Spud Stud

THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED:

I'm no gossip columnist -- and I am very much a romantic -- but I hear that Conservative foreign affairs minister Peter MacKay and Jana Juginovic, Director of News and Programming for CTV Newsnet, were recently seen together at a cozy Nova Scotia hospitality establishment. (Juginovic used to be Mike Duffy's exec producer.)

Says my source, "Indeed, it was confirmed that Jana was seen, er, fluffing the Honorable Member in the vicinity."

Now I am not saying anything untoward is going on but, if there is some canoodling happening, it may explain why some people perceive a pro-Conservative bias in CTV's news coverage. Or why CTV is scoring more scoops. Or uncovering more stories. Or whatever.

Draw your own conclusions.

UPPITY DATE: A colleague at CTV News wrote this to me, while asking to remain anonymous. My comments are in blue.

I feel bad for Jana. What you blogged was a helluva smear and for what? So you can make a point about Conservative bias at CTV?

Well, prove it.

If --- and I don't know if it's true -- all you got is Jana and Peter then, consider this:

- See the latest UWO alumni magazine which features profiles of many journos who graduated from UWO's j-school. Among them, Ravi Baichwal, our Newsnet anchor and former political worker for Greg Sorbora and the provincial Liberals.

- Who hosted the last Confederation Dinner in Toronto for Jean Chretien, raising millions for the Liberals? Bell Globemedia CEO Ivan Fecan. (Fecan was also vice-chair of the record-setting fundraiser for Paul Martin in December 2003, chaired by Gerry Schwartz and Heather Reisman.)

- Who ran the Ontario campaign for the federal Liberals in the last election campaign? Michael Bird, who took a leave of absence from his job as BGM's Ottawa lobbyist to do just that. He didn't return to his old job.

- Who masterminded those Liberal attack ads in the last election? Jack Fleischman, the top editorial guy at BGM's ROBTv, who took a leave of absence to 'mastermind' Liberal marketing strategy. He DID return to his old job!

- Who went canoeing with Pierre Trudeau and all the old Liberal boys? Well, of course, you know the answer to that one. (Yes, former CTV News VP Tim Kotcheff who left the network in the early 90s to run news at CBC-TV. He left CBC in 1995.)

Maybe it was a cheap shot. I didn't mean it that way -- but it was a highly bloggable item. And still is, just like any high-level media and political connection would be.

 

Who's zooming whom?

THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED:

Warren Kinsella asks for my ''feminist'' reaction to his latest National Post column (pdf) about the ads at the back of Toronto's weekly alternative papers Now and Eye Weekly, the latter being owned by Torstar (which owns the Star which owns this blog but not me.)

There can't be much doubt what they are selling, or what they do to make money. Sasa, Yuki and Mimi are not that subtle. They are "Asian Babies," and you can rent their bodies -- or the bodies of three other girls -- for $80, 24 hours a day, in and around a northeast Toronto neighbourhood.

The postage-sized colour photographs that accompany their advertisement show Sasa, Yuki and Mimi nude, or partially nude. The display ad claims that they are over the age of 19, but the photographs seem designed to suggest they're much younger.

There are many more such advertisements, offering the services of dozens of other prostitutes. A "new student" who is "slim" and who will provide a "nude oral" for $50. Others will wear "school uniforms," without panties, for $240 an hour. A "baby girl" who "luves 2 please." From Japan and Singapore, "young, slim sweet girls" who provide "full service" for $80. On and on it goes like that, for 10 pages.

Not that I am in the habit of doing Kinsella's bidness nor do I speak for Torstar but here's what I think ... as a feminist:

(1) As long as the women are consenting adults and working of their own free will in clean and safe environments, free of exploitative bosses, you go girls.

(2) Better clean, safe, non-exploitative prostitution for women -- so women can make an (in)decent living  -- than child porn, rape, incest or pedophilia.

(3) If these women are selling their services directly to clients and cutting out the middlemen who demand their piece of the action -- really, is there anything lower than a pimp? -- than the ads are a good thing.

(4) Why is Kinsella fixated on the "Asian'' women? Why not the white ones, or the black ones, or the trannies?

(5) Would Kinsella propose that the girls work the streets? (Perhaps he would welcome them in his pleasant east end Toronto neighbourhood?)

