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Anatomy of a Twitter smackdown

Political operatives and journalists take to Twitter to verify the source of a quote in the latest Liberal attack ad

by macleans.ca on Monday, April 18, 2011 4:51pm - 114 Comments

Earlier this morning, National Campaign Chairman for the Conservative Party Guy Giorno questioned a quote attributed to Stephen Harper in a Liberal attack ad. The quote read, “It’s past time the feds scrapped the Canada Health Act,” which appeared in an August 26, 2010 article in the Globe and Mail. Giorno pointed to David Somerville as the source of the quote, which CBC reporter Laura Payton later verified by digging up the source document: a June 1997 issue of Bulldog. The following is a selected timeline of the tweets that unfolded between dueling war rooms and fact-hungry reporters.

http://twitter.com/#!/cpc_giorno/status/59982830750539776

http://twitter.com/#!/cpc_giorno/status/59994441963941888

http://twitter.com/#!/cpc_giorno/status/59999069505986560

http://twitter.com/#!/laura_payton/status/59999232425332736

http://twitter.com/#!/liberal_wire/status/60009793695387649

http://twitter.com/#!/cpc_giorno/status/60017430621204481

http://twitter.com/#!/cpc_giorno/status/60016344015450113

http://twitter.com/#!/CBCTerry/status/60015164543614976

http://twitter.com/#!/cpc_giorno/status/60016129397108737

http://twitter.com/#!/liberal_wire/status/60016145389977600

http://twitter.com/#!/jasonlietaer/status/60016759058604032

http://twitter.com/#!/laura_payton/status/60031174394912768

http://twitter.com/#!/kady/status/60033226424586240

http://twitter.com/#!/wicary/status/60033695192584192

http://twitter.com/#!/cpc_giorno/status/60048484665004032

Tags: Election 2011

guest

so the liberals lied, got caught, tried to avoid admitting it, and were finally forced into a retraction. meanwhile liberal commenters (and count ig) tried to excuse it with arguments like "but they do it too" (another lie) and "it's the gist of what harper believes anyway" i.e. the old "false but accurate" defense employed by dan rather.

they're not the "visitors" party – they're the "liars" party. they represent the worst of canada.

liberals lie and are helped by the media in doing it. what else is new? it's who they are. i'm looking forward to their upcoming reduction to a rump party in the hoc so that the overall integrity of our government will reach some kind of passable level.
http://bestcoffeemaker.ca Rob

Just like kids on a play ground! Cept they all have new toys :P
hosertohoosier

Pop quiz: which party is the only one to have gouged billions of dollars from the health and social transfer in recent memory?

Hint: it ain't the Tories
http://www.GenuineThriving.com/author/JeremiahStanghini/ Jeremiah Stanghini

I wonder how the motivation to 'escalate' this disagreement of words to a "smackdown." When the "discussion" escalates to an "actual" level of smackdown, what will we call it then?

With Love and Gratitude,

Jeremiah
Carl

"The quote was taken from "extremely reputable sources," including Macleans magazine and the Globe and Mail, Ignatieff said. The Globe later corrected its story, prompting the Liberals to say they would change the ad."

What does it say about the state of journalism in Canada, when otherwise respectable publications like the Globe and Macleans apparently can't be bothered to double check the quotes they attribute to people. Back when I was a TA, I used to tell my students not to cite something quoted in a secondary source if the original source was available. Alway look at the original source. It's embarrasing that professional journalists don't do the same thing.
JamesHalifax

Speaking of Health Care costs….does anyone recall the story last year about some nurses in toronto raking in over $260,000 per year?

If you want to address health care cost over-runs…there's a good place to start.
Fitz

Astonishing how successfully the PCs have scammed so many people into discussing this non-event instead of substantive issues. In comparison with the systematic lies in every PC ad and press release, this is really pretty tame. Guess we've just gotten so used to it from the PCs that we don't notice it anymore.
chet

Andrew,

BTW, you took an old Ekos poll.

Ekos has the CPC with a 12 point lead.
saskboy

I thought this might have been the subject of the smackdown, but I think too highly of myself sometimes.
http://saskboy.wordpress.com/2011/04/18/cpc-campa…