You're lucky I don't believe in suing journalists

PunkalawyerbloggerNationalPostmediacolumnist Warren Kinsella slanders me on his blog today. And I quote:

The Toronto Star's anti-CanWest ICBM, Zerb, continues to spread disinformation about the Post to boost sagging morale at One Yonge. She shouldn't. It's not fair, and it's not accurate. I was at one of the information sessions on Don Mills Road yesterday, and here's what I heard: THE NATIONAL POST IS HIRING PEOPLE. Editorial, advertising, you name it. HIRING PEOPLE. That, to me, is not the behaviour of an organization that is in trouble; it's the behaviour of an organization that is growing. Meanwhile, Ed Greenspon this week told the Wall Street Journal that his newspaper is heading towards a "cliff," quote unquote. Why doesn't she write about that? Maybe I will.

BONG!

Calling me ''anti-CanWest'' impugns my credibility. He has no proof. I have a cordial relationship with David Asper and, over 17 years of covering the media in this town, have had plenty of good things to say about the organization, despite what certain execs may feel.

Then he claims that I did not report that the Post is hiring.

WRONG! This is just part of what I posted of a very good-news-at-the-Post post I put up here here yesterday.

On the upside: The first half of this fiscal year has been good and the hope is to break even by 2008. There is a new ad strategy ready to go. The online side will get overhauled. There has been some hiring and there will be more hiring in editorial. There be a renewed focus on Toronto.

Yo, War! Can't you read?

Finally, he wants to know why I don't quote Globe editor Ed Greenspon telling the Wall Street Journal ''that his newspaper is heading towards a "cliff," quote unquote.''

GONG!

Maybe that's because he didn't say that??? What's more I link to the WSJ piece here. And, more important, this is how the Journal, which described the Globe's recent redesign, concluded its gushy piece.

Mr. Greenspon says he doesn't know what kinds of change will result from the staff-driven makeover. But he says he realizes his paper's relative success may not be good enough in the long run. "Newspapers are falling off the cliff," he says. "But we're at the back."

Sorry to burden you readers with this here but Kinsella has no room for comments on his blog. I have emailed him. Let's see what he does.

I like to bring men to their knees.

UPPITY DATE: It's the battle of the media columnists!!!

KInsella has posted this today:

I wasn't entirely fair to Zerb, as she quickly and loudly and repeatedly pointed out, in her take on the week's Post meetings (on how she's unfairly smeared the paper in the past - that's a different story, and I'll be telling it very soon). Here's what she wrote: "On the upside: The first half of this fiscal year has been good and the hope is to break even by 2008. There is a new ad strategy ready to go. The online side will get overhauled. There has been some hiring and there will be more hiring in editorial. There be a renewed focus on Toronto." But has she been on a campaign to vilify and demoralize the Post for a long, long time? Yes. Do I plan to document that? Yes.

Well, I guess he must now that he takes a paycheque from the Post.

Bring it on. Like Tom Petty sings, I won't back down and I have rhino skin.

Like I wrote to him: I only hope that when he documents my alleged ''campaign to 'vilify'' the Post, I would hope he includes all the (1) positive things I have written and (2) the Post's attacks on me.

As if.

 

 

Comments

[Robert McClelland]

You should go easy on poor Warren. He's been spreading misinformation for so long that he simply no longer recognizes what the truth looks like.

[Antonia]

Now, now. Maybe he's having a bad day.

[Blair]

On the "Comments Please" web site a discussion is underway regarding the Greenspon comment. My take in summary was:

As someone who is willing to sue to protect your good name and credibility it is amusing to see how quickly you (Mr. Kinsella) are willing to throw that same credibility away. I suggest you attempt to publish your comment in the Post and let your editor and peers judge your views and words. I’m pretty sure even your supporters will disown you for such a blatant sophistry.

[Robert McClelland]

I doubt it, Antonia. After all, the guy did write a book about spreading misinformation for political gain.