(6) The fashion, cosmetics, diet and cosmetic surgery industries use real 14 and 15 year olds all the time in ways that make grown-up women feel inadequate. As a result they resort to spending billions on trying to make themselves look like they're 15 year olds made up to look like 19 year olds. Now that's exploitation.

(7) I have always believed that men, as a whole, are the ones more exploited by the sex industries. Online porn, for example, is by far the biggest business on the web. How much money to men spend for a peek?

(8) Excuse me but does Kinsella ever stay up late to watch some of the infomercials all over the dial including on CanWest's Global?

(9) How come Kinsella isn't listed on the Post's columnist page?

(10) Why has Kinsella still not discussed the single most damaging media story in Canada of the century, the false Iranian badges report on the front of the Post?

UPPITY DATE: Commenter ''Floyd Bister'' (hah!) claims Kinsella did ''write about'' the badges story. Sorry, but that's not discussing it. Not when he just mentions it, almost in passing, in an 800 word column defending the Post's conservative tilt.

What readers need to be protected from, in my opinion, are egregious errors of fact. When the Post recently made a big one -- in respect of an alleged Iranian plan to oblige Jews and some other religious minorities to wear distinctive badges -- it published a lengthy apology and retraction that will not soon be forgotten.

The National Post need not apologize for its conservative editorial tilt, however. I say that on behalf of all the other unreconstructed communist pamphleteers who are also paid to write for it.

LEGAL DATE: Some of you seem to think Kinsella wrote that prostitution is illegal. He did not. Just want to be clear on that, as Ti-Guy points out here. Carry on.

 

Family Values

Why are the headline writers at Yahoo! News homophobic?

The News is Out

The front pages of today's Star and the Globe and Mail both boast big colour photos of peace activist James Loney, who was rescued from his kidnapping ordeal in Iraq last week, arriving at Toronto's Pearson International Airport. Flanking him are his family members ... and his "partner Dan Hunt."

Yes, Loney is gay. No, the media never revealed that during his four months in captivity. Yes, we knew he was gay. No, we did not think it was a good idea to make that information public. Yes, I knew as well -- and was expressly asked not to write about it and not to write about the fact that we weren't writing about it.

Why?

Fears were that, since we had no idea who his captors were, the fact that he is a gay man might have put his life in greater peril than it already was. As the Star's Michelle Shephard and Jessica Leeder report:

"After this I'm going to disappear for a little while into a different kind of abyss, an abyss of love. I need some time to get reacquainted with my partner, Dan, my family, my community and freedom itself," (Loney) said.

It was the first time there was mention of Hunt as media outlets had refrained from referring to him during the activist's captivity, out of concern that the kidnappers would harm Loney because of his sexual orientation.

Here's the Canadian Press take:

The co-director of the Christian Peacemakers Teams says the family of freed Christian peace activist James Loney kept his sexual orientation quiet out of fear for his safety.

Doug Pritchard says the family feared Mr. Loney might come to harm at the hands of his Iraqi captors had they known he was gay.

Mr. Pritchard says it likely wouldn't have helped if Mr. Loney's partner, Dan Hunt, had come forward with public pleas for his release.

Mr. Hunt made his first public appearance since Mr. Loney's ordeal began last November when he greeted his partner Sunday at the airport.

Is that a knock on Islamist whackos? Obviously. But it speaks well of the media that, without any collusion between us, we all kept our yaps firmly shut.

Was that good journalism? I don't know. But it was the right thing to do.

Bet this one gets a lot of you going.

Pointing & Clicking

So that's what you've been doing in front of the computer all this time! And here I was thinking that you'd been monitoring the media. According to a Pew Internet & American Life Project ''online dating'' study released yesterday:

Some 31% of American adults say they know someone who has used a dating website and 15% of American adults – about 30 million people – say they know someone who has been in a long-term relationship or married someone he or she met online.

Yet, dating websites are just one of many online avenues that can facilitate a romantic connection. Three out of four internet users who are single and looking for a romantic partner have done at least one dating-related activity online—ranging from using dating websites, to searching for information about prospective dates, to flirting via email and instant messaging, to browsing for information about the local singles scene.

I have long held that the most successful communication innovations -- whether we're talking the camera (still, video or instant), the phone (especially the mobile phone), the 1-900 line, the Internet, etc. -- were all about ''romantic connections.'' The online dating sites have been raking it in for years now. What's more, there's no longer any shame in admitting you've been on them.

