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When I wrote a brief post the other day on Ezra Levant's disgusting and puerile tirade against the Trudeaus the other day, I had no intention of revisiting the issue, but two columns calling into question the decision by Justin Trudeau to boycott the organization leads me to further comment.
Writing in The Globe, Simon Houpt, while fully agreeing that the attack was just the latest in a series of outrageous nonsense from the mouth of the perpetually angry Levant, says that
when a politician cuts off access to select media, it is an affront to everyone. Sun Media has hundreds of dedicated professionals who work hard every day on behalf of millions of readers (and a few thousand viewers of Sun News). Trudeau’s impetuous move signals a disdain for them all, and carries an implicit warning that he might bar other media outlets who run afoul of him. We already have a Prime Minister obsessed with controlling the message. Trudeau does himself, and all Canadians, a disservice.The Star's Chantal Hebert, in today's Star, offers similar criticism of the Trudeau decision.
The temptation to shut out all Sun Media journalists in protest over Levant’s grotesque commentary was probably irresistible. From a human standpoint, it is certainly understandable. But it also sets the party on a slippery slope familiar to most veteran parliamentary correspondents.
Liberal insiders who argue that it is too much of a leap to think that an opposition party that shuts out an entire news organization over the comments of one commentator would, once in government, expand its black list based on more political criteria are whistling past a cemetery of good intentions.
She adds,
If there is a debate to be had over the Levant commentary, attributing guilt by employer-association is hardly the way to go.
Questioning whether those who run major news organizations have a social responsibility to ensure that minimal journalistic standards are maintained by their organizations would be a better place to start.My own response to these objections is quite simple. Sun News, by virtue of its continued employment of Levant, despite the numerous times he has disgraced both himself and his employer, means that the entire organization is complicit in his slanders, his racism, and his absence of balance.
Both Houpt and Hebert's critique of Trudeau's boycott are premised on Sun News being a legitimate news organization. Based on its tolerance and encouragement of people like Levant, it is an assumption with which I suspect many thinking Canadians would profoundly disagree.
UPDATE: The National Post's Jonathan Kay breaks breaks ranks with his fellow scribes and asserts that Trudeau is morally justified in his boycott decision.
Like you, Lorne, I believe Trudeau's response was appropriate. There are some news sources which have to be exposed for what -- and who -- they are.
ReplyDeleteWe are said to be judged by the company we keep, Owen, and organizations are no exception.
DeleteWhere is Ken Rockburn when you really need him?
ReplyDeleteI heard that when Ezra walked out of the interview room, his knuckles left bloody tacks that were a bitch to clean up.
Ha, ha! A good one, Rumley, that captures the essence of this well-paid windbag.
DeleteThis was one action from Junior that I actually applauded. Only question I had was what had taken him so long?
ReplyDeleteHebert sounded very naïve when she suggested that the correct action should have been to question whether those who run major news organizations have a social responsibility to ensure that minimal journalistic standards are maintained by their organizations. Isn't it Kory Teneycke , Harper's buddy, who runs that organization? Boggles my mind why she, who is no spring chicken in covering politics, would expect that organization to take responsibility for Levant's comments. I suspect the only way they will dissociate themselves from Levant's remarks is if there is an impending lawsuit, just as Tenecyke had resigned briefly from Sun media (if my memory serves) when he himself was facing an impending lawsuit of his own (or something along those lines, don't remember the details now).
Don't know who Houpt is but why would Trudeau and the Liberals ever worry that his action would be interpreted as disdain for all of Sun Media's professionals? Surely the reasonable ones among them would have realized the reason. As for the others, they probably are not Trudeau's fans any way (to put it rather mildly) and would likely never vote anything other than Cons anyway.
While I am no fan of Trudeau, Anon, like you, I think he did the right thing here. Anyone who has watched Levant's unhinged rant would find it hard to have any respect for an outfit that employs his likes.
