Return fire

An update on Crossfire, a post a few weeks ago that referenced a damning report by Alison Weirs of If Americans Knew, whose mission is "to inform and educate the American public on issues of major significance that are unreported, underreported, or misreported in the American media." (From the look of it, right now it's a single issue mission -- and that issue is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.)

Weirs' damning report accused AP (Associated Press) of erasing a video of an Israeli soldier deliberately and randomly shooting a Palestinian boy. (More here, with video.)

When I contacted an AP spokesperson, he all but dismissed Weirs' charges. But, to be honest, he didn't do so as quickly as I would have thought he would have considering that the issue was out there. It took a day to get a statement. What's more, he didn't deny everything outright. You can read AP's statement on my original Crossfire post.

Yesterday I heard from Weirs who emailed:

It is not surprising that AP, which at first refused to comment, is now denying any misbehavior. When was the last time we heard a powerful institution admit, without immense outside pressure, that it had done something wrong? Almost all criminals cry that they didn’t do it. Some did. Claiming innocence does not make one innocent.

So now people have two versions to consider:

   1. My version, based on interviews with eyewitnesses (some on film) conducted in Balata and Nablus two weeks after the event, and
 

    2. The version now advanced by AP through Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll, based on we’re-not-told-what evidence acquired over a year after the event, from New York.

The first step is to consider both of these versions carefully, and not automatically accept AP’s version, merely because it is the “establishment” one. I hope that people will not equate power with truth and will not automatically or unconsciously favor an institution over an individual. I hope that people will not automatically believe a corporation over a whistle-blower. I hope that AP’s enormous power and the advantages a journalist may gain from allying with it will not cause commentators to give AP’s assertions greater weight than mine.

In your evaluation, please keep in mind that I had little to gain from writing my article, and no reason to make things up. I have had friends who have been employed by AP and I have long held many AP journalists in high regard. I have no reason to be “anti-AP”, and am not. Moreover, I knew that in writing my article I was taking on a powerful organization with considerable influence and immense resources. Nevertheless, it seemed important to expose the facts I had discovered.

Her missive is much too long to post in its entirety here. I asked if she might put it up on her website so that I could link to it. She did. So here's the link. She provides a point-by-point refutation of the AP statement given to me. Says Weirs:

AP’s power to inform, or to misinform, the American public is truly gargantuan. It is therefore profoundly important that its practices be transparent, that it be open and responsive when there is evidence that its coverage is flawed, and that it abide by its own statement of principles: “Any time a question is raised about any aspect of our work, it should be taken seriously.”

In 1914, AP’s general manager wrote: “I have no thought of saying The Associated Press is perfect. The frailties of human nature attach to it...the thing it is striving for is a truthful, unbiased report of the world’s happenings ... ethical in the highest degree.”

I applaud this shining statement, and deeply hope that AP’s members will hold AP to it.

Read it. Look at the video. Judge for yourself.

 

We interrupt this blog for this special announcement

Here we go again. Every year Statistics Canada puts out its report on TV watching in Canada and every year the media pounce on it, saying TV watching is spiraling down, down, down. Here's the latest, posted by CBC, which ought to know better:

Canadians, especially teens, are spending less time watching television, according to Statistics Canada.

A report released Friday shows a drastic drop in the time children aged 12 to 17 spent watching TV in the fall of 2004. The age group logged an average of 12.9 hours a week, down two hours from the same period in 2003.

 

The report said the drop could partly be attributed to the rise in Internet use.

But here's the thing:

Statistics Canada's numbers on television viewing come mainly from data acquired from BBM Canada – a not-for-profit, research company established in 1944 by the Canadian Association of Broadcasters and the Association of Canadian Advertisers.

BBM Canada collected its information from a diary-style questionnaire provided to households over four weeks during October and November 2004.

Now no measurement of TV viewing is perfect but diaries are less perfect than others. That's because people always understate how much they watch and always overstate stuff like how much news they see while not mentioning the fact that they're really up in the kinky zone of the dial.

That's why this is the gold standard of measuring TV viewership.

Ignore the reports on the StatsCan report.

 

 

Now we know why the PMO wants them to shut up

Really, this says it all (I added the link):

Vernon, B.C. — A backbench Conservative MP, blasting the media for its testy relationship with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, has suggested reporters who write distorted articles be jailed.

In a brief column sent to several newspapers in his Okanagan-Shuswap riding, Colin Mayes said that might help the public “get accurate and true information.”

Mr. Mayes seemed to suggesting in his column that the media be covered by something like the Conservative government's proposed Federal Accountability Act, which would prosecute elected officials and senior public servants who break the public trust.

“Maybe it is time that we hauled off in handcuffs reporters that fabricate stories, or twist information and even falsely accuse citizens,” he writes.

