Dreaming of a white Christmas

Yeah, that's me on the 401, driving the car loaded with 40 kinds of footware just in case it snows -- or it doesn't. Headed to Montreal for two weeks to chill --hah-hah, get it? -- with friends and family.

It is so strange to have the sun beating down on me as I type this. It feels warm. It feels like spring. It feels wrong.

One day, Irving Berlin's I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas will have more resonance than it ever did. It's sad enough now. Soon it will be devastating.

But enough holiday blues! Have a merry, merry.

Tip of the toque to Allen Sorenson.

UPDATE: Donald in the comments points out that, thanks to the Star's spiffy new website redesign, the link to my columns is now broken. Not all of them have been loaded yet. That's what you get for being a Z I guess.

THANK YOU!

I feel like Stéphane Dion.

Thanks to all my faithful readers, friends, colleagues and cousins who voted over at the Canadian Blog Awards.

Congrats also to my pals Tod Maffin (Inside the CBC) as well as my guys at the Galloping Beaver, Matthew Good, Peace, Order and Good Government, Eh? ... and nominee Sheenavision who shoulda won dammit.

Unfortunately, for this blog, this may well be a posthumous award. Until that decision is made, my treeware columns are here.

I know. I know. Paper. Ewwwwwwwww.

P.S. Note that comments were closed only on that last post. The comments had once again drifted far off topic.

Watch this space!

Coming soon ...  but not right away ...

Oh, and why does Norman Spector hate women?

UPDATE (November 20, 2006.): That's it. Comments are closed. I don't have the time or the energy for this anymore.

Sid Adilman

Sid Adilman, former entertainment editor for the Star and Canadian editor of the show biz bible Variety, died yesterday of heart failure at age 68. His wife Toshiko and sons Mio and Nobu were at his side.

Sid was my friend, my mentor, my guide. But, more importantly, Sid was the entertainment journalist who refused to allow the American cultural and celebrity juggernaut to crush Canadian TV, movies, music and theatre. He always stuck his stupid little pencil nubs in the cultural dike. 

I owe him my job at the Star, and much much more.

But many other people, including household names, owe him even more than that.

Unfortunately, I can't find it online so I reproduce it here in full: My column from when Sid retired from the Star in November 2002.

Adilman's watchful Eye --- Canadian culture would not be the same without Star columnist

IF YOU enjoy Canadian movies, music, television, theatre, art or books, you owe at least a small debt of gratitude to The Star's Sid Adilman.

If you create Canadian culture, you should know you owe him a lot.

And if you write about it, you probably owe him your job. Without Adilman on the scene boosting and battling for homegrown art and artists, most Canadian critics would have had to find another beat, because these pages would likely be dominated by U.S. wire copy about Hollywood productions and Broadway shows.

Last week, Adilman, 65, left the building, retiring from daily journalism after 42 years of covering entertainment. He first joined The Star in 1960 as a summer intern and then general reporter, moving to the now-defunct Telegram in 1963. But, after the Tely folded in 1971, Sid returned with his "Eye On Entertainment" column, becoming both Canadian editor of the trade paper Variety in the 1980s and, from 1986-91, editor of this section.

Long the most influential cultural journalist in Canada, he never stopped writing his column, giving boldface to those who struggled mightily against the American entertainment behemoth that always threatened to crush Canadian showbiz. He helped to build this industry, as surely as those moguls who grew rich from it.

As Toronto Life magazine wrote in an expansive profile in 1985, Adilman "is a must-read for the city's entertainment community."

King CanCon is how I very fondly think of him, the slight, skittish guy with the big glasses. He helped put Canada on the world's cultural map. So, when word of his retirement spread, everybody remarked on how it's the end of an era. He'll be freelancing - but it won't be the same.

"It's going to be weird not having him there; I mean he's always been there," said Chum/City guru Moses Znaimer. "He isn't one of those guys who write in newspapers who like to pretend they live in New York. He is a genuine supporter of things Canadian."

"Sid's constant interest, support and very vocal criticisms have kept us all on our toes for years," said movie producer Robert Lantos. "Nothing escaped him: We have a better industry today because of his attentive eye and critical insight. One of the finest cultural journalists ever, (he) deserves tremendous respect because he was always on the job, whether or not we liked it."

And sometimes they didn't like it at all.

Sid always had the inside scoop on who was doing what to whom and with whose money - often the taxpayers'. He'd confront TV execs about their less-than-enthusiastic commitments to Canadian programming; harangue cultural bureaucrats who weren't performing; kick butt if anybody messed with Canadian talent; and complain long and loud if something or someone did not live up to expectations. He was the only entertainment writer in the country who consistently obsessed over government funding decisions for Canadian production, federal task forces studying cultural matters and the fate of the National Film Board.

Nobody was safe. From Izzy Asper to Moses Znaimer, all were in his sights. Even in his final column yesterday, he lobbed verbal grenades at CBC suits who don't give on-air personalities the star treatment Sid feels they deserve.

"I know people he's written not great things about, and that's okay; sometimes you have to do that," said Stratford's My Fair Lady Cynthia Dale. "But he's always been a champion for the cause of Canadian talent."

Said Alliance Atlantis chief Michael MacMillan: "I could never get angry with him (because) his fundamental purpose was always good."

Sid's nose for news was notorious. If you didn't specify something was not-for-attribution, you'd find your casual cocktail party conversation reproduced in 100-point type. But, if you told him something was off the record, it went into his vast and impenetrable mental vault.

"He could drive you crazy with his information, but he never divulged his sources - not ever," said Lantos.

Sid's note-taking style made me crazy. He'd hurtle through the newsroom, hot on the trail of some headline, and empty his pockets of scraps of napkins, coasters, placemats, ticket stubs and matchbook covers upon which were scrawled the names and deeds of his subjects - or victims. From these he would construct columns.

No wonder he is legendary for some of his mistakes.

Sometimes even his corrections had corrections.

"The facts were sometimes wrong, but the point was generally right," said MacMillan.