Unless you're married. And trolling. So if you are, and you're not upfront about it, you stop that this minute.

Sporting News

THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED:

The winter Olympics don't do it for me because the only real sport I like watching is the figure skating ... which is so, like, gay. (I like gay, okay?) My preference is for the summer games because of all those half-naked bodies. Those divers always make me, um, wet.

But the mind wanders ...

My point here is that sports journalism is so freaking repetitive that I can't be bothered to follow it half the time. Plus it's just so bad. Once, on a lengthy road trip with a hockey-mad boyfriend, I spent the better part of an afternoon reading aloud the entire contents of the sports sections of the Star, the Globe and Mail and the National Post to him and found myself laughing hysterically at the writing. (Well, I am sorry, my dear friends and colleagues in the sports section, but it's true.) I'm not saying everything is bad all the time, just much of it much of the time.

UPPITY DATE: I have heard from a number of sports journalists who say I took a cheap shot at them. Okay, I admit it was a low blow. Now back to our regularly-written post ...

Another thing that bugs me is how faux-macho it is. Really, you have to wonder why sports news isn't printed on a jock strap instead of paper. I'm surprised sportscasters, who often look pretty gay to me -- especially if they're wearing silly jackets and too much hair gel -- don't grunt out the news.

And yet gayness is a subject that rarely comes out up in sports media.

A few weeks ago on CBC Radio's The Current, guest host Mark Tewkesbury, who won the gold in swimming at Barcelona, was discussing the pressures of being a gay athlete in a world where everybody is supposed to be playing on the other team. Why must gay athletes act as if there's something wrong with them, or hide, or live their lives as if there's something to be ashamed of?

Why, indeed?

Joe Clark has some thoughts on the matter here.

Of course male figure skater Johnny Weir is gay, as are Jeff Buttle and a host of others. Who are we trying to kid? We’ve managed to force male sportswriters to stop pretending that every elite athlete is straight, which was the problem before. I put in a lot of years of newspaper writing trying to kill that idea off. And now, like rebranding creationism as intelligent design, we’re being sold the same tainted tuna in a different can. Suddenly we’ve got sportswriter guys defending the right of gay athletes never to come out and never to be asked if they’re actually gay. I didn’t think things could be worse than the olden days, but this certainly is.

Clark is right: There is NOTHING wrong with being gay. Nobody needs to hide it -- and nobody needs to act as if it needs to be hidden on an openly gay athlete's behalf.

Now how gay is Don Cherry, hunh?

SKATE DATE: My Star colleague Mary Ormsby informs me that Buttle has never publicly said anything about being gay -- and so I have no idea if he is or not. (And if he is, there is nothing wrong with that.) That said, I still think all those outfits and spangles and sparkles are out of control. Salon's Video Dog has sniffed out the best of the worst here. (Free pass with advertising. Trust me it's worth it.)

A Wing and a prayer

It's Valentine's Day. And so, now is the time at Azerbic when we discuss men and food.

Yum.

Brain Wave

This has got to be the scariest media story of the day. Turns out that researchers were brain-scanning U.S. viewers of last Sunday's Super Bowl to see how they reacted to the commercials.

The researchers at UCLA and FKF Applied Research used fMRI, or functional magnetic resonance imaging, to measure the activity of brain regions associated with key emotions in viewers. "NFL Dreamers" elicited strong responses in the orbito-frontal cortex and the ventral striatum, two brain regions associated with the processing of rewards, they said. Bud Light's "Employee Incentive Plan," in contrast, induced anxiety. FedEx's "Caveman" failed to trigger much activity at all.

However, most of the ads--including FedEx's--had one response in common: repelling viewers.

Since I am repelled by all football telecasts, I don't know if any of these ads aired in Canada. They usually don't, as the game is simulcast by Global TV which inserts its own commercials. That's its right as it bought and paid the sports extravaganza for Canadian audiences -- and should reap the profits. It has nothing to do with the "CRTC's dictatorial practice.'' It's the private/commercial networks who wanted this, and who will fight to keep this revenue generator which funds Canadian content.

The ads are available online now anyway.

