Note To Peter Mansbridge

H/t Occupy Canada

Meanwhile, Back At The Trough

The steps of Peter Mansbridge and Rex Murphy, I imagine, have a bit of a spring today, content in the knowledge that they are no longer outliers in the land of journalistic conflicts of interest. There's a new kid on the block (or, perhaps more appropriately, at the trough).

The Toronto Star reports that Global News anchor Leslie Roberts has been caught in a multitude of egregious conflicts of interests, promoting on air and in his tweets the interests of clients of BuzzPR, the public relations firm he owns with a partner:

Here is but one example of that the newspaper has uncovered:

Toronto lawyer Sandra Zisckind of Diamond and Diamond has often been a Global guest, sitting at the anchor table with newsman Roberts with both her name and the name of her law firm in a bold caption on the television screen as she comments on legal issues. The spots, connected to the news of the day (a high profile arrest or liability issues related to something in the news) run for about three minutes — a boon for any company trying to build a business. What Roberts said he has never revealed, to viewers or to Global, is that he is “creative director” and part owner of BuzzPR, which provided Diamond and Diamond lawyers with media training and helped them get featured on Global news.

His defense of such practices is weak:

Roberts said he never directly accepted payment from a client to be a guest on his show. However, he acknowledged that each business client pays BuzzPR to get media exposure on Global and other networks.

The list of Roberts' moral and ethical compromises is lengthy, and the clients mentioned in the Star article have either enjoyed on-air interviews with 'their man', been treated to 'shout-outs' by him, or enjoyed his twitter acknowledgments.

Predictably, Roberts says that he has done nothing wrong; it is an assertion that offers everyone a rare and unflattering look into the soul of an on-air personality.

Personally, what I see repulses me.

Real Journalism: Holding Harper To Account

Unlike the kind of faux journalism that the CBC's most reverent chief correspondent, Peter Mansbridge, has perfected, real journalism requires critical thinking and hard-hitting questions. In that, The Toronto Star holds to consistently high standards.

To appreciate this fact, consider first the following exchange during the year-end interview the Prime Minister granted his media acolyte:

Mansbridge: So why don’t we propose something then?

Harper: We have proposed something.

What have we proposed?

Well the Province of Alberta, excuse me, the Province of Alberta itself already has a, it’s one of the few GHD regulatory environments in the country. It has one. I think it’s a model on which you could, on which you could go broader.

This is the carbon levy?

This is the tech fund price carbon levy and the, the, it’s not a levy, it’s a price and there’s a tech fund in which, in which the private sector makes investments. So look, that’s what Alberta has done, that’s a model that’s available but you know as I say, we’re very open to see progress on this on a continental basis. I’ve said that repeatedly to our partners in North America and we look forward to working on that.

There is no follow-up by the good Mr. Mansbridge on this alleged carbon tax. That became the task of The Star, in today's editorial, which pointedly lambastes the Alberta model:

...the relaxed Alberta model that Harper promotes imposes a levy of just $15, and only on large emitters that fail to improve their energy efficiency (rather than reduce output). The firms can pay the money into a clean-energy research fund or purchase carbon credits. The result? Alberta emissions continue to soar, albeit at a slower rate, undercutting efforts in Ontario and British Columbia.

Far better, says The Star, would be to adopt the B.C, model,

which has a straight-up carbon tax, an approach the Star has long favoured. The $30-per-metric-tonne levy currently pushes up the cost of gasoline and natural gas by 6.67 cents a litre and 5.7 cents a cubic metre. But it is revenue-neutral. Residents reap the benefit in lower income taxes. It has led to a sharp drop in per capita fuel consumption.

British Columbia’s tax has been a “phenomenal success,” Charles Komanoff told the Star’s editorial board on Friday. He’s a co-founder of the New York-based Carbon Tax Center, dedicated to curbing global warming. The centre favours an aggressive carbon tax starting at $10 per metric tonne and rising to $100 over a decade.

The Star speculates that any talk of a carbon tax, even the weak one used in Alberta, is simply subterfuge on the part of Mr. Harper who, going into an election year, is trying to don the guise of a green warrior.

