The class struggling

Rex Murphy: Only in Canada you say? Pity

Susan Delacourt: Hair punching above its weight

John Ibbitson: A conflicted but intelligent pixie

Gilles Paquet: The real and delightfully cynical deal

Don Newman: The chuckling fog (I like Mel)

Mike Duffy: The chortling tummy that showed a backbone a few months ago

Greg Weston: Something stinks and it couldn’t possibly be my judgement…

Mark
Ottawa

I think some people will remember how upset CBC blogger Kady O’Malley got when I asked her how she had the time to pore over thousands of documents pertaining to Afghan detainees, but couldn’t spare a minute for the climategate leaked emails, except to declare them possibly illegal.

A similar kind of “calling out” of CBC journalist Rosie Barton occurred today on Twitter, when my friend Bruce Stewart asked her why she would possibly want a group of children to ask the Prime Minister about the census. Much like the detainee affair, the CBC has been nothing if not busy manufacturing outrage over the non-issue, and Ms.Barton didn’t take kindly to his suggestion that she wouldn’t know objectivity if it mauled her in a bear cave:

Don’t feel too bad, Bruce. I’m sure that in the halls of the CBC, the journalists simply assume that the biggest question on the mind of 8-year-olds is the census, and how the Conservative Party is destroying their future. Once you frame that idea in your head, it’s only logical to assume that everybody else is probably thinking the same thing. Particularly when you’re earning a six-figure salary to simply invent what should be important to Canadians.

Earlier, some of the story so far. Now, Kate McMillan at her juxtaposin’ best:

Mainstream Journalism: Not Ethical Enough!…

Whilst our brick of a major media journalist, Blatchford of the Globe, reflects on Canadian journalistic ethics without actually using the word–and condemns them utterly:

Canadian media at fault for rush to believe friendly-fire report
The real evidence on the events of Sept. 3, 2006, is there for all to see

A Canadian soldier calls in an airstrike on Sept. 2, 2006, during the first day of Operation Medusa. The Canadian Press…

This mess is not a WikiLeaks problem, nor a Canadian military problem, nor a Canadian government problem. It is a problem with the Canadian media – Ottawa-centric, conspiracy-embracing, unquestioning and unskeptical so long as the information seems damaging to the government, too quick to publish and, of course, absolutely without a shred of accountability. Shame on us.

BZ to Blatch.  And read the Milnet.ca topic thread from which these two comments are excerpted:

1)

Warning – Reading the following will be bad for your blood pressure!

NDP wants proof Taliban killed Canadians
Last Updated: Wednesday, July 28, 2010 | 4:22 PM NT

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2010/07/28/nl-harris-wikileaks-728.html?ref=rss

The federal NDP is calling on the Canadian government to prove that four Canadian soldiers who died in Afghanistan in 2006 were killed by enemy fire rather than a U.S. bomb…

2)

I was there.  My LAV CASEVACed Bulletmagnet after he was hit by the same shrap that got Mellish and Cushley.  It was a Taliban Spig 9, not friendly fire.

Jack Harris is a tool.

Meanwhile one sometimes wishes our prime minister would emulate the, er, French, robust in national interest.  Good flippin’ luck:

France declares war against al-Qaida

Update: Terry Glavin, amongst other things, does in the Toronto Star’s Jim Travesty in nicely oblique fashion, has at Egregious Eric Margolis (mine: “Good riddance to an awfully rubbishy columnist“), and concludes:

…
There now. I feel much better.

One does, doesn’t one?  Post just grows.