Probably his most infamous gaffe came in 1984, when Sid wrote that, during a play at the Theatre Passe Muraille, cast members were smoking marijuana on stage. They weren't. It was actually strawberry tea. The theatre threatened to sue. The Star apologized.

Sid could also be punishing. In the mid-'80s, when veteran press agent Gino Empry gave a scoop to The Globe and Mail instead of The Star, Sid ordered our reporters and critics to boycott him and his clients for 90 days.

But that's because getting the news first mattered more than anything to Sid. He'd often complain that too many entertainment writers were into being critics and not reporters. As he groused to Toronto Life in 1985, "They feel that their opinions are worth something, even though they've been in the business only half an hour."

That commitment to news made him difficult to work with sometimes, mostly because he expected all of us to care as much as he did. So he could be a pain, running on too many double espressos and doting excessively on his Triple A idols: Anne Murray, Anne Of Green Gables and the late Al Waxman.

Relentless and secretive - we had to sneak this column by him - Sid was Sid to the end, quitting without saying goodbye. That's okay because he'll always be around, at this weekend's Gemini Awards, at Tuesday's Giller Prize gala, at next year's Toronto International Film Festival.

Because, after all, where would they be without Sid?

UPDATE: Joe Clark wrote some kind words about Sid here.

ONE MORE: Could not have said it better myself.

AND ANOTHER: By Nobu Adilman.

UPDATE: A wonderful celebration of Sid's life was held on Sunday, Nov. 12. Joe Clark sort of live-blogged it, with words and pictures. He didn't get it completely correct but good enough. Thanks Joe.

 

Zerbie has left the building ... for a while

I'll be fine and I'll be back.

Until then, comment moderation will be light to non-existent.

Behave.

Think of it this way: Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Please send your thoughts and prayers to regular commenter and fellow blogger Dr. Dawg and his lady Marianne. They need them. I don't.

xox

UPPITY DATE: Only because it made me laugh out loud, and we could all use more laughs.

Tip of the hat to Ron Saba.

NOT YET READY TO SET A DATE: Thanks for your emails and comments asking me to come back and pronounce on everything from the attack on my home province of Quebec by The Globe and Mail's Jan Wong to the resignation of CBC chair Guy Fournier, not to mention the 9/11 coverage and on and on. It feels good to be missed. But I will be away from the keyboard for a while yet.

Oh, and my Mom is as fine as an 89-year old can be, thanks.

DATE BOOKED: Watch this space. I will be back by Halloween. (BOO!)

Comments are closed on this post.

Oh and the rules around this joint will be changed.

That's what happens when some of you don't behave. Collective punishment!!

Lost at the post

Sorry guys. Typepad ate about a dozen comments very early this morning when I attempted to approve them. I got an error message and couldn't get back at them. 

POOF! They are gone. It wasn't because I intentionally deleted them.

If you can recall what you wrote, please resubmit. Sooey had some really funny ones and it is she who pointed out they are MIA. I can't find them in the system.

Lucky Sperm Club

THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED:

Hey kids! Is your daddy a former prime minister of Canada? Then maybe you too can land a place in the media spotlight, just like Ben and Alexandre and Justin.

All this to say that Catherine Clark, daughter of Joe and Maureen McTeer, is back with a regular TV gig, this time on CPAC. This is from the release:

CPAC's Sunday Sound Off gets a fresh new face this Fall! Catherine Clark will be in the driver's seat when the live, coast-to-coast, bilingual, phone-in public affairs program returns on September 17th in the CPAC studios across from Parliament Hill.

The fluently bilingual Ottawa native is no stranger to the public eye having hosted a live, daily talk show in Ottawa, and occasionally hosting Sunday Sound Off during the last election. "As a young, bilingual broadcast professional, Catherine is keenly aware of the changing world and the importance of engaged citizens," said Colette Watson, President and General Manager of CPAC. "She is very much in-synch with CPAC's ongoing commitment to open and fruitful debate."

"I'm looking forward to speaking with Canadians from one end of the country to the other on topics that concern them and providing a live forum for them to speak directly with key experts," added Ms. Clark. "I hope Sunday Sound Off will become the destination for Canadians who want to voice their opinions about public affairs."

Clark's last national TV job was on the moribund digital i-channel, as one of its inaugural season hosts.

Now I am not suggesting that these political ''kids'' aren't smart or talented. But isn't amazing how they all landed such interesting jobs, jobs that ordinary slugs like us have to kill for? I mean, what are the odds?

UPPITY DATE: Somebody in the comments mentioned Anderson Cooper, son of Gloria Vanderbilt Cooper. A very very rich woman, most famous in modern times for designing tight jeans. I am amazed that nobody yet has brought up David and Linda Frum or Jonah Goldberg, son of Lucianne Goldberg.

Oh please, start one about me

THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED:

Whoa! Somebody doesn't like the Globe and Mail's Margaret (Peggy) Wente. Whoever that somebody is started a Wente Watch blog, the kind of site which proves that, as a columnist, she must be doing a great job if she is provoking people enough to give up their free time to pick apart her scribblings.

Seems that the blogger was tipped over the edge by Wente's words on AIDS and Africa, specifically this sentence: "Changing the behaviour of African men is probably hopeless." Complains the Wente Watcher:

Margaret Wente has made many ugly remarks during her career as a columnist, but this is the one that finally angered me enough to start this blog.

If someone had said that of "white men", or even just "men", can anyone doubt that Wente herself would be the first one screaming about radical feminism? But change the skin color of the men, and misandrist remarks become fine with her. Her jeer has no basis in fact; Uganda's famous ABC campaign proved that the sexual behavior of Africans, both men and women, could and would change with a community-based program of education.

But to Margaret Wente, this doesn't matter. Facts contrary to her ideological worldview don't exist. She is a writer who sees the world through the prism of good guys and bad guys. The good guys are capitalists, the United States, and white people; the bad guys are activists, critics of the US, and people of color. With that blinker in mind, her columns often follow a predictable formula:

1) Find a social issue, preferably one dear to the heart of liberal-leaning activists;

2) Blame it on nonwhite people;

3) Claim that only through conservative solutions can the problem be solved.