It is to be hoped that Canadians will not be so easily fooled this time around by such shameless posturing.

The editorial offers a solid suggestion that, if pursued, will reveal not only the truth behind Harper's rhetoric, but also the integrity and commitment of the other party leaders:

When Parliament resumes after the holiday break the opposition should make it a priority to pin him down on just what he’s prepared to propose to our major trading partners, by way of a credible scheme to price carbon and curb climate change. Voters should know before they cast their ballots on Oct. 19, or sooner.

I look forward to the House's resumption on January 26.


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John Doyle's Christmas Gift To All Of Us

One of the few bright spots on that erstwhile formidable newspaper, The Globe and Mail, is television columnist John Doyle. His trenchant wit and justifiable cynicism about showbiz, along with his capacity to point out shows worth watching, would almost make the paper worth its cost were it not for its abject subservience to its political masters.

A man who refuses to drink the corporate Kool Aid, Doyle maintains an independence that I suspect few are accorded at the Globe. In that spirit, his offers his Top Ten Most Irritating TV-Related Canadians for this year. I reproduce a few that may be of special interest to followers of politics:

Ezra Levant

A truly, truly outstanding year. His supremacy in irritating-ness is unmatched, a fact that must make him proud. His demented ranting about young Mr. Trudeau. An Ontario court ruling that he was guilty of libel and that he demonstrated a “reckless disregard for the truth.” And his bizarre attack on an Ontario school-board memo he alleged was some sort of anti-Canadian, pro-Muslim conspiracy. Still he smiles.

Pastor Mansbridge

Mansbridge should not have accepted money from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers for a speech. It was just a dumb thing to do. Inept and, as such, hugely irritating.

If I may make a personal aside here, Mansbridge should also not be doing the devil's work.

The people behind “A message from the Government of Canada”

Specifically, the ad titled Drug Prevention – Marijuana Use, in which over deeply ominous music, it was announced, “Did you know that marijuana is on average 300 to 400 per cent stronger than it was 30 years ago? And that smoking marijuana can seriously harm a teen’s developing brain?” Actually the science is limited and, actually, the commercial is political, not medical. Irritating to think we are taken as fools.

Pierre Poilievre

Anyone with the ridiculous job title minister of democratic reform, which sounds like something dreamed up in a satire of North Korea, should be a bit abashed. Poilievre spent the year as a finger-pointing, accusatory bully. Every time he appeared on TV he was outrageously choleric, instantly a ridiculous figure.

Our Glorious Leader (OGL)

The PM, the pianist and singer, whatever you want to call him, or Our Glorious Leader, announced himself to be in “a different headspace” in a year-end TV interview. We knew that.

Regarding the last illustrious name on the list, obviously much more could be said. But I guess there are even things that the redoubtable Mr. Doyle knows he cannot say.

Setting The Record Straight

Weakly constituted as I am when it comes to tolerating disingenuous and dishonest political theatre, I was unable to watch the Chief Prevaricator, a.k.a. the Prime Minister, while his chief courtier and media enabler, the most Reverend (and reverent) Peter Mansbridge, performed what Michael Harris described as his Yuletide foot massage during their year-end chatfest.

However, I was able to muster up the strength to watch this snippet, after which follows a critical analysis on the CBC website of Mr. Harper's claims:



Harper Whopper Number One:

"We’ve got more work to do, but our emissions are falling," Harper said on Wednesday.

"Other countries’ emissions for the most part are going up. World emissions are going up. Canada’s have not been going up."

But the government's own report suggests emissions will go up dramatically by the end of the decade because of oil and gas production, Canada's emissions will be 22 per cent higher than its Copenhagen target of reducing greenhouse gases by 17 per cent below their 2005 levels by 2020.

Harper Whopper Number Two:

Harper says he'd be open to using a carbon-pricing system like Alberta's for the entire continent, a concept he's previously opposed.

"I think it’s a model on which you could, on which you could go broader," Harper said in Wednesday's interview.

Says David McLaughlin, an adviser at the University of Waterloo’s school of environment,

... emissions continue to rise under Alberta's system of carbon pricing.

"The price of $15 a tonne is too low to actually get the emissions reductions we want from these big emitters. So it would not do the job of reducing emissions in Canada."

