I will be the first to admit that I have been critical in the past of both Michael Ignatieff and the Liberal Party. However, I cannot help but be impressed by the way he is thus far conducting his campaign; his wit, grace and openness to all questions in free-flowing forums can't help but stand in positive contrast to the tightly controlled and fear-based one being run by Harper and his operatives. I am also glad that Ignatieff is framing some his campaign around the issue of democracy, something about which the pundits tell us we don't care but which I suspect many feel very passionate about.
Today's Toronto Star has a positive profile of the Liberal leader, one which I am certain will provoke the usual howls of outrage from the right about "liberal media bias." I hope you will check it out.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Harper and Media Control
I have to confess to being deeply disturbed by the implications of sixth estate's post yesterday, suggesting that political interference is resulting in the removal of digital news reports critical of Harper on the campaign trail. If the pattern suggested by the site continues, it becomes even more incumbent upon us to get this message out to as many people as possible, through our blogs, tweets, emails and whatever contacts we may have with local independent media.
Closely related to this concern is another pattern that I have noticed on television recently during political discussion on the CBC, CTV and C-PAC. The common theme emerging from the chatter of pundits is that Harper's tight control and relative inaccessibility to the press is nothing unusual, really only of interest to the reporters themselves whose noses are somewhat 'out of joint' over being put on halters.
I had a little spare time on Friday during which I caught part of a phone-in show on C-PAC, which had journalists Tom Clark and John Ibbitson as guests. The latter offered the opinion that Harper's keeping the press at arm's length is common practice for frontrunners in any election, as that reduces the possibility of unscripted events that could undermine the carefully crafted image Harper is trying to cultivate. Ibbitson said that this is very similar to past campaign tactics employed by Brian Mulroney and Chretien, and that during the presidential campaign, Barack Obama didn't have too many press conferences. In other words, the message the pundits are conveying is, “Nothing to see here. Move along."
From my perspective, the comparison to past practices doesn't hold for one simple reason. Unlike Harper and his operatives, the aforementioned politicos, while hardly saints, did not head governments whose central tenets are absolute control, secrecy, and contempt for the democratic process. The fact that those tenets are the tactical foundation of Harper's campaign for the trust of the Canadian electorate makes it vital to report at every opportunity.
Providing the public with such insight, well-known to those who follow politics, is a duty in a society that supposedly promotes the free and open exchange of information and ideas. To conceal or minimize such facts is a grave disservice to both to democracy in general and to the electorate in particular.
Closely related to this concern is another pattern that I have noticed on television recently during political discussion on the CBC, CTV and C-PAC. The common theme emerging from the chatter of pundits is that Harper's tight control and relative inaccessibility to the press is nothing unusual, really only of interest to the reporters themselves whose noses are somewhat 'out of joint' over being put on halters.
I had a little spare time on Friday during which I caught part of a phone-in show on C-PAC, which had journalists Tom Clark and John Ibbitson as guests. The latter offered the opinion that Harper's keeping the press at arm's length is common practice for frontrunners in any election, as that reduces the possibility of unscripted events that could undermine the carefully crafted image Harper is trying to cultivate. Ibbitson said that this is very similar to past campaign tactics employed by Brian Mulroney and Chretien, and that during the presidential campaign, Barack Obama didn't have too many press conferences. In other words, the message the pundits are conveying is, “Nothing to see here. Move along."
From my perspective, the comparison to past practices doesn't hold for one simple reason. Unlike Harper and his operatives, the aforementioned politicos, while hardly saints, did not head governments whose central tenets are absolute control, secrecy, and contempt for the democratic process. The fact that those tenets are the tactical foundation of Harper's campaign for the trust of the Canadian electorate makes it vital to report at every opportunity.
Providing the public with such insight, well-known to those who follow politics, is a duty in a society that supposedly promotes the free and open exchange of information and ideas. To conceal or minimize such facts is a grave disservice to both to democracy in general and to the electorate in particular.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Rick Salutin's Thoughts on Democracy
I am so glad that Rick Salutin has found a home at The Star after having written for many years at The Globe and Mail. As I mentioned in an earlier post, his writing always offers a unique perspective on issues, and he rarely disappoints.