You know, I am totally fine with these sorts of blogs. After all, somebody has to watch the watchers. But what I object to is the anonymous part. If you're going to bushwhack people, then come out from behind the bush. Columnists such as Wente attach their name and face to their opinions. Attack bloggers should as well.

Unless they work in the same office.

Ya think?

UPPITY DATE: The blogger has outed himself in the comments below. Here's what he says:

Dear Ms. Zerbisias:

My name is Tyrone Nicholas and I am the author of Wente Watch.

Thank you for mentioning my blog. I'll try to upload a photo to it as soon as I get the chance.

We heart Mike

CTV's Mike Duffy is alive and well in Ottawa, where he is recuperating after open heart surgery. (Yes, he has a ticker!)

Duffy, host of Mike Duffy Live on CTV Newsnet, underwent the procedure at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute last week.

Lillian Duffy, the newsman's mother, told the Charlottetown Guardian that he is expected to make a full recovery.

"His operation was successful and he's home," she said from her Charlottetown home. "We're all grateful he's making a good recovery."

Duffy, 60, suffered a minor heart attack 14 years ago.

I know he's doing okay because he emailed me a few minutes ago to ask me about something I blogged while he was out of commission. I don't think it made him happy. But hey, better a mad Mike than a dead Duffy.

Get well soon Mike!

Going post-al

Sorry I haven't put up any new posts.

And no, I am not in a puddle weeping over Syd. I am in Oakville -- yes, I made it this far! -- at Sheridan College supposedly giving a seminar on blogging to Metroland newspaper worker bees who hate their empoyers at Torstar and we're really talking about bringing down the company.

KIDDING!

No, I am really talking about blogs. And I am showing them how I do a post.

Pay no attention this one. It doesn't count.

I'll have stuff up soon.

A true friend to the end

Sydney

Bless her little soul. She made the decision so I didn't have to.

She died peacefully at the Veterinary Emergency Clinic, under the best of care. Just went to sleep so quietly that, in the five minutes that a doctor was not attending to her, nobody noticed anything unusual.

My little girl.

Sydney "Miss Mess" Zerbisias came into my life August 9, 1996, after I found her on the then-Ohio-based American Eskimo Dog rescue site, Heart Bandits. Now there are branches all over North America.

My fifth Eskie, she represented  the best of the breed -- beautiful, alert, intelligent, loyal, affectionate, eager to please -- and was my little co-pilot, companion, white shadow and fur angel.

I just returned from the vet's where, along with her walker Darlene Reid, we had a visit with her and many good snarfs into tissues. She looked peaceful. I know that wherever she is, there are lots of Marrobones and little kids in strollers dropping Cheerios and Goldfish crackers for her to clean up.

Thanks again for all your sympathy.

Amazing how we love our poopers.

P.S. If you want a dog, please adopt an adult who needs a home. They'll love you to pieces for it, and you'll know its temperament upfront. My next baby will be coming from here.

Sydney

A girl's best friend.

How do you know when it's time for your beloved dog to go? How do you know?

UPDATE (22/8 @ 12:58 a.m.): Thank you so much for your comments and emails.

I spent the last four hours at the Veterininary Emergency Clinic and left Sydney (who is a girl!) there. It was the best thing to do. She is in tremendous pain, unable to walk, stand or even turn her head. She does not appear to be a good candidate for surgery. They'll run some tests, do x-rays, put her on major painkillers via IV and bring in the neurologist in the morning. But it doesn't look good.

It doesn't look good.

I think nature will make the decision for me.

UPDATE (22/8 @ 10:30 a.m.): Just talked with Dr. John Reeve-Newson at the Animal Clinic, Syd's regular vet. (Both he and Dr. Clifford Mardinger, also at the Clinic, were available to us last night from their homes.) We're waiting to hear from Dr. Sue Cochrane, Syd's neurologist. (Yes, she has a neurologist.) But Dr. John wasn't very encouraging, and I didn't expect him to be.

I won't do anything invasive. I just hope I make a decision I can live with.

I've been at these crossroads before, and had planned for this one long ago. But the deal was always to have her here at home with me when it happened. This does not look like it's going to happen. She's in too much pain to be moved.

I am going to take a long walk now. More posts, about other matters in a little while.

Or not.

Depends on what happens.

Thank you for your comments and private emails.

Non-cents

Just catching up with some CBC news items I didn't blog last week because, well, because.

They cancelled Street Cents! They cancelled Street Cents! They cancelled Street Cents!

AAA.

Yes, that's me screaming. Why? Because in TVland, which is all about selling as much crap as possible to as many eyeballs as possible, and which is also about suckering your kids into becoming consumeristic greed heads, Street Cents was, for 17 years, a boob tube oasis for teaching kids about what not to buy and why. The award-winning media literacy show -- seven Geminis plus an International Emmy -- had its roots as a regional production in Halifax and from there it grew and grew. Reports Inside the CBC, where Tod Maffin agrees with the cancellation:

CBC spokesperson Jeff Keay told InsideTheCBC.com: “Street Cents has been an exceptional success over the past 17 years and CBC is proud of the show’s award-winning reputation and focus on innovative stories, news and entertainment for its youth audience.

”However, research has demonstrated pretty clearly that its demographic (pre-teen and teen) is increasingly and quickly moving to interactive digital platforms for news, info and entertainment. We’re in the process of refocusing our youth strategy to specifically address this trend.”

But I don't buy that. For one thing, a public broadcaster is a public broadcaster, not a webcaster, and it has an obligation to broadcast programs that are non-commercial and even anti-commercial. For another, not every kid has a computer, or easy access to one -- but just about every kid watches TV and too damn much of it.

This anonymous CBC employee guest-blogging on The Teamakers sees things more my way.