Harper Whopper Number Three

The prime minister also took credit for getting tough on coal.

"We are phasing out in Canada through regulations, we are phasing out the use of traditional dirty coal. It’s going to go to zero in the next 15 years or so," Harper said.

Alas, as with most pronouncements by the Prime Minister, there is less here than meets the eye:

New federal coal regulations apply to new plants built after 2015. Existing plants built in the last 50 years are grandfathered, meaning they would have up to 2030 to close or introduce carbon capture and storage technology to reduce emissions.

And Ontario's Environment Minister Glen Murray points out an inconvenient truth:

...the province closed coal plants with no help from Ottawa.

[I]"f the federal government wants to start taking credit for provincially funded initiatives, they could at least have the decency to make a commitment to support those initiatives in the future."

Thanks for taking a few moments to see through the Emperor's diaphanous attire.

Mansbridge Revisited

The other day I posted a report on Peter Mansbridge speaking out against cuts to the CBC and the unprecedented secrecy that pervades public institutions under the current federal government. I gave some praise to the broadcaster for finally speaking out about important issues that potentially affect all of us.

My friend Dave, from Winnipeg, sent me an email last night that offers a different perspective on Mr. Mansbridge's foray into important commentary. With his permission, I am posting it below:

Hi Lorne,

Caught your blog piece about the recent conference in Winnipeg. While the theme was important and more public discussion needs to be generated I was disappointed by my alma mater’s staging of the conference.

Why is Canada’s most ‘famous lost luggage announcer’ and several other fellow CBC employees, no doubt all champions of the public good, speaking at what can only be described as a private function? I wonder how many students shelled out $300 (guess it’s a bargain at $100 a day) to hear Pastor Mansbridge say things he avoids on air? Apparently if you are a student and could only attend one day there was a reduced rate of $50. Guess Petey and fellow public servants speaking fees had to be covered somehow.

If Pete felt so strongly about the issue I’m sure he might have waived the costs (Christ, he makes over 900K a year) and stayed at his family's place here in Winnipeg so more students could have participated.

I am more disappointed with the UofW though for commodifying what should have been an open forum for students, staff and the community to hear and discuss a very pressing issue.

Steaming mad,

Dave

Peter Mansbridge Speaks Out

Readers of this blog will know that I am a frequent critic of both the CBC and Peter Mansbridge. Both 'institutions,' in my view, often fail to live up to the standards ethical and brave journalism demands. They have been far too passive, even complicit in, the Harper regime's scorn for the so-called 'state-broadcaster.' And of course this disdain has culminated in a series of deep and devastating funding cuts to the CBC that threaten the very nature of its existence.

A new dynamic is perhaps now at work. Stung by the latest cuts, have both the corporation and its chief correspondent decided there is little to lose by speaking truth to power?

On Friday, at a conference co-sponsored by the CBC and the University of Winnipeg called “Holding Power to Account,” an international conference on investigative journalism, democracy, and human rights, Mansbridge decried a “culture of secrecy” within Canada’s public institutions.

He recalled a headline in the Toronto Star back in April that read, “What the public is not allowed to know. Public information being kept secret.” That headline, he said, was not about blocked access to public information in countries notorious for their secrecy, but about his own country.

“Not China. Not North Korea. Canada,” he said.

While not directly naming the regime responsible, Mansbridge also said:

“My company, my corporation, the CBC, the public broadcaster who has a mandated interest in investigative journalism. Who boasts that we have more investigative journalists that any media organization. This is where we’re cutting back?” he asked.

“We should be investing more in these programs. Not cutting them.”

Perhaps there is some hope, after all, for both 'institutions'?

The CBC Ombudsman Makes Her Ruling

As reported by Andrew Mitrovica on iPolitiics, the CBC ombudsman, Esther Enkin, has finally reached her decision on the many conflict of interest complaints lodged against Rex Murphy and Peter Mansbridge.

Briefly, here is what she said:

“Given that Journalistic Standards and Practices spells out a commitment to independence, and the Conflict of Interest guidelines encompass perception of conflict as well, it is inconsistent with policy when CBC news and current affairs staff accept payment from groups that are likely to be in the news.