DeleteI glanced at the Toronto Sun today. Typically and unexpectedly, they are outraged that Trudeau stood up to them. It is only a matter of time, I think, before the lot of them have a collective stroke.
'outraged'.
DeleteI think Trudeau did the right thing. Wouldn't any Canadian boycott an organization that published slanderous claims of your mother and father being 'sluts'?
ReplyDeleteThe question I have is how much of Daddy's money will Karl Péladeau piss away on the money losing Sun News Network before he pulls the plug?
Peladeau does seem to be possessed of a real zeal for his 'mission'. doesn't he, Anon?
DeleteKarl loves his mission, Lorne. He is taking hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies to finance his mission. All Canadians are paying for the racist bigotry of Sun News Network, which broadcasts live to the base in Albertaland and Sasketcheland, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
ReplyDeleteCanadians have to see it for what it is. The Harperites and their collaborators are sewer rats, somewhat deranged, filled with the arrogance of limited intellect And they're so vicious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVYj6xEB4-g
That says it all, Anon. Their kind can never withstand the true light of day. And thanks for the link. Lou Reed kind of nails it, doesn't he?
DeleteIndeed, any criticism of Trudeau in this regard must surely be based on the assumption that Sun News is a legitimate news source that plays by the appropriate rules of ethics etc.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I have believed that legitimate news sources should engage in their own boycott of a politician like Stephen Harper and simply refuse to cover him unless he opens himself up to unvetted questioning. If the newspapers and television stations simply ignored him he would make himself available so fast it would make their heads spin. (But that argument is based on a similar assumption as the Trudeau criticism, i.e., that the newspapers and television stations in Canada are ligitimate news sources rather than organizations that are, one way or another, hand-maidens of the Harper Regime.) The Guardian in London used to have a policy (I don't know if they still do) that they simply didn't cover "Royal" news because any news of the royal family (good or bad) just lent them credibility. News sources in Canada should take the same approach to Harper regarding his speeches and public appearances until he starts acting like an elected official and not an ordained one.
The last election, Kirby, when Harper deigned to allow only five questions per day, would have been the ideal time for the media to start showing some integrity by refusing to cover him at all. They, of course, failed the test which, I suppose, tells us a great deal about the state of our journalism. As often happens with victims of domestic abuse, they keep coming back and enabling more abuse.
DeleteSunnews has been from the start obviously not a credible news service, but a right-wing ideologically driven infotainment network (at best). They have shown a particular ugly obsession with not just the Libs but Trudeau himself all along, and have demonstrated this at every turn. I understand what Hebert is doing, she is trying to protect her profession from politicians excluding them, but I think she does at least a large a disservice by granting Sunnews network respectability/credibility as an honest journalistic enterprise than any action Trudeau took here.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with Sunnews is that it is an ideological propaganda arm trying to pretend to be a journalistic enterprise, and people like Hebert have more than enough experience in their profession that they should be able to recognize this. If Trudeau had done this to ANY other news service/network in this country I would be far more opposed to it, boycott a specific journalist from them, sure, but not the network. This network though is a special case, and the fact that they continue to allow Levant to use their platform without sanction by them (until CRTC forces it) shows their own complicity and agreement with this approach.
What Levant did here was one of the creepiest things I've ever seen/heard from him, and I remember some of his crap from the days at the Western Standard oh so long past. The fixation on M Trudeau going commando in her youth as having any sort of bearing on Trudeaus political/ethical values was for me and my wife sexual predator creepy. Not to mention the invocation of the droit de signior (sp) being comparable to a kiss on the cheek. I could go on, but those two points alone are enough to make the point.
No, Trudeau is correct in this boycott, in effect Sunnews is another arm of the CPC media machine, and why would any party leader give access to the media war room of their political opponents like the access one gives to actual respectable media/journalists in interviews and scrums. Hebert and her cohorts need to stop giving Sunnews cover, they have to know better, it is not like it is hard to see/understand. What is really sad to see is that FOXNEWS channel is truly a more credible journalistic network than Sunnews, and I am being perfectly serious when I say that, which only underscores just how far from a serious news service interested in factual honesty and accuracy first Sunnews truly is, and the senior political journalists in the PPG have got to know this, whether they are willing to publicly admit it or not.