A quiet death Friday for one of the remaining slivers of CBC-mandate programming. Street Cents, the cheeky consumer affairs show aimed at teenagers, was finally snuffed out. It wasn't much of a surprise as no commitment had been made to launch a new season. After 17 years of edgy and fearless programs, the Halifax-based production was killed because - according to the information passed on to staff from (CBC-TV executive vice-president Richard) Stursberg via Atlantic Regional Director Ron Crocker - it's not attracting a big enough audience.

For those who watch these things, the program has been bounced around the schedule for years before being dumped to die on Sunday afternoons. It's amazing that it managed to attract even the 100 thousand viewers that it did.

A hundred thousand? Cripes. That's more than some of the shows that Stursberg has launched.

In other CBC news, Avril Benoit has left the building. She will be head of communications for Doctors Without Borders (Canada).

Benoît, a bilingual native of Ottawa and Mont-Tremblant, was dubbed “Gzowski’s hip replacement” when she co-hosted (with Michael Enright) CBC Radio One’s now defunct This Morning. Before that she was a top open-line host at CJAD in Montreal and a political commentator for other media outlets. She worked at CBC-TV in Montreal for five years, as a current affairs writer-broadcaster as well as host of the network’s award winning sports and recreation program, Busy Bodies.

Benoit bounced around CBC a lot after This Morning was cancelled. She ended up hosting the local 4-6, Here and Now until she took a Southam fellowship. Last year, she did some radio documentaries in Africa, and told me that she was very much interested in what was going on there. But she didn't get to keep traveling and, in May, landed as host of Ontario Morning. I guess she wasn't happy there and bailed.

Contest this!

THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED:

Riddle me this: Is it because there aren't enough right-wingers in Canada to support Ezra Levant's Western Standard? Is it because right-wingers prefer to scream at each other on blogs? Or is it just an issue of the magazine industry here being so damn difficult? It's a financial struggle for many, including the most excellent Walrus and, most recently, Saturday Night, which went down in flames.

That's just my way of leading into the latest pitch from Levant landing in my ebox. It's a writing contest, by gum, and first prize is $1,000 and your chance at publication in the WS.

There is an entry fee of $50, and every entry receives a free one-year subscription to the magazine, valued at $75. If you've already got a magazine subscription, no problem -- you can extend your subscription, or give it as a gift!

Now I ask you ...

Speaking of which, I should ask Levant whatever happened to the money -- however much it was -- he raised to fight off that human rights lawsuit following his publication of the controversial Danish cartoons? Whatever happened to the lawsuit for that matter?

UPDATE: Unconfirmed word has it that the biweekly WS is becoming a monthly to cut costs. What's more, editor Kevin Libin is jumping ship, either to Maclean's or the National Post. Looks like there's trouble at the board level, with investors bailing on this sinking enterprise.

NOTE: Readers have informed me that this is the second year of the contest.

Left hook

Nearly three years ago, the Toronto Sun's Eric Margolis, one of the finest and most prescient writers on foreign affairs anywhere, walked away from his regular gig on TVO's Diplomatic Immunity because, as he told me at the time, producer "(Dan) Dunsky et. al. tried to censor my views on Iraq and the Mideast, and kept packing the guest list with far-right neocons from Washington. I have never in my (then) 21 year media career accepted anyone trying to tell me what to say. Events have, of course, proven the TVO party line dead wrong."

Indeed. Iraq is a quagmire. The Bush regime a disaster. They lied. Tens of thousands died. Etc. Etc. Margolis sums it up well in his latest effort about ''the war president'' not being able to war. (H/t to Jiminy C.)

Defeat I: Five years after Bush ordered Afghanistan invaded and proclaimed `total victory’ there, US and allied forces are struggling to defend their bases and supply lines against rising attacks from a growing number of Afghan resistance groups. The war costs $1.5 billion monthly. US-ruled Afghan now produces over 80% of the world’s heroin. The US just quietly deployed thousands more troops to Afghanistan to hunt al-Qaida leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri in a desperate attempt to save Republicans from heavy losses in November mid-term elections.

Defeat II: Remember `Mission accomplished!’ in Iraq? President Bush’s war in Iraq is clearly lost, but few dare admit it. The US has spent $300 billion on Afghanistan and Iraq, with nothing to show there but chaos, civil war, body bags, and growing Iranian influence in Iraq and western Afghanistan. The Bush/Cheney `liberation’ of Iraq has now cost more than the Vietnam War. So much for the `cakewalk.’ Iraq is likely the biggest American foreign policy disaster in living memory – even worse, in many ways, than Vietnam.

Defeat III: Off in the strategic Horn of Africa, another dangerous fiasco is unfolding. The White House had CIA and Pentagon spend tens of millions bribing Somali warlords to fight Islamist reformers trying to bring law and order to their strife-ravaged nation. The Islamists whipped CIA-backed warlords and ran them out of Somalia. Following this defeat, the US has encouraged and financed ally Ethiopia – shades of Lebanon - to invade Somalia, thus raising the threat of a wider war between Somalia, Ethiopia, and its old foe, Eritrea. Meanwhile, growing numbers of US Special Forces and CIA teams are getting drawn into obscure tribal melees in the Horn of Africa and the Saharan regions.

Defeat IV: Lebanon is, of course, the fourth major American military disaster. Bush and Cheney encouraged Israel to launch the hugely destructive but militarily fruitless war in Lebanon as the first part of their long nurtured plan to militarily crush Hezbullah, Syria and Iran. The Bush Administration brazenly thwarted world efforts to halt the conflict while giving Israel the green light to tear apart Lebanon. Now, just over a month later, Bush announces he will send $230 million to `help rebuild’ Lebanon – the same Lebanon blasted apart by US smart bombs rushed by air to Israel.

Anyway, after Margolis' departure, I got complaints from dozens of fans of the show who abandoned it because they missed Margolis and disliked the political turn it took.