Nunc Scio says:

Journalism is not a profession in the conventional sense. It is the exercise, by occupation, of every citizen's right to freedom of expression. So really, what Mayes wants to lock up citizens for expressing opinions and stories he doesn't agree with. Has he even read the Charter? I mean, I know he's in the Conservative Party, and the constitution isn't exactly required reading over there. But he's been around for a while. He must have picked something up about inalienable human freedoms.

For all his proto-fascist bluster, Mr Mayes is not optimistic about the success of his plan. As he told the Globe, it will never happen “because the media would cry ‘censorship' and ‘authoritarian state'".

Yes but who would hear our cries from the dungeons?

H/t: Scott Tribe

THIS JUST IN: Looks like Mayes got the gag order.

In a one-paragraph statement issued Friday, however, Mayes apologized for the column.

"I wish to retract without reservation the comments I made in a release sent out earlier this week," he wrote.

"I would like to make it very clear that I fully respect the freedom of the press. I regret my choice of words and the message that they conveyed."

Damn the media for putting them out there.

Step on it!

You can bet General Motors is not going to like this entry in their SUV ad contest. See it here before they kill it. Which should be any second now!

Hat tip: Dana O'still

And it's 1, 2, 3, what are we fighting for?

Reading all the moving stories this morning of how twenty-two-year-old Private Robert Costall became the first Canadian solider to die in Afghanistan during active combat, I recalled this recent documentary (RMP) by CBC's Carol Off. It is totally worth 12 minutes of your time. From the narration:

Some reports say that as many as half of the Afghan parliament is made up of people suspected of war crimes.

The supposed former warlords in Afghanistan's parliament allegedly repress women, threaten the people and profit from the opium trade. Here's a Reuters report from last year on the matter.

It won't be long before, like in the U.S., we will be unable to rattle off the names of all the Canadian casualties in Afghanistan. Their deaths will no longer be front page news. And most news organizations will probably not keep reporters in the country. It's tragic but it's inevitable.

Maybe the thing to do is, ask more questions here at home.

Finally, some good news from Iraq

All morning long, the video of the Christian Science Monitor's stringer Jill Carroll talking of her captivity in Iraq has been playing and replaying on the news nets. She says she never even knew why she was kidnapped.

"They never hit me. They never even threatened to hit me," she said Thursday, wearing a gray Arabic robe.

"I'm just happy to be free. I want to be with my family."

Carroll said she was kept in a furnished room with a window and a shower, but she did not know where she was.

"I felt I was not free. It was difficult because I didn't know what would happen to me," she said.

She said she was allowed to watch TV once and read a newspaper once.

Asked about the circumstances of her release, she said, "I don't know what happened. They just came to me early this morning and said, 'OK, we are letting you go now.'"

More here and here.

But it's not a completely happy ending: Let's not forget that, when she was kidnapped, her translator Allan Enwiya, a businessman and father of two young children, was murdered.

Moving mountains

A regular reader in the 'Peg has emailed me the local reaction to yesterday's news of CanWest CEO Leonard Asper's impending move to Toronto. (The story so far is here.) Needless to say, they are rioting at Portage and Main at the betrayal, which comes hard on the heels of David Asper's relocation.

The Winnipeg Free Press (sub. req'd.) devoted both a story and a column to the exodus of both of the Late Israel (Izzy) Asper's sons. According to Gordon Sinclair Jr.:

The story of the Aspers' moving forced Leonard to send an e-mail yesterday assuring head office staff in Winnipeg -- which has grown from about 90 employees six years ago, to more than 600 today -- that the employees are not moving and neither is CanWest's Portage and Main headquarters.

But with the CEO -- and hence the brain -- moving to Toronto, it's hard not to get the sense that while he's living there, that's where head office really is.

"They'll swear allegiance to their ancestral home and keep part of the business operation there," an unnamed senior media figure told the Toronto paper, "but the fact is that given the financial challenges of the company, they need to be better connected to Bay Street."

And, from a story by Geoff Kirbyson:

Mayor Sam Katz said the commitment the Aspers have made over the years to Winnipeg, both as a family and as individuals, has had a major impact on the city and made it a better place to live. And there's no question they're committed to Winnipeg's future.

"You don't think the Asper family is putting all of its energy and God only knows how many millions of dollars into the museum of human rights? That's ongoing, their foundation is ongoing and other projects are ongoing," he said in an interview.

"Just think what you would do in that situation? Let the Aspers do what they've got to do and let's all be thankful for their valuable input into our city and the contribution they make to Winnipeg. I know I certainly am," he said.

Meanwhile, over at the Winnipeg Sun

"This is just a simple decision to reconcile business needs with family needs. We're still running this company out of Winnipeg," Leonard told the Sun from Orlando, Fla., where he's on vacation with his family. "No other executives are moving."

To calm potential fears at the firm's Winnipeg offices, Leonard Asper yesterday told employees in a memo that CanWest is not slashing operations.

