Showing posts with label right wing insanity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label right wing insanity. Show all posts

Thursday, September 25, 2014

UPDATED: On Trudeau's Sun 'News' Boycott



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.

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Do People Really Watch This Crap?

Five minutes was my limit for this video.

And apparently Justin Trudeau has reached him limit with Sun News. His decision to boycott the network, I'm sure, will send the foaming right wing into a howling frenzy.