No kidding. Did TVO really need to give Richard Perle a forum when he was already on all the Amnets? They even put out a news release announcing this ''get." The show lost a chunk of its constituency and ratings, I hear, dropped  with Margolis' departure.

Well guess what?

Looks like Dunsky, and host Steve Paikin, want Margolis back this fall when they launch their new program The Agenda. It's the program that will replace the suddenly-cancelled Studio 2.

Looks like ratings trump politics.

UPPITY DATE: One of the biggest idiots on the right is David Horowitz, a ''former Marxist" who conducts witch hunts on campus of liberal-leaning academics. The reason he's relevant is because, in Googling Margolis, I tripped over this screed by Horowitz on Horowitz's website against him, where author Eugene Girin calls the Sun -- hee-hee -- ''the leftist tabloid" and Margolis "an apologist for terror." What an ... er ... goof. (H/t to DEnnis Earl for catch my mistake here.)

OVERDUE DATE: Speaking of foreign affairs writers, Robert Parry takes hammer and tong to the New York Times' over-rated and over-exposed Thomas Friedman, the man who never gets it right and attacks those who do.

New York Times foreign policy analyst Thomas L. Friedman finally has come to the conclusion that George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq – which Friedman enthusiastically supported with the clever slogan “give war a chance” – wasn’t such a good idea after all.

Noting that “it is now obvious that we are not midwifing democracy in Iraq. We are babysitting a civil war,” Friedman wrote, “that means ‘staying the course’ is pointless, and it’s time to start thinking about Plan B – how we might disengage with the least damage possible.” [NYT, Aug. 4, 2006]

Yet, despite this implicit admission that the war has unnecessarily killed tens of thousands of Iraqis and more than 2,600 U.S. soldiers, Friedman continues to slight Americans who resisted the rush to war in the first place.

Twelve days after his shift in position, Friedman demeaned Americans who opposed the Iraq War as “antiwar activists who haven’t thought a whit about the larger struggle we’re in,” presumably a reference to the threat from Islamic extremism. [NYT, Aug. 16, 2006]

In other words, according to Friedman, Americans who were right about the ill-fated invasion of Iraq are still airheads when it comes to the bigger picture, while the pundits and politicians who were dead wrong on Iraq deserve pats on the back for their wise analyses of the larger problem.

Great piece on the go-Bush-go punditry elite. Read it.

Giving them the CHUM's rush

Today's treeware effort, about the union challenge to last month's killer cuts to news programming at CHUM's Citytv and A-Channel stations, is here.

On July 12, when the $1.4 billion (yet-to-be-sanctioned) marriage between Bell Globemedia and CHUM Ltd. was announced, all eyes were on the enormity of the deal.

Only a relative few paragraphs were dedicated to the devastating news that CHUM was cutting as many as 281 jobs and hours of local programming.

Of course, in corporate-speak, it announced "plans for a new approach to local information programming at its conventional television stations across the country."

Translation?

In half CHUM's TV markets, news was dramatically slashed.

So dramatically that the Communication, Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP), the largest media union (and the one that represents us Star drones), last week filed a 24-page complaint to the federal broadcast regulator, calling for an immediate inquiry.

The cuts were draconian.

In cities such as Winnipeg, familiar faces and programs just disappeared. Programs that CHUM had either promised or committed to produce. Gone, without so much as a sign-off.

Not much to add to what I have written, or blogged here, here and here, except to say less news is NEVER good news. If CHUM couldn't make the programs work in those markets, they should have fixed them, not cancelled them.

The Pen is mightier than the keyboard

Sorry for lack of posts kids. Been overwhelmed with domestic obligations, under the weather and kinda fed up with certain commenters here.

One thing I did want to tell you about is tonight's edition of CBC's Life & Times on political cartoonist Terry Mosher, a.k.a. Aislin, who has often allowed me to post his work on this here blog. On at 8 tonight, it's a frank look at Terry who says he is now in ''a state of grace'' after years of hard-drinking, drugs and partying.

Although he's a swell guy now, there was a period when he was not very nice, I can tell you.

For example, back in 1984, when Jean Chrétien was running against John Turner for the federal Liberal Party leadership, I was a CBC-TV News reporter in Montreal assigned to ask political cartoonists which face they would prefer to win. The assignment editor had already made up his mind -- who says news isn't manufactured? -- and, of course, the preferred caricature, to him, had to be Chrétien's because of his lopsided mouth. So, of course, I called Terry and tried to persuade him to give me the answer the assignment editor wanted.

HE ALMOST TOOK MY HEAD OFF.

And good for him. He was right of course. (But he coulda been nicer about it.)

Anyway, he's mellowed out now, and, aside from an obsession with former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, he seems almost normal. (Did you ever notice that Muldoon has no neck?)

Watch it. Dangerous When Provoked: The Life & Times of Terry Mosher. Tonight at 8.

YOU'RE ON NOTICE!

"You're on notice, you Hosers!"

Today I deleted a number of comments from both sides of the Middle Eastern debate.

I have lost all patience for people who are here just spoiling for a fight. Going off-topic is one thing, and it's welcome if it advances the exchange or adds some intelligence, new information or levity, but flame wars and the hijacking of threads are not.

If you're a repeat offender, and some of you already are, your comments will be deleted and your IP will be banned.

Keep this up, and I'll just close all comments.

NB: I have time-stamped this notice well into the future so it remains at the top of the blog for a while.

H/t to Big G. (and Ivor) for the Stephen Colbert pic! To generate one, here's the link.

UPDATE (AUG. 17 @12:17 a.m.): How ironic. On a thread about deleting comments, I have started deleting comments. And now I am closing them.

Moving on up

Global TV's Washington correspondent Troy Reeb is stepping behind the camera and behind a big desk. He's just been appointed vice president of news operations, to be based in Toronto. Announced Steve Wyatt, senior v.p. of news, in a memo to staff today:

In this new role, Troy will be responsible for coordinating our efforts at the local and national level. He will provide strategic direction to our news directors and the Global National team to enable us to make the best and most efficient use of our resources across the network on a daily basis.  He will be based in Toronto.  Troy will report to me and I will now be able to devote more of my time on the strategic growth of news programming in broadcast and beyond in concert with the Broadcast Leadership Team.