But back to the idea of measuring your brain on beer ads. I'd love to compare how men and women perceive some of those commercials in which the guys act like goofs over babes. Maybe some wives and girlfriends would like to see the brainscans of their men when they're pretending to be listening about how they're not communicating enough. That could be fun. Or how about hooking the guys up to the machines when you ask them something like, ''Does this outfit make me look fat?'' Hoo...hah.

Note that I am not being sexist here. It's just that I am expressing how I'd like to use this technology. No doubt men have their own ideas. (Was it good for you?)

Talk about playing with fire.

Told you it was scary.

Outrage

Some of us are still shaking our fists at Hollywood's not-so-secret homosexual agenda, on its gaudiest display during Monday's Golden Globes. Bad enough all the unmarried pregnant whores starlets were flashing their bosoms in gowns made by designers who couldn't shoot straight to save their lives but viewers were also subjected to movie about mincing authors and not-so-lonesome cowboys.

Here in the Great Pink North where all that gay stuff is accepted, if not universally at least legally, practicing homosexualists are in a panic over the prospect of a Conservative government. Not just because the burgeoning same sex wedding tourism industry will collapse but also because they fear a ''Holy War on Homos." Which is why the gay and lesbian weekly Xtra! pulled its planned cover for today at the last minute for this one, while editor/publisher David Walberg fired off a scathing editorial:

Canadians are so desperate to turf the long-governing Liberals that they’re willing to envision in Stephen Harper’s new hairdo a completely changed man. We have become immune to the regurgitated quotes of yore that reveal his many and significant bigotries, preferring to believe he instructed the barber to trim those along with his top and sides.  We’ve heard how much more “prime ministerial” Harper has appeared in this election campaign.

But as much as the phrase Scary Stephen now rings desperate and hollow, I ask you to consider behaviour and attitudes that surely most Canadians would find deeply regrettable in a prime minister.  You’ll be relieved to know, I hope, that I won’t dig up the distant past; instead, I’ll use but one example of words and deeds, expressed and committed by the man himself, not merely once but repeatedly, and all within the past year. Fair enough?

Walberg then rattles through Stephen Harper's recent attempts to forge bonds with anti-gay elements in Canada's various cultural and religious communities, concluding

Canada’s gay communities have rarely known political leaders to be our champions. But I can’t recall another leader who so actively tried to turn religious people against their gay fellow citizens.

It’s one thing for Stephen Harper, the nutty right-wing opposition leader, to conduct himself thus. But imagine Stephen Harper, freshly trimmed and beturtlenecked, as our prime minister: goading the faithful, exploiting misunderstandings, fomenting bigotry, shredding the social fabric. It’s shameful, reprehensible and menacing.

We could have done without the ''beturtlenecked'' fashion observation -- so Queer Eye! -- but Walberg clearly has the straight goods on Harper.

Girl talk

When it comes to opinionating, it's still a man's world, according to Sheila Gibbons, editor of Media Report to Women, a quarterly journal of news, research and commentary about women and media.

Since September, Ruth Davis Konigsberg, a deputy editor at Glamour magazine, has kept a running tally of male and female bylines at top general-interest news magazines such as Harpers, The New Yorker and The Atlantic Monthly. On Tuesday, her Web site WomenTK.com showed a 324-to-99 ratio.

As for women's place in TV news-spinning mills, a study released last month, "Who's Talking Now?" found the Sunday morning news programs casting women in supporting roles and bit parts. Between November 2004 and July 2005, female guests appeared on "This Week," "Meet the Press," "Face the Nation," "Late Edition" and similar programs only 14 percent of the time, according to the study conducted by The White House Project.

Gibbons links to this, a kind of Rolodex to female experts on everything from trains to terrorism.

I have nothing but my own empirical evidence to go by but it's my sense that things are not quite as grim here in the Big Pink.

That's because, in TV anyway, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission bids that broadcasters showcase diversity on their airwaves. What's more, CBC, for one, goes out of its way to balance its presenters, pundits and panellists by gender. There used to be a notorious wall chart in the offices of CBC Radio's Morningside  (R.I.P.) that actually had little male and female symbols beside the name of the booked guests.

As for the printed word, many, if not most, of our best writers are women, whether we're talking award-winning magazine scribbler Marci McDonald or the Star's Rosie DiManno or the Globe's Margaret Wente. Few people would argue against my contention that the Star's Chantal Hébert is one of the best political observers in the country.

Maybe there is something in being PC -- as in politically correct.