By Frank Moher We’ve pretty much accepted the fact that, with things like the imaginatively named Fair Elections Act and the early election call, the PM is out to undermine democracy in Canada. We’re to the point that, if Harper announced he was calling off the election and had the Governor-General bound and gagged in a back room […]
An Idle proposal to Canadian journalists: STFU
By Frank Moher Kevin Newman’s interview with Chief Theresa Spence, aired today on CTV’s “Question Period,” illustrated pretty neatly in its first few minutes all that’s been wrong with mainstream coverage of Spence’s fast, and of Idle No More. Newman began by playing social worker to Spence, citing the Chiefs and elders who’ve told her, “You […]
Is CSIS replaying the Arar card?
By Alison@Creekside A leaked 2004 CSIS report from LaPresse on Thursday purports to be a summary of a conversation between Abousfian Abdelrazik and Adil Charkaoui in 2000 in which they plotted to blow up an airplane enroute between Montreal and France. It has already been enthusiastically repeated across our national press: CBC: CSIS file reveals plot to bomb […]
No Murdoch-style scandal in Canada, you say?
By Alison@Creekside We’ve been getting a lot of stories from our media lately (here, here, and here), assuring us that an equivalent to the Rupert Murdoch scandal couldn’t possibly happen in Canada. Really? No cozy incestuous relationships? No dirty tricks? On March 30, 2009, Stephen Harper, PMO staffer Kory Teneycke, Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox […]
Vancouver celebrates for real
By Bev Schellenberg A year-or-so after the Winter Olympics torch got snuffed out, community spirit is back in Vancouver, thanks to the Canucks. Where the many official attempts to reignite our sporting fervor failed, a simple hockey playoff series has done the trick. Greater Vancouver has decided it will party when it wants to, not […]
Postmedia: Layoffs? What layoffs?
By Brian Brennan Television reporter Tom Clark parts company with CTV News, and the network issues a public statement to that effect. Kevin Newman steps down as Global anchor, and his network does the same. But what happens when dozens, perhaps hundreds of print reporters in this country leave their jobs, either voluntarily or otherwise? […]
Lessons for Project Samosa
By Alison@Creekside The publication ban on Project Samosa, the RCMP’s latest salvo in the war on terror, has the media scrambling to get unnamed sources and security experts to augment and substitute for accounts of court proceedings. By a happy coincidence for war on terror fans, this allows for far more pants-pissingly terrorfying conjecture than […]
Fixing Canadian TV the NHL way
By Frank Moher I didn’t think I had a home team in the TV broadcasters vs. TV distributors battle that has been thrust at us in recent months. Seemed like one set of mega-rich corporations pounding on another to see who’ll get to remain the fattest longest. The nut of the dispute, in case your […]
The CRTC’s meddling ways
By Frank Moher I like a good government intervention as much as the next failed banker, but the current CRTC meddling with the internet should send chills down the spine of anyone who uses the instrument — like, say, you. The commissioners are looking into the question of whether or not internet service providers should […]
Why is Canadian cable TV so bad?
By Frank Moher One of the mixed pleasures of a writer’s vocation is afternoon television. With the advent of notebook computers, one can sit on the couch and do all manner of quotidian things — like writing blog posts — while CNN and NewsNet and A&E dance across the flatscreen. Of particularly morbid interest of […]