But what's this? (Boldface is mine):

Peter Kent will continue to report to me as Deputy Editor-in-Chief with primary responsibility for current affairs and documentary development. Also, he will continue to be our point person in enhancing our relationship with our print partners.  Peter will continue to play a key role in the introduction of new digital technologies. 

Peter Kent? Considering his run as a Conservative in the Toronto riding of St. Paul's during the last federal election, I would think he would be sticking to his responsibilities as executive in charge of equipment. But no.

One of those things that make me go, hmmmm.

I read, I hear

Toronto party prince Shinan Govani, the National Post's gossip columnist, gets the boldface treatment in this month's Toronto Life. The delightfully bitchy Gerald Hannon was the perfect pick to write this profile. (I added the links.)

Finally, hired in 2000 by then National Post editor Ken Whyte to deliver a scene column. Fired in 2001, when the Post shed most of its interesting writers. Hired back after, as he puts it, “Whyte came to his senses.” Began with three columns a week; now delivers five. The real kick-start to the column as a must-read came from a very public feud with writer Russell Smith in July 2001. Shinan wrote up a fetish-themed party for the launch of the S&M magazine Whiplash (scroll down), describing Smith as “dressed in wallpapered-on leather pants—offering ample evidence he’s making good use of his gym membership,” and adding that “the writer led ‘friend’ Krista around by a long, dangling leash.” Smith, who thought of himself as part of Govani’s friendship circle and therefore immune to unauthorized revelations, took exception and e-mailed his displeasure. The subsequent exchange ended up in the pages of Frank magazine. “I was a nobody columnist and he a member of the establishment,” Govani says today. “That feud established me in a way—people talked about it for years.” The affair seems to rankle still—on both sides. Govani, who can be cleverly mean but never vicious, describes Smith as “an ogre, with a brittle ego at work,” and says that Smith elbowed him in the back when the two met accidentally in the washroom of a downtown club. Smith does not remember any such incident, won’t talk about Shinan (“that’s what he wants most in the world—to be talked about”), and refers me to a scene in the movie Casablanca in which Peter Lorre says to Bogart, “You despise me, don’t you,” and Bogie comes back with, “If I gave you any thought I probably would.”

Anyway, it's a lonely life apparently being a society columnist. Hey, Shinan! Wanna come over for a BBQ? I'll serve up some dish neither of us can use.

The other true crime

THIS POST HAS BEEN CORRECTED & UPDATED:

I spent the morning watching the non-stop coverage of the arrest of John Mark Karr, 41, in the JonBenet Ramsey murder case. All the usual experts suspects have been trotted out to spout their opinions on this guy's motives and psychological make-up. On Fox News around noon, I heard them actually peculating speculating that the suspect's confession was bogus and that Islamic terrorists were involved. SWEAR TO GOD!

Why this story led last night's edition of CBC-TV's The National -- Radio-Canada's Telejournal has far more serious priorities -- beats me. (A commenter below correctly points out that the AIDS conference and the drowning of a little Q uebec boy were ahead of the JonBenet story on the National. My bad. What I should have written was, why this story "preceded'' others.) There's a freaking war on! In fact, there are lots of them!

Anyway, here's part of today's pulpware effort on the subject of the media coverage of the case.

Tried and convicted by the media, and aided and abetted by an incompetent police force, the Ramseys were guilty! guilty! guilty!

That despite the fact that, aside from Patsy's wish to see her daughter high-kick in her own beauty pageant footsteps, there was nothing in this family's history indicating anything untoward.

But Patsy's mania for her daughter's winning Miss This or That ribbons was enough to do the trick.

For the better part of a decade, it was impossible to escape the unrelenting coverage.

JonBenet's luridly painted little face, Grand Ole Opry-style big hair and voluminous dresses became indelible and iconic images of the 1990s.

The videos of her prancing and dancing her way across stages were played and replayed by CNN, Court TV and the then weeks-old Fox News and MSNBC.

It was the Ramseys' great misfortune that both Fox and MSNBC had been born in the wake of the last "true crime" media feeding frenzy, the mother of all cable coverage marathons, the O.J. Simpson case, and they were determined to cash in on JonBenet's murder.

What's more, primetime was still filled with trashy tabs and more than a dozen network newsmagazines.

Of course, it must not be lost on anybody that JonBenet was white, and pretty, and her parents rich.

As we have seen with other cases — for example, the 2002 Elizabeth Smart abduction, which occurred at the same time as the African American Alexis Patterson, 7, was snatched from her tenement in Milwaukee — blondes get more play.

The JonBenet case also fuelled, and was fuelled by, the then-nascent World Wide Web. Entire sites are dedicated to the murder, to advancing various theories, to examining the evidence, and, most grisly of all, to presenting the autopsy photos.

And so, it became a multi-media perfect storm of pointing fingers.

The column has itself provoked a media feeding frenzy. Ironic, no? I have so far turned down five TV interviews and three radio gigs on the matter but I will be doing 10 CBC Radio One drive home shows across Canada between 3 and 6. Listen for me in Ottawa, Calgary, Halifax, Yellowknife, Toronto, St. John's, Victoria, Winnipeg and Edmonton.

And yeah, I have a bad cold.

UPDATE: Editor & Publisher has a couple of good analyses on this.

The first is a look at how a journalism professor played a key role in the arrest. But far more interesting is this examination of how the media -- once more -- are rushing to judgement.

Is the press going overboard in its coverage of the latest twist in the JonBenet Ramsey murder case -- and suggesting, too early, that the suspect suddenly in custody, John Karr, is guilty?

The front page headline in New York's Daily News today, for example, read: "SOLVED." The lead in the main arrest story in Denver's Rocky Mountain News reads: "The decade-long search for JonBenet Ramsey's killer came to a startling end in Thailand on Wednesday."