She has a somewhat timid suggestion for CBC management:

“But since taking money leads to a perception of a conflict of interest, CBC management might want to consider, in the review they are undertaking, whether even with disclosure, it is appropriate for CBC news and current affairs staff to get paid for their speaking engagements.

“To summarize, in the course of reviewing its policy, I hope CBC management will reconsider the practice of paid speaking engagements for its journalists and, at a minimum, consider how any relevant activity and payment can be on the public record.”

As Mitovica tartly points out,

Enkin’s ruling is a stinging rebuke of Mansbridge and Murphy — who, since the controversy broke in iPolitics, have not only been unapologetic about receiving payment from outside vested-interest groups, but have also vowed to continue the controversial practice despite mounting criticism and condemnation.

The ombudsman's full report can be read here.

Will anything change as a result of this finding? Given the fierce recalcitrance of Rex Murphy, more a legend in his mind than in anyone else's, I am dubious. But one hopes that the CBC will show a shred of its rapidly diminishing integrity and issue Newfoundland's favorite son an ultimatum.

After all, given Rex's apparent popularity with the tarsand enthusiasts, he should have no problem keeping body and soul together by continuing to be a shill for the petroleum industry.

CBC's The Current: The Ethics Of Journalists And Paid Speaking Engagements

While I and others have written about Rex Murphy's close relationship to the oil industry, a relationship that appears to be in direct conflict with his position at the CBC, Peter Mansbridge has also been embroiled in controversy recently because of a speech he give to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP). Indeed, and somewhat parenthetically, The Star's Heather Mallick has a blistering assessment today of Peter's moonlighting activities.

So what constitutes proper and improper speechifying? Yesterday on CBC's The Current, a good debate, guest-hosted by Jeffrey Kaufman, took place. Kaufman, a former Canadian journalist now working in the U.S., also had some interesting things to say about the very tight stateside restrictions placed on newspeople when it comes to outside engagements.

You can listen to the entire debate below:

Last Night's At Issue Panel

The comments of guest panelist Althia Raj, from The Huffington Post, are worth the price of admission here as she declares, in no uncertain terms, that The Fair Elections Act is legislation aimed at voter suppression. In reaction, the attempt at stoicism by Peter Mansbridge, currently embroiled in his own controversy, is also noteworthy, in my view. The fun begins at about the 12:30 mark:

At Issue: Harper's Obfuscation

The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary offers the following definition of obfuscate: to make obscure; to confuse. As an intransitive verb, it means to be evasive, unclear, or confusing.

I suspect that those engaged citizens following the details of the Senate scandal that continues to dog the Prime Minister and shows no sign of abatement would agree that both forms of the verb apply to the sad Nixonian performance of Stephen Harper and his operatives. During both Parliament's Question Period and TV interviews with the likes of his Parliamentary Secretary, Paul Calandra, the refrain is always the same: "I told Mr. Duffy to repay his inappropriate expenses," and "This was a secret deal between Nigel Wright and Mike Duffy."

As his channeling of Sgt Schultz grows increasingly predictable and tiresome, his credibility (if he really has any) diminishes proportionally. And yet to call the Prime Minister a liar would be unseemly for journalists, so euphemisms abound. Last night's At Issue Panel on The National offers some good examples; the discussion also leaves one with the very real sense of Andrew Coyne's barely contained disgust with the Prime Minister:

"I Take Full Responsibility"

There, Pam Wallin said it, and like all politicians who trot out what has become but a tired platitude, she would now like all of us to tune in to another channel. (How about we devote ourselves to really serious matters, like that dastardly Mulcair showing such flagrant contempt for all that is holy?)

Those who are strongly constituted can watch the wayward woman from Wadena justify herself in an interview with Peter Mansbridge. (I confess I have not worked up to watching it yet - wonder if Peter asks her about her strategy in recently resigning two board memberships). Those whose patience with politically-motivated patter is limited can instead watch the clip that follows the interview in which the At Issue Panel offers a brief assessment of the good senator's 'performance'.