In yesterday's column, he addresses some of the shortcomings of our democracy, yet concludes it is one still worth participating in. I encourage everyone to take a look.
In yesterday's column, he addresses some of the shortcomings of our democracy, yet concludes it is one still worth participating in. I encourage everyone to take a look.
Friday, April 1, 2011
The Star Finally Exposes The Truth About Harper's Press Restrictions
What follows is a copy of today's headline story in The Star. I was unable to find it online after reading it in my home delivery, so I cannot provide the link. Therefore I am taking the liberty of reproducing the entire story.
While Andrew Coyne expresses outrage in a Twitter message that this is headline news, I think it is far overdue that the general public learn of the methods the Harper camp is using to control the P.M.'s image. Although this has been well-known since the start of the campaign by bloggers and users of Twitter, newspapers with wide circulation have not reported it until now, as far as I know. Significantly, there is no mention of the story in our so-called national newspaper, The Globe and Mail.
Tensions rise as Conservative leader imposes daily cap on queries from reporters at campaign events
HALIFAX— The cost to travel with Stephen Harper’s campaign? $10,100 a week.
The number of questions Harper takes each day? Five.
Looking like an over-controlling politician? Priceless.
The bright yellow fence that kept reporters penned in far from the Conservative leader Thursday during a campaign event here was an apt metaphor for his first week dealing with the media — controlling and restrictive.
Now Harper is facing questions about his questions. Namely, why he isn’t willing to take more. And he’s refusing to answer. Harper takes only five questions from the media each day — four from the reporters on his tour and one from a local reporter. His political rivals place few restrictions on how many questions they take.
That’s produced tension between the Conservative leader and the journalists following his campaign tour as it criss-crosses the country.
Harper has settled into a routine in his first week — a morning announcement, followed by a media availability. Journalists on the campaign tour get four questions — usually two in English and two in French — and a local reporter is given the chance to lob a question at the Conservative leader, as well. But the situation boiled over Thursday when Harper was asked — using one of the five questions — why he refused to take more than a handful of questions from reporters each day. Harper refused to answer, but when pressed, suggested he would be open to addressing any issues he hadn’t already discussed.
But he never explained his rationale for not fielding more questions.
“In terms of questions, is there any specific issue that I haven’t addressed that you want me to address?” Harper asked.
“If there’s another subject, I’ll answer,” the Conservative leader told journalists behind the fence, more than 10 metres away.
Later, Harper supporter David Cameron, who was at the event, came up to the journalists to express his frustration with their questions.
“You guys reporting the news or making it?” he asked.
Senator Michael MacDonald, a Harper appointee, tweeted: “Lovely day on Halifax waterfront for PM’s trade status. CBC reporters (Terry) Milewski and (Jennifer) Ditchburn were like attack dogs afterward — pathetic!”
In fact, Ditchburn works for The Canadian Press.
MacDonald later wrote that he withdrew the comment.
The New Democrats soon issued a news release noting that MacDonald — who was vice-president of the Conservative Party of Canada before Harper put him in the Senate in 2009 — earned $132,300 last year and rang up expenses totalling $257,142.
Harper spokesman Dimitri Soudas said later the Conservative leader has several media interviews with radio and television stations across the country this week.
While Andrew Coyne expresses outrage in a Twitter message that this is headline news, I think it is far overdue that the general public learn of the methods the Harper camp is using to control the P.M.'s image. Although this has been well-known since the start of the campaign by bloggers and users of Twitter, newspapers with wide circulation have not reported it until now, as far as I know. Significantly, there is no mention of the story in our so-called national newspaper, The Globe and Mail.
Tensions rise as Conservative leader imposes daily cap on queries from reporters at campaign events
HALIFAX— The cost to travel with Stephen Harper’s campaign? $10,100 a week.
The number of questions Harper takes each day? Five.
Looking like an over-controlling politician? Priceless.
The bright yellow fence that kept reporters penned in far from the Conservative leader Thursday during a campaign event here was an apt metaphor for his first week dealing with the media — controlling and restrictive.
Now Harper is facing questions about his questions. Namely, why he isn’t willing to take more. And he’s refusing to answer. Harper takes only five questions from the media each day — four from the reporters on his tour and one from a local reporter. His political rivals place few restrictions on how many questions they take.
That’s produced tension between the Conservative leader and the journalists following his campaign tour as it criss-crosses the country.
Harper has settled into a routine in his first week — a morning announcement, followed by a media availability. Journalists on the campaign tour get four questions — usually two in English and two in French — and a local reporter is given the chance to lob a question at the Conservative leader, as well. But the situation boiled over Thursday when Harper was asked — using one of the five questions — why he refused to take more than a handful of questions from reporters each day. Harper refused to answer, but when pressed, suggested he would be open to addressing any issues he hadn’t already discussed.
But he never explained his rationale for not fielding more questions.
“In terms of questions, is there any specific issue that I haven’t addressed that you want me to address?” Harper asked.
“If there’s another subject, I’ll answer,” the Conservative leader told journalists behind the fence, more than 10 metres away.
Later, Harper supporter David Cameron, who was at the event, came up to the journalists to express his frustration with their questions.
“You guys reporting the news or making it?” he asked.
Senator Michael MacDonald, a Harper appointee, tweeted: “Lovely day on Halifax waterfront for PM’s trade status. CBC reporters (Terry) Milewski and (Jennifer) Ditchburn were like attack dogs afterward — pathetic!”
In fact, Ditchburn works for The Canadian Press.
MacDonald later wrote that he withdrew the comment.
The New Democrats soon issued a news release noting that MacDonald — who was vice-president of the Conservative Party of Canada before Harper put him in the Senate in 2009 — earned $132,300 last year and rang up expenses totalling $257,142.
Harper spokesman Dimitri Soudas said later the Conservative leader has several media interviews with radio and television stations across the country this week.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Are All Attack Ads The Same?
In today's Star, Bob Hepburn has an interesting article entitled Harper the king of nasty attack ads, an article well-worth reading. It got me thinking about fallacies of reason and the importance of critical thinking, subjects about which I have previously written.
So I decided to make a brief post here on one of the most common fallacies, the ad hominem, followed by video of two attack ads, one from the Liberal Party and one from The Conservatives. I will then leave you to consider whether one or both of the ads fall under the ad hominem label.
About.com offers some interesting insight on the purpose served by the fallacy known as the ad hominem, which means the attack on the person rather than on his/her arguments:
The abusive ad hominem is not just a case of directing abusive language toward another person. . . . The fallacy is committed when one engages in a personal attack as a means of ignoring, discrediting, or blunting the force of another's argument.
An example of an ad hominem would be the following statement:
I can't believe a word that Al Gore says about climate change because he couldn't even keep his marriage together.
You will notice the fact that Gore's marital status has nothing to do with the facts that he has been promoting for many years on global warming, yet the purpose here is for you to dismiss those facts by cultivating a disdain for those who experience marital failure.
Enjoy the videos:
So I decided to make a brief post here on one of the most common fallacies, the ad hominem, followed by video of two attack ads, one from the Liberal Party and one from The Conservatives. I will then leave you to consider whether one or both of the ads fall under the ad hominem label.
About.com offers some interesting insight on the purpose served by the fallacy known as the ad hominem, which means the attack on the person rather than on his/her arguments:
The abusive ad hominem is not just a case of directing abusive language toward another person. . . . The fallacy is committed when one engages in a personal attack as a means of ignoring, discrediting, or blunting the force of another's argument.
An example of an ad hominem would be the following statement:
I can't believe a word that Al Gore says about climate change because he couldn't even keep his marriage together.
You will notice the fact that Gore's marital status has nothing to do with the facts that he has been promoting for many years on global warming, yet the purpose here is for you to dismiss those facts by cultivating a disdain for those who experience marital failure.
Enjoy the videos:
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Terry Milewski's Damning Documentation of Harper's Enthusiam for Coalitions in the 90's
Click here to read the full story of how Harper, both in print and in a TVO interview, spoke of coalitions as a logical and desirable outcome of a minority government.
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