The Rewrite

Peter Menzies

Who knew? Plus! Online smartassery by reporters continues to curse the industry, Vancouver loves Harry Potter (shhhh!), layoffs continue and newspaper revenue now in uncontrolled descent

Journalists just love sensational political accusations and way too many of them are more than happy to spread them far and wide while shrugging aside their first obligation, the truth.

Why they put so much faith in the honesty of politicians, who have a history of being a bit, shall we say, truthy, is quite beyond me, but reporters often seem more interested in it being true something salacious was said than they are whether the scandalous thing that was said is true.

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A fine example of this behaviour, which continues to undermine public trust in journalism, unfolded a week ago. That was when freshly-minted Liberal MP and Tory turncoat Chris d’Entremont told the CBC’s Catherine Cullen that, after publicly musing about crossing the floor, “Conservative House leader Andrew Scheer and party whip Chris Warkentin “barged” into his office, pushed open the door — almost knocking down his assistant — and yelled at him about “how much of a snake” he was.”

The Conservatives, in response, issued a statement accusing d’Entremont of telling barefaced lies and described a much calmer scenario. CBC then issued a correction after d’Entremont “clarified” an embellishment but some journalists were happy to ignore that and stick with repeating the original, more salacious version.

Stu Benson of The Hill Times enthusiastically Tweeted that ““[D’Entremont] says Conservative House leader Andrew Scheer and party whip Chris Warkentin ‘barged’ into his office, pushed his assistant aside and yelled at him about ‘how much of a snake’ he was.”

National Newswatch, despite CBC’s correction still had a Tweet up days later stating “Pushing, yelling from Conservative leadership ‘sealed the deal’ on defection: d’Entremont. MP says Conservatives felt like ‘part of a frat house rather than a serious political party.”

Ignoring the correction and “clarification,” CBC’s Power & Politics used the clip of d’Entremont’s self-confessed embellishment and repeated what both he and the CBC knew not to be true. To be fair, the segment that can be found here fully details the Conservatives’ response but, according to one of the CBC’s most diligent critics, no on air correction has been made. Instead, host David Cochrane went out of his way to point out that while his editors had used the term “correction,” the CBC was blameless for reporting d’Entremont’s admittedly false representation of the event.

The pattern of behaviour indicates to the public that news organizations do not take their obligation to the truth seriously. The public actually expects journalists to seek to establish the truth of statements they are reporting before they report them.

Edmonton City News reporter Sean Amato meanwhile managed to take foolish online smartassery to a new level when, repeating the Liberals’ Trump = Tories theme, he posted:

“Quite the press conference from (Conservative Leader) Pierre Poilievre in Calgary today. Basically…the Liberals suck, the media sucks and a lot of other stuff in Canada sucks. Hey, it worked for Trump.”

Tens of thousands of views and (at time of writing) more than 500 comments later, he replied with renewed smug smartassery:

“Never thought a tweet that says “the Liberals suck, the media sucks” would anger so many Conservatives. But here we are .”

Here we are, indeed. Amato appears to have set a new personal best for comments in response to one of his Tweets while simultaneously embedding the impression that not only he but all journalists are biased against Conservatives. And, I ask, for what? And why?

Maybe think before you Tweet or, better yet, just shut up. Many good journalists find that works just fine.

Amato, though, seems determined to prioritize personal commentary over journalism. When he recently got some pushback on lack of objectivity, his response was unrepentant.

“Bonnie…mute me, follow people you like, no hard feelings. But let me be free too. Cheers!”

Liberation awaits.

The “controversial” Harry Potter Forbidden Forest experience opened 10 days ago in Vancouver, weeks after the parks board, cowed by trans activists, vowed such an event would never happen again.

The distress of the “Qmunity” over the connection to J.K. Rowling and her vocal insistence on a traditional definition of women was well documented in the weeks leading up to the event. But there was nary a peep from CTV, CBC or Global News when organizers announced on media day that the pre-sales were the largest they had experienced anywhere in the world.

I found coverage in The Daily Hive and in Black Press papers in British Columbia. But it wasn’t until Remembrance Day that one of the city’s legacy media, the Vancouver Sun, delivered a review of any kind. CBC, CTV and Global News appear to be boycotting.

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Operating revenue for Canada’s publishers continues to plummet – an indication the nation’s newspapers are increasingly unable to deliver the readers needed to provide results to advertisers.

Statscan reported a decline of a whopping 17.9 per cent since 2022, which compares with a drop of 7.3 percent from 2020-2022.

News Media Canada lobbyist Paul Deegan, meanwhile, confessed to a House of Commons committee that operators “cannot make a buck as a digital-only publisher,” have failed to transition their business models and still need revenue from print.

Profit margins, according to Statscan, are down to 3.2 per cent.

Postmedia, meanwhile, is later than usual in posting its annual report but has a little under another two weeks to do so.

Last week, The Rewrite noted how an extra $150 million from the government for the CBC would be bad news for everyone else in the business. This week, Groupe TVA announced it was eliminating 87 positions and laid the blame squarely at Prime Minister Mark Carney’s door.

“Repeated appeals to government authorities to support the private television industry, at a time when it faces fierce competition from the web giants and CBC/Radio-Canada, have been ignored,” a company statement explained.

Poilievre, who has been the focus lately of much of the press inclined to favour the Liberals, tried to shame media into paying some attention to dissent from the likes of Beaches-East York MP Nate Erskine-Smith within Liberal ranks.

It was left to the Toronto Star’s Althia Raj to gently explain to his Deputy Leader, Melissa Lantsman, why dissent within Liberal ranks is not a story because, unlike dissent with Conservative ranks, it’s in the best interests of the country.

“Nate has normalized independent thought so it isn’t new/s,” she wrote. “IMO it would be nice to see this from other MPs. Those outside of cabinet, their job is to hold the govt to account. More independent thought means better reports, better debate, better policy. Better social cohesion too.”

Take that, you silly Tories!  The narrative is entrenched.

Some of you will remember how last fall, CTV News terminated two employees following the doctoring of Poilievre’s quotes in a fashion not too dissimilar to that used by the producers of a Panorama documentary at the BBC. Two of the BBC’s senior executives walked the plank there when it was revealed its team had intentionally misrepresented a speech by US President Donald Trump, who then threatened to sue the organization for $1 billion.

Well, one of those fired CTV employees, Derek Thacker, is back on the list of approved Parliamentary Press Gallery members as an employee of Global News.

Don’t forget to check out this week’s Full Press podcast and, if you haven’t done so yet, click at least one of the Subscribe, Share or Donate buttons provided.

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(Peter Menzies is a commentator and consultant on media, Macdonald-Laurier Institute Senior Fellow, a past publisher of the Calgary Herald, a former vice chair of the CRTC and a National Newspaper Award winner.)