The Synchronous Decline of Peter Mansbridge and The CBC

I admit that I stopped being a regular viewer of the CBC years ago; I think the catalyst for my disaffection was its transparent policy of appeasement (under the pretext of balanced reporting) of the Harper regime which, of course, holds its funding strings. Especially evident in its flagship news program, The National, hosted by that one-time icon of journalistic integrity, Peter Mansbridge, the Corporation has become a parody of itself. And as I have written in past posts, Mansbridge himself has to take the bulk of the blame for its sad decline.

On February 8, The Star's Rick Salutin wrote a piece entitled CBC’s Peter Mansbridge coulda bin a contender. Somewhat dirgelike in tone, Salutin asserts that Mansbridge just seems to have given up on doing any substantive journalism, contrasting him with the redoubtable Walter Cronkite, who he describes as ... ready to stand up against the state and the flow and was solid as the bronze statue of the American revolutionary minuteman who stood “by the rude bridge that spanned the flood/ His flag to April’s breeze unfurled.”

Mansbridge, on the other hand, has happily gone with the flow — and the pressure. CBC has become numero uno for crime stories, weather coverage (today’s snow), product launches, celebrities and awards gossip. None of this is new, or news, and CBC itself doesn’t contest the point.

In this morning's Star, the majority of readers appear to agree with Salutin's assessment. I am taking the liberty of reproducing some of them below:

Leave Mansbridge alone. After his last interview with Stephen Harper, it seems obvious he’s angling for a Senate appointment a la Mike Duffy. Calling attention to his soft-shoe journalism will only make his task that much harder.

Mike Sampat, Toronto

I watch CBC’s The National mostly for entertainment. For real news I watch Aljazeera English and BBC World.

Entertainment, news.

Raja Khouri, Toronto

.... How can one explain that in every half-hour broadcast the “weather person” comes on three times. I suppose it is easier to kill time having the weather person on than to go out an find some news. If we want to dwell on weather there is always the Weather Channel. We can surely do better.

Bob Joakim, Oakville

.... Yes, he is rather apolitical and borderline fawning at times, such as his interview with Stephen Harper before the last federal election, but I can forgive him for that. At least he hasn’t pulled a Mike Duffy and obtained a sinecure in the seniors club we call the Senate. He could have gone to New York a few years ago, but decided to stay, to his and our benefit.

Sigmund Roseth, Mississauga

Expect nothing to change in the near future.

Mulcair's Dutch Disease Comments: A More Rational Assessment

Despite the near-hysterical reaction of certain CBC broadcasters to the comments made last week by Thomas Mulcair about how tarsands developments are inflating the value of the Canadian dollar, thereby weakening our manufacturing sector, there are those who are able to more objectively assess his comments. One of them is Lawrence Martin.

In his column today entitled Ottawa’s industrial policy divides Canada against itself, Martin observes that we made progress in the decades before 2000 in moving away from an economy based on resource extraction. Using figures from Jim Stanford's research, he reveals that well over half of Canada’s exports consisted of an increasingly sophisticated portfolio of value-added products in areas such as automotive assembly, telecommunications, aerospace technology and more.

However, as of July 2011, unprocessed and semi-processed resource exports accounted for two-thirds of Canada’s total exports, the highest in decades,” Mr. Stanford wrote. “Compare that to 1999, when finished goods made up almost 60 per cent of our exports.”

So while the Conservatives and their apologists at the CBC (aka Peter Mansbridge and Rex Murphy) can wax apoplectic about the 'divisiveness' of this national leader's comments, Lawrence Martin ends his piece thus:

But let the debate roar on. The country needs a new industrial strategy, one based on more than corporate tax cuts, free-trade agreements and rampant resource exploitation.

The Powerful Stench Of Obsequiousness At The CBC

With the polls revealing that the NDP, under leader Thomas Mulcair, is enjoying 34% of popular support while the Harper Conservatives languish at 30%, it is probably no surprise that the CBC is once again polishing up its apples in yet another desperate and misplaced effort at appeasing its political masters. Having recently had its budget gutted, I guess it was too much to think that the Corporation would have found its spine and at least proceeded with a measure of dignity and integrity toward its ultimate doom under the Harper regime. Last night's At Issues Panel revealed that to be a forlorn hope.