[Dana]

Someone's gotta be Canada's version of BERNIE GOLDBERG.

[Glowbull]

Kinsellout has never really been one to let facts obstruct a good smear job. I doubt he's gonna start now.

[Bob Rutter]

Antonia: Surely you know the difference between slander and libel, or have I missed something about blogs not being considered as publication.

[Antonia]

Warren has replied to my email and says he will ''correct the record'' and I am ''still a peach'' in his books.

I'll update this post when he updates his.

[Antonia]

Oh, and Bob Rutter, you're right. Technically I guess it was libel. But blibel is still a grey area legally I think. I dunno if anybody has successfully sued for blibel yet in Canada.

[sooey]

yay! flame war!! you all suck!!! sooey rools!!

[Ted]

Antonia: None that I'm aware of. We were all waiting for Warren's lawsuit against Mark Bourrie (aka OttawaWatch) to go all the way to fine. Ah well. We'll just have to go on waiting.

[vinb]

"cliff," quote unquote.

Just wanted to see that again.

[Jay Currie]

Ah, Antonia, you have just performed your first "fisking": a blog term named after Robert Fisk who shares Mr. K's drive-by acquaintance with truth.

Perhaps Mr. K missed the day at school where they taught you to read what is on the page rather than just making stuff up. It would explain a lot.

[Joe]

At the risk of shameless self promotion, I posted a link to an article on my site yesterday that talks about libel and the blogosphere. It originated out of Kingston via CBC News online.

I'm not sure how to post links in the comments here and the CBC story is a really long URL, but the link is at the URL attached to my name here.

From my basic understanding of Media Law, the common law of libel applies to any form of publication; the grey area applies with specific respect to the Ontario Libel and Slander Act.

[sooey]

okay, guys. an internet genius named elvid presliad made it all real simple. when you leap into the internet, you land in either springfield or shelbyville. hehehe - and warren kinsella thinks he's in springfield. now, i'd tip him off, but... that would bring down the internet's mockworth value. and let's face it, we all need a neigbour to feel better than - canada/united states; india/pakistan; france/the rest of europe; and so on and so forth and more of the same etc etc right on down to port hope/cobourg.

[Mike Watkins]

He's defending his new boss, it seems, and nothing more.

But that was a grade school trick he tried to dump on people, and I'm glad you called him on it.

It might be charitable to say he was misinformed and too lazy to spend 5 minutes fact-checking; possibly he was merely repeating what he'd been told by someone else and had no pecuniary interest in facts; in any case, his ABM launch misfired.

[Mark-Alan Whittle]

One can only assume the pressure of desparately trying to make a silk purse out of a sows ear respecting Dalton McGuity is making warren careless and sloppy, after cleanly eviscerating mark bourrie with the sword of slander he should have rightly fallen upon, the crafty devil.

Snake eyes, once again.

So poetic justice gets to have a leering grin, at warrens expense, now that he has sheepishly fallen from grace so soon in his 'woodcut' career at the national post-script.

At least Blogging allows you to clean up your act, unlike the printed pages that requires another to make it right, not to mention evoking the scruitiny of Da' Boss, one Dalton McGuinty = $$$.

Last time I saw one dimensional 'woodwork' as dimensionless as warren, it was petrified wood, a science exibit in high school. A aged relic of the past used for instructional purposes only and a hefty paperweight for something more important to keep from getting 'blown away'.

Perhaps warren is destined to be Dalton's "Klander" or heaven forbid, his "popcorn and beer" nightmare like Scott Reid was to Dithers?

[Antonia]

Still waiting for that correction ....

[Dana]

I've just spent the last few minutes wading through the fecal matter at commentsplease.

Kinsella has posted a sortakinda correction that shares a rhetorical ancestry with faint praise.

In my naivete I didn't know that he was as determined a weasel as he is showing himself to be.

Good fit for The Post.

