When Is An Apology Not Really An Apology?

When it is delivered, not by the offending party, but rather by an unseen narrator instead.

Another Pundit Supports Trudeau's Rejection Of Sun News

Reaction continues to be mixed on Justin Trudeau's decision to boycott Sun News following resident madman Ezra Levant's tirade against his entire family. Pollster Bruce Anderson is now the second pundit to support the decision, as he makes clear in his inaugural digital column for The Globe and Mail.

His has several reasons for taking this stance:

First off, if a competing politician uttered the things that Mr. Levant said about Justin Trudeau, we would expect an apology or a resignation, or both. If we wouldn’t tolerate such shameful behavior among political competitors, what would it say about how low we are willing to see media standards fall, if there were no consequences.

Second, maybe someone can explain why any of us should have to answer to anyone for the sexual habits of our parents. I’ve never heard a voter in a focus group say “I’d vote for candidate x, if his or her parents had been more sexually conservative.”

Anderson also points out, in addition to the distasteful content of the Levant screed, it is inaccurate:

Watch Mr. Levant’s description of events, and then read the account of how the bride’s father saw the same moments. I suppose it’s possible that the father of the bride was lying, but I think another explanation seems more likely.

Labelling the unhinged Levant's performance an embarrassment to journalists, and to those in conservative politics that he is normally aligned with, Anderson feels that Trudeau's response was a reasonable one, since he is simply

holding the publisher to account and using what leverage he can muster. His goal seems not to end or disrupt or manipulate media relations in a permanent or pervasive way, but to say this isn’t normal and it shouldn’t be treated as such.

In the instances of such scurrilous attacks one can either ignore the insults or speak out against them. In Anderson's view the latter is the more noble choice:

I fielded one call from a conservative who said that Mr. Trudeau was taking the coward’s way out by refusing to engage with Sun. I tried hard to understand that logic.

But in the end I couldn’t help but think that cowardice in that situation is doing nothing to defend your honour, and that of your parents.

I certainly get the need to protect professional journalism. But this week anyway, it needs more protection against what Ezra Levant would do to it, than what Justin Trudeau would.

It has been my observation that, like the bullies they are, extreme right-wingers are quite happy to mete out abuse, but cry like babies when held to account. Expect no agreement with Andersen's defense of Trudeau from that quarter.

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.

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.

The Right Wing Instructs Us On Our Errors In Thinking

Benighted soul that I am, I did not realize the myriad errors of thinking I have fallen prey to. Happily, University of Toronto geography professor Pierre Desrochers has set me straight on a few things:

The Medium Of The Moronic

New and long-term members of the Profoundly Stupid Club can rejoice: their mascots, Rob and Doug Ford, the darlings of the dimwitted, the bastions of the benighted, the exemplars of intellectual enfeeblement, will live to fight another day.

Sun News, favored by those who like their commentary simple and absolutist, the place where the good guys wear metaphorical white hats and the bad guys black ones, has announced that starting Monday, the dimwitted duo will be hosting a new show called, predictably, Ford nation.




I guess this addition to their lineup will solidify Sun TV network's reputation as a repository of the ridiculous and banal, if any doubts still linger.

No word yet on whether the network is going after broadcasting rights to the World Wrestling Federation as a followup.

Who Watches Sun News Network?

Still in the mood to gloat, I am happy to report that the answer seems to be almost no one, although it is hard to pin down numbers with precision, owing to the fact that the Bureau of Broadcast Measurements only measures the top 30 shows in Canada, a criterion which the aforesaid network's offerings do not meet.

It seems that Canadians aren't as easily manipulated as Ezra Levant and the lads thought.

Can You Help Me With My Complaint Against Sun News Network and Michael Coren?

I am reproducing the correspondence I just received from the CRTC regarding my complaint against Sun Tv regarding Michael Coren's recent racist comments. As you will see from the note, for the complaint to proceed, I need the specific details about the program in question, i.e., the time and date of the offending broadcast. Thanks for any assistance you can provide me with.


This is in response to your correspondence of August 13, 2011 regarding Sun TV.

We do appreciate what you are telling us; however, as noted in our attached fact sheet on the complaints process http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/INFO_SHT/G8.htm , the Commission does not conduct general programming reviews. In order to investigate complaints, we require the identification of a broadcaster and particular broadcasts, i.e. time and date. We also ask that complaints reach us within four weeks of the date of broadcast because licensees are required by regulation to keep tapes of the material they air for that time.

Should you wish to write back with details of broadcasts that typify your concern, we will be pleased to follow up on your behalf. In the meantime, I hope this is helpful.

However, having said this, I have taken the liberty of forwarding your correspondence to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) which administers codes of industry standards and mediates complaints from the public involving their member stations. Should you wish to contact the CBSC directly, you may do so by writing to P.O. Box 3265, Station D, Ottawa, Ontario K1P 6H8, or at info@cbsc.ca. You can also reach them at 613-233-4607 or toll free at 1-866-696-4718.

Please sign this petition urging Prime Minister Harper to stop threatening Michaela Keyserlingk and to stop exporting asbestos.

Sun News Network – Full of Sound And Fury, Signifying Nothing

When Sun News Network was fast approaching its debut, I had this fantasy whereby I would watch it diligently so that I could make regular complaints to the CRTC for every infraction of broadcast regulations it made. However, after watching about 10 minutes of its programming and realizing that it was aimed at a very dim audience devoid of even the most rudimentary skills in critical thinking, I knew that I lacked the constitution to fulfil that fantasy, and that my remaining time on earth could be better spent in more worthwhile pursuits.

I am therefore very happy to learn that others have taken up my aborted mission. According to a story in The Globe and Mail, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council has been overwhelmed by a deluge of complaints following an interview by host Krista Erickson with dancer Margie Gillis broadcast June 1. The CSBC, which normally receives about 2000 complaints per year, has so far fielded 4300 on this interview alone, so many that it has requested on its website that viewers stop sending in any more objections to that sad episode.

Boorishly and pugnaciously aggressive, Erickson launches into an attack that can only be described as contrived and transparent, almost a caricature of what one might find on the Fox network. To her great credit, Gillis handles the attack with grace and calm, but seems a bit perplexed by the interview, clearly never having experienced such a sad attempt by a host to pander to what I hope is a diminishing audience.

If you have the stomach for it, here is the first part of that interview: