If I were a Toronto Star columnist...
...I'd write columns a bit like this. (Or, maybe this?)
Showing posts with label Canadian Press. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Canadian Press. Show all posts
05 April 2009
06 March 2008
Sign of Weakness
Yes, this is silly, and Paul Wells is right to point it out. Parliamentary navel-gazing is never attractive when examined outside the hothouse atmosphere of the House of Commons.
However, Wells (and the vast majority of press coverage of Stephane Dion and the Liberal Party) glosses over one simple and irreducible fact: the Libs are broke. Jean Chretien's campaign finance reform effectively crippled the Liberal mode of fundraising. It's an open question whether one leadership candidate or another would have been quicker to organize fundraising efforts, but the fact remains, the Liberals have been hamstrung by their own history.
If the Liberals were rolling in cash, I suspect we would have had an election six months ago. But then, we also would have had television ads to counter the Harper smear campaign of January 2007 (which wins an award for Best Character Assassination Attempt of the Century) that was, and continues to be, so determinative of Dion's standing with the national press, and so detrimental to his public image.
And in case I be accused of failing to put my money where my mouth is, I donated $50 bucks to the Liberals last week. I can't quite believe I did it - but these are strange days indeed....
13 November 2007
It Takes One to Know One
"Let's face it, there's no whore like an old whore. If I'd been in Bryce's place, I would have been the first with my nose in the trough, just like all the rest of them."
-Former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney on the 1984 appointment of Liberal Bryce Mackasey as Ambassador to Portugal, as reported by CBC journalist Neil Macdonald
09 September 2007
Journalistic Whimsy
In a Canadian Press article via The Globe and Mail on the meeting of NATO defense chiefs and the future of the organization:
A green leaf over her nose? Irish skin? Did those two lines really deserve to make it into the paper?
"I'm here to say, 'no, to NATO,' so that Canada can maintain its peaceful reputation," said Janet Hawksley.I understand that your typically underthought, underwritten Canadian Press article (which, by the way, will probably make it into 80% of Canada's daily print media market one way or another) needs to show itself to be "fair and balanced" by - in this case - bringing in the protesters' perspective.
Ms. Hawksley, 86, said she attends every anti-war protest she can, because "it's the only world we've got."
She said she wore a green leaf over her nose to protect herself naturally from the sun.
"I've got Irish skin," said Ms. Hawksley.
A green leaf over her nose? Irish skin? Did those two lines really deserve to make it into the paper?
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