By Alison@Creekside Ottawa Citizen: Some say PM could justifiably shut down Parliament in crisis: survey A small but growing minority of Canadians says the prime minister would be justified in closing down Parliament and the Supreme Court in the face of ‘very difficult times,’ according to a survey” What a fabulously leading survey question! Who wants […]
Net fatality
A BoB Short A recent U.S. Federal Communication Commission (FCC) proposal that could have a significant impact on net neutrality in Canada as well as the United States has both users and big business up in arms. The proposal, slated for voting later this month, would bolster access to any website willing to pay the […]
The Wente plagiarism question grows
By Frank Moher This story has been updated below The furor over what appears to be plagiarism in Margaret Wente’s columns for The Globe and Mail continues to grow, helped along by The Globe itself. On Wednesday I reported that the blog Media Culpa had identified numerous instances where Wente appeared to have lifted prose […]
“The Postmedia chain has turned against the PM. Period.”
An anonymous missive has appeared on The Gazetteer, purporting to be from “a newsworker at Postmedia” and offering an explanation for that chain’s sudden turn against the Harper Conservatives. The Gazetter‘s proprietor, RossK, had wondered if aggressive work on the robocall file and other signs of journalistic life at Conrad Black’s former playthingie meant some […]
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 […]
The Harper marriage and the Globe
By Frank Moher While you were enjoying the festive season, The Globe and Mail found itself disagreeing with one of its columnists about an item on its website. The Globe settled the matter with a keystroke. Both parties have since been studiously decorous about the matter, but it deserves a second look before disappearing down the memory hole. On […]
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 […]
Media mercenaries
By Alison@Creekside In a 2007 article entitled “The Conference of Defence Associations gets $100,000 a year from the Department of Defence,” CDA executive director Alain Pellerin told Maclean’s John Geddes: “We also have to write a number of op-eds to the press.” Asked if there is any aspect of Tory defence policy the CDA opposes, […]