[Mark-Alan Whittle]

Seems due to the Dalton McDithers 'ban' on pit-bulls, warren K. has been emasculated, rendered nothing more than a toothless attack poodle for the 'new and improved' Premier of Ontario, introducing 'Four Seasons' Dalton McDithers, and a few 'pennies' that turned, one quite un-loyally.

Talk is cheap, even 'Big-Town-Cheap' in the snotty NDP enclaves of Toronto, where Warren's taking one on the 'Chin', pun intended, of course.

Just the facts please, shiny limo's aside, although I rode in one once, smelled like cheap Ambergris perfume, but who was I to complain once the flash bulbs started going off like a million blinding suns invading ones universe of the common man?

I smiled as best I could, while smirking inside at the pomposity of it all, the fawning praise, the ‘good old boy’ back-slapping, like these ‘mooks’ actually knew me, were my friends? It was creepy to the max, although my long-suffering wife got a kick out of it. The longing looks, the outstretched hands ... couldn't wait to escape out the back door behind the Dais and the refuge of the 'street', where I can always find a common man to relate to, get my feet back on the ground, have a smoke, be humanistic. Revel in our good fortune to be rid of the ‘shallow glitter’, the paparrazi flitting around inside amusing the ladies mostly, if only for a moment or two.

As warren's fast finding out, you can't cruise in the limo forever, can one? Some find out quicker than others. Losing such privilege is hard for an adult to take, but for a child who worshipped his father so, like all of us do, it could be tragic, even when you're ten, like Ben?

But is this privilege something to hide from, to be ashamed of, hardly, and could have been easily spun by warren, had he known about it?

I think not.

All we see now is damage control, offensively lash-out and answer with slur and innuendo. Politics is never dull, unless the drawers full of them, got your trusty old ‘Buck’ handy AZ, things are looking pretty dull in there right about now?

[Jason Cherniak]

By posting his words, do you libel yourself? Just asking.

[Jiminy C]

You are absolutely wrong Antonia!
You DO NOT have rhino skin!
Now - stop poking Worn wilya?
He's still hurting from boosting Harpy as a straight up politician who will do things differently (at least different from PMPM).
If you really want to wind him up - ask him what went wrong? Are David Herle and Tim Murphy still pulling the strings in the PMO or what?

[Scott Disher aka MoDuv]

Gosh, so now we know the real reason why the Grasper bros actually hired War Kins, the duck-faced Waste Management pitch rat, as ahem their pet media 'columnist'..they hired him to broadband some ad feminem rottweilering cum slobberfest innuendo and flak in the direction of Mme. Zerby, who has been the only MSM'er to publicly wallop and lampoon the greasyboys and their little media bucket shop cum single paper markets monopoly.

Nothing has burned the Greaspos butts harder than having to endure the periodic saucy excoriations meted out by the T-Star's blog Queen and national taste arbiter in media matters.

Personally, I think War Kins is all talk and no action on this front and that he's palavering in order to try and satisfy the revanchiste longings of his newest patrons BUT that he won't dare draw blood--because, if suitably provoked, Mme. Zerby has the wiles and clout to eviscerate and emasculate War Kins by exposing him for the lurperish wank monkey that he is.

Oughta be some fun watchin War Kins jump to in order to seem to please his new masters.

P.S. I can attest personnally to Mme. Zerby's strict editing re: various comments sent to her re: the Graspers--my own occasional contributions having been bowdlerized for her T-Star blog but left ungrundied at other non-MSM blogosphere comments strings.

[koby]

"Ah, Antonia, you have just performed your first "fisking": a blog term named after Robert Fisk who shares Mr. K's drive-by acquaintance with truth."

Actually, Jay she has done so before and on my urging she calls it "Fruming" and not "Fisking".

As for National Post bashing, Keep in mind that this is the paper that listed Conrad Black as being in the running for the top Canadian "public intellectual".

[sooey]

you're just jealous!!! 'cause he's got the asper touch: a little song, a little dance, a little eckler/steyn down his pants...