Thanks for those comments, Scotian. I usually have a high regard for Hebert's work, but she missed the mark badly on this one, for the reasons you so ably outlined here.
DeleteLorne:
DeleteI understand why she's doing it, and it would not surprise me as well if her employer has told her to watch her step on this topic given how incestuous the Canadian media ownership landscape is. The fact that she is a Quebec based journalist probably only makes that worse in this matter, but that is speculative. I generally find Hebert well worth the time to pay attention to even when I disagree with her because of her level of quality thought, which is in part why I suspect she is somewhat constrained in what she can say when it comes to Sunnews. I simply cannot believe she does not understand the reality here given how obvious it is to so many of us not blindly in the Harper bubble.
I just finished a rather lengthy and detailed comment on this very point at Kinsella's blog disagreeing with him where he sides with Hebert to an extent in his most recent post which is on his Friday Sun column on this topic. Sunnews is closer to the old 70s Pravda in intent and nature than anything that deserves being treated as a respectable journalistic entity. It by its very nature degrades and poisons the political environment and the political journalistic profession, and in my view deserves to die and never be recreated by any political faction/ideology/party. I don't care whose side such things are for, I do not want them in our political environment because of how inherently corrupting and destructive they are to anything remotely resembling an open society.;
Trudeau is in my opinion doing Canada a service by not giving this any credibility by dealing with it. Even if they give him a nice cozy interview, the very fact that he gives them that interview lends them dangerous credibility and respect which makes them a much more powerful propaganda tool against him and other CPC foes down the road. Trudeau is doing the right thing for himself, for his party, and for the nation in this I would and do argue.
Again, thanks for your comments, Scotian. A very interesting analysis. Your independent and critical thinking should serve as an inspiration to all of us. Please feel free, any time you like, to write a guest post.
Deleteis there anyone who can make the offending video avail to me via dropbox, etc...
ReplyDeleteApparently neither Ezra the beacon of freedom [Not], nor Sun feel they can stand behind their 'reportage' and have taken it down/absconded it from UTUBE.
thx oleinfidel@gmail.com
As lamented in numerous articles by many real reporters, over the years, there is a valid reason the we spell the name/term SUN 'News', just as i did. SUN is part news mixed with highly partisan hyperbol and sensationalism, playing to the lowest common denominator; that mouth breathing citizen, slouched every weeknight and weekend, in front of his 52" plasma, avec potato chips and '24' of brewskies, too absorbed in nothingness, to take note of societal collapses, in his neighborhood, town, city, province, country, world or galaxy.
ReplyDelete....inhaling...
Back in 1985, as a soldier in the Canadian Army, I lead a small military convoy up Rte 90, heading north out of Winnipeg. We came across a gravel truck driver, who intoxicated, had drifted off the road and flipped his rig onto it's left side with him half ejected through the windshield. We called 911, applied first aid, traffic control...all of the first aid/command & control measures our training had instinctively beaten into us. Our slightly remote location, delayed our 911 call, getting to the closest phone [no cell phones, at least that a soldier could afford], and 911 took an extra 5 mins getting to us.
Despite the combined efforts of our team, police and paramedics, the gentleman expired due to massive internal injuries.
The next day, the Winnipeg SUN, had a FULL TWO(2) PAGE spread, three quarters of which were photos of soldiers, attending the scene. The four(4) inch high bold font read, "MAN WAITS TO DIE !" [if my memory is still lucid]. It took me a week to get the smell of human blood off. And for 'just doing our job', our team of six(6) received a Army Command Commendation, a year later.
My point: I have not spent a plug nickel supporting The SUN 'News' network, since that fateful day.
Thanks for your story, T Reashore. It amply illustrates the mentality of SUN 'News'.
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