With the right ably represented by both Bruce Anderson and the National Post's John Ivison, challenged in small measure by Chantal Hebert and the Huffington Post's Althia Raj, we were told how much of a mistake it was for Tom Mulcair to be critical of the inflationary effect of the Alberta tarsands on the Canadian dollar, a high dollar making it more difficult for Canadian manufacturers to compete. There was much tut-tutting on the divisiveness of such a pronouncement, the subtext being, I think, that Mulcair surely can't be considered Prime Ministerial material. Of course, nothing was said of our current Prime Minister, the master of national division.

This panel was followed by Rex Murphy's screed against Mulcair which, I must confess after listening to for about one minute, I turned off.

Should you deem yourself constitutionally strong, you can watch the panel discussion here; mercifully, the Murphy jeremiad does not yet appear to be on the website.

UPDATE: I'm sorry to report that Mr. Murphy's tantrum is now available via The Huffington Post. This time I made it to the 1:30 mark. If Rex does not get a Senate seat out of his unrepentant toadying, there clearly is no God.

Memo To Peter Mansbridge: Peter, you really have passed your best before date.

Rick Salutin Today

While the CBC's Peter Mansbridge may often pronounce ponderously and authoritatively on issues, there is another source of information that should, in many ways, be taken more seriously, says Rick Salutin in his column today.

Well worth the read.

What Do Peter Mansbridge and Ed McMahon Have in Common?

In my younger days, I was quite a devotee of late-night television, my allegiance owed almost exclusively to The Tonight Show starring, as they used to say, Johnny Carson. The nightly ritual was the same. Ed McMahon would introduce the star, and Johnny would come out to perform his droll monologue, periodically assisted by the always-reliable Ed. For example, Johnny might make a declaration such as, “Boy, it was really hot in downtown Burbank today,” and Ed, the perfect second banana, would ask, “How hot was it? at which point Johnny would say, “It was so hot that....(followed by a punchline that usually elicited sufficient laughter to ensure that the routine would survive in one form or another for as long as Johnny wanted.)

Because of its importance in spotlighting the star, being a second banana in show business has a long and respected history. Being a journalist and behaving like a second banana does not.

Watching The National last night, I couldn't help but remember that relationship between Ed and Johnny. Peter Mansbridge's brief interview last night on The National with Finance Minister Jim Flaherty was, to say the least, disappointing, given that his questions were reminiscent of a second banana whose job it is to make the star shine.

Take, for example, the first softball question Mansbridge lobbed to Flaherty:

You've said all along that you didn't want an election. You reached out to the NDP, met with them, and today there was stuff in the budget for the NDP. Did you miscalculate what would be enough for the NDP?

This gentle query offered Flaherty the predictable opportunity to appear statesmanlike and beyond political games by saying he didn't know what it would take to satisfy the NDP (of course implying how unreasonable the party was being) and then talking about how it is the Finance Minister's responsibility to “look at the big picture,” consult widely and look out for “the best interests of the people.” He went on to talk about other things in the budget intended to meet some of the Liberal demands, but concluded that none of the measures seemed "good enough for the opposition parties" (at least he didn't say 'opposition coalition' this time).

Peter then threw another dainty slo-pitch, this one even more leading, by asking:

If it does end up in an election ... does that cause damage to the recovery program?

He could very easily have asked a much less biased question by inquiring how an election now might affect the economy.

Mansbridge's final question came when he asked Flaherty that if he didn't want an election, "Why didn't you try putting through an amendment?” Notice how he didn't make a much more hard-hitting query such as why Flaherty didn't ensure Bloc Quebecois support by including in the budget $2 billion for the harmonization of federal and provincial tax that Quebec undertook in 1992, a precondition for support already previously articulated by Giles Duceppe, an agreement, by the way, that most are saying is essentially already a done deal. In other words, Mansbridge allowed to stand the fiction that the Harper Government has done everything it could to avoid an unnecessary election, a fiction that will doubtless form a large part of the government's election narrative.

As frightened of offending the Harper regime as the CBC may be, I expect much much better from our national broadcaster.

To watch the entire 3:48 minute interview between Mansbridge and Flaherty, click here.