Sunday 12 October 2008

journalists

I was really upset by CTVs decision to post M. Dion's three-take interview. Can you imagine TV journalists, of all people, feeling that they had to post a video that included outtakes?
"CTV believes we owe it to you to show you everything."
People who live in glass houses should not throw stones! We watched an A-CHANNEL reporter in Parry Sound do three takes for her 20 second segment. With all going on around her, I could understand it. The same is true for M.Dion, even though I do not like the Green Shift policy, I felt this unfair. The Liberals are right to be upset. The Conservatives ought not to have bought into this HUGE mistake. PM Harper hasn't spent much time talking to the media. No wonder.

Conservatives across the nation are refusing to appear and defend their past behaviour and policies. Incumbent, and Health Minister Tony Clement refused to participate in a local debate on The Arts.

The rhetoric continues. Ads attacking Mr. Harper's policies and accusing him of being responsible for current economic crises seem ridiculous.

Media bias is rampant. The Toronto Star questions M. Dion's character.
Some locals are getting out there and protesting!

3 comments:

Bill Atkinson said...

Just to set the record straight, during this election campaign, Tony Clement participated in:
5 municipal all candidate debates
2 high school all candidate debates
1 first people's forum
1 woman's issues forum

I am not sure why the campaign manager made the decision for Tony Clement to not attend the "arts debate" except that it was hastily organized in response to the so-called "cuts to the arts". But personally, I can understand why the campaign manager would not send the candidate to a single-issue forum where people's minds were already made up. This was designed to embarrass Tony either way. If Tony attends he gets ganged up on as the bad guy who doesn't care about the arts. Nice press release for all opponents. It Tony doesn't attend he is the bad guy who doesn't care about the arts. Nice press release for all opponents.

So opponents all got their nice press releases. Tony Clement's campaign manager spared his candidate a couple of hours of being slagged in front of a hostile audience and Tony got to knock on doors for a few extra hours and meet more constituents. EVERYBODY WINS in this scenario!

P.S. I attended the all candidate debate in Bracebridge which ended up being held at the Riverside Inn. You see the brand new and spectacular Renee Caisse theatre just happened to be "not available" that night. Of course this had nothing to do with the fact that the current federal government provided $500,000 in funding to the theatre project. We couldn't allow Tony Clement such a great opportunity to burst the arts community gas bag about "not supporting the arts"...

Jenn Jilks said...

I agree with you, Bill. I do not think a one-issue debate fruitful. At the Gravenhurst debate many who lined up did not get a question in. Do you see anything fruitful, in terms of bang for the buck, in the high school debates?
I know, having seen candidates in front of university students, that the questions do not reflect the knowledge, expertise, and experiences of taxpayers. The kids all seemed to want a free education, for example!

L.L. Barkat said...

Interesting thought about showing everything. Perhaps this is not always the way it should go.