Upperdate: Nice post by Brian Lilley of Sun Media at his Eye on the Hill blog:

CBC is unhinged over WikiLeaks

Mark
Ottawa

Paul Wells of Maclean’s magazine ponders journalists’ practices and ethics:

Gen. McChrystal gets hacked

…what’s interesting about the Hastings/McChrystal case is that it’s not clear what would have been less defensible: hearing all these things and reporting them, or hearing them and choosing, for decorum’s sake, not to report them. In one case you’re f—ing sources over. In another, you’re entering into a protection racket with them…

Mark
Ottawa

Photo credit: Master Corporal Matthew McGregor, Image Tech, JTFK Afghanistan, Roto 8

In the aftermath of the much publicized “attack” on Kandahar Air Field, in which some journalists glowingly praised the “rising resolve” of the heroic Taliban, Canada’s most senior foreign correspondent in Afghanistan, Matthew Fisher, has responded with an attack on his fellow journos.

Matthew Fisher has set the record straight on numerous issues blown out of proportion by the Canadian media sitting comfortably at home, including an interview with CFRA radio in Ottawa last December that should have properly put to rest the matter of the so-called “Afghan detainee scandal.”

Mr.Fisher describes attacks over the past week and a half in Kandahar and Bagram airfields [the main bases for Canadian and US Forces, respectively] as militarily insignificant but “spectacularly successful publicity coups for the Taliban.” Well, that isn’t surprising when Canadian writers make a mad dash to lavish praise on the insurgents for their “brazen” attempts to take the main bases of some of NATO’s top armies. Which is sort of like praising a mosquito for trying to bite a camper.

The fact of the matter is that the insurgent attacks on Bagram and Kandahar didn’t have a snowballs chance on Venus of succeeding, outnumbered as they were by several thousands to one, which is certainly not a good ratio when you consider Canadian Forces have consistently managed a kill ratio of about 100 to 1. But that’s besides the point, because the Taliban didn’t send Allah’s warriors with the intent to succeed. No, they were counting on the foreign media to help them with that latter objective.

Matthew Fisher explains in an interview with CFRA today:

Because it’s the main base, it gets a tremendous amount of attention. And that’s exactly what the Taliban want. You know, they’re not trying to achieve success with these attacks in terms of military. They’re just trying to get a lot of attention. This works in terms of intimidating the local population, and it works also in undermining support for the mission overseas by the idea the main bases are being attacked.

The fact of the matter is Canadian small bases get attacked constantly and in much more systematic ways than the big base, and virtually none of that ever gets reported. It’s just the big bases that have the attacks reported on, and that was the case in Bagram last week and here, and certainly it has achieved a success, and a strategic success with the Taliban because they’ve received massive publicity about it.

One of the things that Matthew Fisher says bothers him most is that a lot of these articles detailing this growing and robust insurgency are being written by journalists who either haven’t been to Afghanistan in years, or else haven’t been to the country at all. All they’re trying to do is get their name above the fold on the front page, realizing that an article about the Taliban making headway against ISAF is a lot more exciting than reporting the fact that the Taliban continues to make no progress whatsoever outside of their IED strategy.

What’s significant about this rebuke of the Canadian media from a senior correspondent of the Afghan war, is that he has no bias or interest in the mission beyond reporting the facts correctly. It frustrates him that he’s there reporting events on the ground as he witnesses them personally, or from people he interviews on the ground who are first on the scene, yet back in Canada there is an entirely different story being told to a Canadian public which, unfortunately, all too readily laps up the defeatist milk.

RELATED

By now you’ve probably heard that Canada’s 146th soldier has died in Afghanistan to an IED attack. Trooper Larry Rudd, from Brantford, was killed by an IED today.

I think it’s worth pointing out that the only means of warfare left to the Taliban is the unconventional IED attacks. I went through the casualty list, and the following statistics reveal the most common type of death is by these random roadside bombs:

Improvised Explosive Device: 84
Conventional Gunfire: 23
Accident: 18
Suicide Bombing: 12
Friendly Fire: 5
Landmine: 4

What’s interesting is that gun-fire related deaths are mainly from 2006-07 when Canadians were slaughtering the Taliban at a 100:1 ratio. If you go through the casualty list, you’ll find that conventional deaths from gunfire drop precipitously from 2008 onward, to nearly zero as the Taliban changed their strategy to avoid direct confrontation with ISAF.