The same paper, in a headline over an editorial, declared, "Arrest is warning against rush to judgment." It meant the wide belief that one of the girl's parents may have killed her, but the same might be said about the early media coverage of the Karr arrest.

Investigators in Thailand told the Associated Press today that Karr has made several dubious statements to them, including claims that he picked JonBenet up from school the day she was killed and that he drugged her. Actually, she was on Christmas vacation at the time, and there was no evidence of drugs in her body during the autopsy.

Much of the media has downplayed assertions by Karr's ex-wife that he was with her in Alabama at the time of the murder.

Boston University journalism professor Fred Bayles, a longtime national writer for The Associated Press and USA Today -- among other subjects, he covered the O.J. Simpson murder probe -- told E&P today: "The latest chapter in the JonBenet case offers a journalistic cautionary for both the past and the future.

In fairness, as I noted earlier, some media have already begun to question Karr's confession. That's fine. Trouble is, they'll be milking this one for a long time -- and, instead of closing the books on JonBenet's murder, this arrest may have merely opened another lurid media chapter.

UPPERDATE: Media coverage covers media coverage!

The View from over there

Way down deep in the comments section here, a debate on the meaning of anti-Semitism has erupted, and has, so far, remained totally civil. (Amazing. I plan to keep it that way.) The only reason I bring it to the fore is because of this column by my friend Danny Schechter the Media Dissector. His stuff always provokes. This time, he contends that the reason Americans are out of step with the rest of the world on the Middle East is because the media misleads them into it.

(S)urveys have shown over the years that ordinary members of the Jewish community are far more politically progressive about the need for peace than those who claim to be their “leaders,” self-righteous elite who sit on top of vast fundraising machines. They have well-paid jobs specializing in spreading fear and alarm about anti-Semitism as a tool for frequent solicitations and psychological conditioning. The memory of the Holocaust is still manipulated for political purposes.

There is a well-financed Israeli lobby that funds politicians and dominates the op-ed pages. What else explains the dramatic difference in public opinion in this country and overseas? Why do polls show Americans and Israelis backing the war while the world calls for a cease fire?

<SNIP>

Somehow many in our media have turned the words Israel and Jews into synonyms, as if all Jews are hard-line Zionists who automatically back the policies and practices of the Israeli government, every Israeli government. Ironically, there is more debate among Jews in Israel on these issues than is reported, or somehow allowed in the United States where Jewish critics of Israel policies are often ignored or labeled “self-hating” Jews.

Many organizations, especially in Democratic Party circles (and even the blogosphere) would prefer to ignore the issue for fear of being divisive or attacked. Notice how many in the Congress rallied to Israel’s side before the facts were even in. Notice how few, even in the anti-war contingent, had the courage to speak out.

<SNIP>

It's not surprising that many Jews are unaware of what’s happening largely because of the information diet they are exposed to, every day and in all media--just like the rest of us. They are expected to recite the “official” mantra—not think for themselves.

I have been reading opinion pieces from both Ha'aretz and the Jerusalem Post, which is further to the right, almost daily, and I have to say that their tone and content are inconsistent with the media here. For example, there we see calls for the heads of the Olmert government, with frank admissions that Israel botched the war. Here, the MSM tiptoe through the issues (with the exception of the National Post, of course) while the ''ethnic'' press (obviously I can only read the English-language versions) is screechingly partisan.

It's an emotional, existential issue. I know. But we have reached the point in the West where it MUST be discussed, openly and rationally, free of cant, rancour and hatred.

Is that even possible?

UPDATE (AUG. 18/06 @ 17:38): Apparently not. Another thread is biting the dust, the comments closed. If you think this means that I will not be continuing to cover the coverage of the Middle East, think again.

Comings and goings

THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED:

CBC-TV current affairs staffers should have something to celebrate this week when the appointment of Doug Grant, formerly exec producer of TVO's now defunct Studio 2, to head of Current Affairs is announced. Grant, who was unceremoniously dumped after 12 years when Studio 2 was canceled in June, is an ex-CBCer and is well-regarded for his news judgment and managerial skills. He will replace Julie Bristow, who went on to become head of Factual Entertainment.

Actually, there was a duel over Grant at CBC. Word is that both chief news and information programming poobah Tony Burman wanted him (after a couple of internal candidates turned down the job) as did newly-named documentary mogul Mark Starowicz who tried to get him to replace a couple of veteran documentary overseers who, um, exited this year. I hear Burman made the better offer.

Now watch for Grant's wife, Paula Todd, the ex-cohost of Studio 2, to try for a job at CBC. She'll have to get in behind a long line of other fantastic anchor-type females -- Heather Hiscox, Nancy Wilson, Carole MacNeil, Susan Ormiston, Wendy Mesley, Diana Swain, Dianne Buckner, Alison Smith, Jacqui Perrin, and on and on.

(An aside: A few years ago, when one of CBC's many anchorish females suddenly quit the broadcaster, I asked her why. "Because there are too many blue-eyed blondes in line ahead of me," she said.)

Speaking of which, former CBC Montreal type, and ex-cohost of Discovery's @disovery.ca Gillian Deacon has been tapped to front the network's new daytime lifestyle show. Still untitled, it sounds like a home and garden version of Oprah's O mag. Here's what the news release says:

The program will openly and often humorously scrutinize what the experts and laymen have to offer in the areas of health, decorating, child rearing, relationships and romance-to mention a few.

I know Gillian's work, and Gillian personally. (She lives in my 'hood.) She is bright and talented. But I wonder if this show is what CBC needs in the daytime. I would rather see something a little harder hitting, and more on the edge.

But then, I am going by the news release.

UPPITY DATE (Aug. 17 @ 2 p.m.): It's official. Doug Grant has been appointed, and insiders are feeling great that someone of his integrity is willing to take on the job in the much beleagured CBC.

Licence to kill

Last month, when CHUM axed local newscasts across the country -- killing nearly 300 jobs -- it went in default of its conditions of licence. At least that's what the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP) charges. (Boldface is mine.)