"The first thing to know is that the head office of the company is not moving or being downsized," says his memo, adding that the need for "face-to-face meetings" has forced him, his wife and three children to spend two years in Toronto.

'REVERSE PAROCHIALISM'

The 41-year-old stressed that he and his family will continue to spend summers in and around Winnipeg. And he took a swipe at Toronto media pundits who have anonymously speculated in published reports that the change shows a crack in CanWest's resolve to centre its operations at Portage and Main.

Leonard Asper said it's a case of Toronto media "feeling they've won another convert" to soothe their egos.

<SNIP>

Mayor Sam Katz called the gloating of Hogtown pundits "pathetic."

"Thank God (the Aspers) love Winnipeg the way they do, and thank God there are other people in Winnipeg like them as well."

Funny because I missed the ''gloating'' entirely -- or at least any gloating about this being a win for the city of Toronto. That said, I did detect a whiff of gloating that the Asper brothers have to come to Bay Street since Bay Street is not going to them.

Hat tip: D.R.A. xoxo

 

In search of enlightenment

More on the appointment, announced yesterday, that Fred Fuchs is taking over the commssioning and production of all arts and enterainment programming at CBC-TV.

As I blogged, the headhunting firm that CBC had hired to fill the post was taken aback by the announcement. That's because the firm, Searchlight, was still on the hunt.

Now I am hearing that two weeks ago the U.S. cable channel Showtime asked Fuchs to exec produce a series they are shooting in Toronto but that he turned them down because he’d already been offered the CBC job.

So, for the past two weeks, it looks like the executive searchers may have been searching for nothing.

But did that ''nothing'' also mean nothing in fees?

Taxpayers demand to know!

            

Digest this

The most read magazine in Canada is ... Reader's Digest. Yup, the little old lady book, as I like to call it, racks up 7,206,000 readers a month, according to the PMB Print Measurement Bureau's 2006 Study released today.

Media in Canada reports

The venerable pub scored 7,206,000 readers 12+, far outweighing Chatelaine, a distant second at 4,476,000 with Canadian Living in tight for third at 4,406,000. The field was spread more evenly with French-language magazines. Coup de Pouce was the frontrunner with the 12+ aud scoring 1,428,000. French-language Châtelaine came second with 1,292,000 readers, narrowly edging out Sélection du Reader's Digest which scored 1,290,000.

The 2006 study included a record 114 magazines, a 33% increase since the last.

Here's English-speaking Canada's Top 10 (000,000s):

Reader's Digest 7.2
Chatelaine 4.4
People 3.7
Canadian Living 4.4
Canadian Geographic 4.1
What's Cooking* 3.5
Maclean's 2.9
Time 2.8
TV Guide 2.6
Canadian Gardening 2.4
Food & Drink 2.2
TV Times 2.1

D.B. Scott at Canadian Mags has more analysis here. Most interesting result? Maclean's readership is up, although circulation is down. That must mean that more people are motivated to actually read the thing while waiting for root canal.

A Boy Named Sue

Western Standard publisher Ezra Levant has issued a cry for help to all his supporters tonight. He needs $$$ to fight off a lawsuit by Syed Soharwardy, described in an email from Levant as '"a radical Calgary Muslim imam" who is going after the WS for publishing those controversial Danish cartoons last month.

In the email, Levant pleads for donations for a legal defence fund.

He asked the police to arrest me for publishing the cartoons. They calmly explained to him that’s not what police in Canada do.

   So then he went to a far less liberal institution than the police: the Alberta Human Rights Commission. Unlike the Calgary Police Service, they didn’t have the common sense to show him the door.

   Earlier this month, I received a copy of Soharwardy’s rambling, hand-scrawled complaint. It is truly an embarrassing document. He briefly complains that we published the Danish cartoons. But the bulk of his complaint is that we dared to try to justify it - that we dared to disagree with him.

   Think about that: In Soharwardy’s view, not only should the Canadian media be banned from publishing the cartoons, but we should be banned from defending our right to publish them. Perhaps the Charter of Rights that guarantees our freedom of the press should be banned, too.

   Soharwardy’s complaint goes further than just the cartoons. It refers to two news articles we published about Hamas, a group labelled a terrorist organization by the Canadian government. By including those other articles, he shows his real agenda: censoring any criticism of Muslim terrorists.

   Perhaps the most embarrassing thing about Soharwardy’s complaint is that he claims our cartoons caused him to receive hate mail. Indeed, his complaint includes a few e-mails from strangers to him. Some of those e-mails even go so far as to call him “humourless” and tell him to “lighten up”. Perhaps that’s hateful. But all of those e-mails were sent to him before our magazine even published the cartoons. Soharwardy isn’t even pretending that this is a legitimate complaint. He’s not even trying to hide that this is a nuisance suit.

You can find the letter and more here.

But you can't find any sense in any of this.