Chum Limited is in violation of its TV station licences and the CRTC should call an inquiry into the issue and require that the broadcaster fulfill its licence obligations and commitments, says Canada's largest media union.

The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada has filed a complaint with the Canadian Radio/Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) in which it is asking the CRTC to declare CHUM Limited in violation of its TV station licenses as a result of recent program cancellations at various stations across the country.

"The dramatic reductions in local programming run counter to explicit commitments made by CHUM to the CRTC. The cuts also have the effect of reducing local content to such a level that at some locations, CHUM is no longer in compliance with its conditions of license," a CEP complaint filed with the CRTC states.

Stations most dramatically affected by the cuts, mainly in local news coverage, include A-Channel Ottawa; A-Channel Victoria; CityTV Calgary; CityTV Edmonton; CityTV Vancouver; and, CityTV Winnipeg. Local news coverage, the complaint adds, has also suffered at the A-Channel in Barrie, Ontario.

Recall that the news cuts came on the same day of the announcement that CHUM was being sold to Bell Globemedia for $1.4 billion. At the time, CHUM CEO Jay Switzer insisted -- and I still believe him -- that the job cuts had nothing to do with the sale, and that they had been in the works for 9 months.

Still, they were draconian and, in some cases, eviscerated local operations.

I haven't had a chance to study the licences of all the relevant stations but I have looked at this, the 2004 CRTC decision which awarded CHUM the Craig group of stations, which included some of the operations hard hit by the cuts. Boldface, again, is mine.

13. CHUM stated that it would increase the quality and extent of coverage of local news and other events for the newly acquired stations in Alberta and Manitoba. CHUM added that it would bring its "street-front/store-front" style of television to as wide an audience as possible by establishing storefront bureaus in Red Deer and Lethbridge, Alberta. CHUM submitted that these bureaus would help ensure that viewers in rural areas are reflected in the local programming broadcast on the Edmonton and Calgary stations.

14. CHUM anticipated that at least a half-hour per week of programming would come from each of the storefront bureaus. This programming would highlight and showcase the opinions and events in the more rural areas of Alberta, where a significant proportion of the audiences for the Edmonton and Calgary stations resides.

Seems like a slam dunk for the CEP, right?

But will the CRTC let CHUM and, by extension, Bell Globemedia get away with it it?

Of course.

H/t to Carla.

 

The hardest story to cover

THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED:

Via Canadian Journalist:

Dunno how I missed this in yesterday's New York Times (sub. req'd), considering everything that has happened on this blog in recent weeks.

Wars in the modern media age often come complete with their own journalistic difficulties.

Although doctored and stage-managed photographs out of Lebanon garnered their share of headlines last week, they are just a part of a larger, underlying issue: the role of images in fairly portraying the conflict incited nearly five weeks ago by Hezbollah’s raid into Israel and its kidnapping of two soldiers.

Particularly vexing for many American news organizations is the struggle to determine how and in what proportion images of civilian dead and injured should be displayed in their coverage, when one side’s casualties greatly surpass the other.

The journalistic calculus is made tougher by the involvement of the Arab-Israeli conflict, a topic that bedevils news editors like no other, and an organization, Hezbollah, that is considered a terrorist group by the United States government.

<SNIP>

Editors and executives at newspapers, newsmagazines and the broadcast and cable networks say they do not impose a formula for fairness on coverage of this conflagration. “This is not a sporting event, where we’re toting up the scores of both sides,” said Jonathan Klein, president of CNN for the United States.

But, they concede, they are very conscious of keeping a rough balance over time, whether that is a 24-hour cable news cycle or a week’s worth of evening broadcasts and newspapers. And they pay special attention to images because of their potency.

“Photos are trickier than words, because their content is in large measure emotional, visceral, and because you can’t edit their content,” said Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times. “You can’t insert a ‘to be sure’ paragraph in a photo.”

<SNIP>

Jon Banner, executive producer of “World News With Charles Gibson” on ABC, said he could not think of a news event in recent memory more difficult to cover, given the complexity of the issues and powerful nature of the images. Usually ABC has run one segment from Lebanon and one from Israel as a way to tell both sides of the fighting.

That, to some, is a dereliction of journalistic duty. Some critics of Israel argue that because the death tolls and destruction are greater in Lebanon, a proportionality of sorts should inform the resulting reports; anything else betrays a pro-Israeli stance. But supporters of Israel say such an approach bestows a misguided moral equivalence. Israel is a democratic nation exercising its right to self-defense, they argue, while Hezbollah is a terrorist organization that uses the Lebanese people as human shields.

<SNIP>

Executives at news organizations, long steeled to complaints about their Middle East coverage from various sides, said they tried to avoid pandering to critics. “They don’t want you to be balanced in your coverage,” said Mr. Keller of The Times. “They want you to portray the morality of the war as they see it.”

I can agree with that.

UPPITY DATE: Further and further to those allegations of staged Qana photos, here's (YouTube) a very interesting German-language deconstruction of the propaganda that went into the making of some of them. Note the warning of potential inaccuracies.

UPPERDATE (Aug. 16 @ 5:40): Unlike the right-wing pajamahadeen, AP reporter Kathy Gannon worked to track down the infamous "Green Helmet'' that the flogosphere has been using to make themselves feel better about the slaughter of civilians at Qana.

After hours of digging in the blistering heat, Salam Daher emerged from the wreckage with the body of a 9-month-old baby, a blue pacifier still pinned to its nightshirt.

He held the infant up and, click, an Associated Press photographer snapped another picture of Daher, in his trademark green helmet, displaying a civilian victim of Israeli bombs for the world to see.

Daher, a member of the civil defense for 20 years, has been photographed with bodies of the dead in two wars now — first in 1996 and most recently with the baby on July 30 __ both times after Israeli attacks in the village of Qana six miles southeast of the city.

For that reason, some Web sites have labeled him the "Green Helmet," and accused him of being a member