Sun Media choosing ‘shock value’ over transparency

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 14, 2011 at 1:51 PM - 3 Comments

Sun Media’s decision to end its membership with the Ontario Press Council will make it difficult to keep the chain’s newspapers accountable to the public, the head of an international group of media ombudsmen says. The chain wrote a letter to the council this week that said the “politically correct mentality” of the press council is “incompatible” with the company’s future plans. The move is a sign that the often-controversial newspaper chain will focus more on shock value than transparency, Organization of News Ombudsmen executive director Jeffrey Dvorkin says. The press council usually receives between 1,800 and 2,200 complaints from the public a year.

Ottawa Citizen

The Commons: Questions of character

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, April 30, 2011 at 6:38 PM - 174 Comments

Two days short of a vote that may redeem everything he has said and done these last eight years and moments after addressing a crowd of 2,000 that spilled out of the room and into the street—so much so that the police were compelled to close down the block—Jack Layton is taking questions about a massage he received one night 15 years ago.

Was last night’s report of the massage true? Was the massage prescribed by his doctor? What time did he receive the massage? Had he ever had a massage there before? Was he aware of the establishment reputation? Did it look “sketchy?” How did he react when he heard about last night’s report about the massage? Will he be taking any legal action in regards to the report about the massage? Who does he think is responsible for what he considers a smear?

“I went for a massage at a community clinic,” he says. “The police advised that it wasn’t the greatest place to be and I left and I never went back.”

He has run four campaigns as the leader of a national political party—this last one on a broken hip, just over a year after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Not until just days ago did he do so as anything other than a longshot. Only recently could he claim anything like a real chance of achieving real relevance.

And now he stands here and takes questions about his “character.” Continue…

'Nothing more than a smear campaign'

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, April 29, 2011 at 10:26 PM - 491 Comments

This evening, Olivia Chow, the NDP MP and wife of Jack Layton, has released the following statement in response to a story aired by Sun media.

Sixteen years ago, my husband went for a massage at a massage clinic that is registered with the City of Toronto. He exercises regularly; he was and remains in great shape; and he needed a massage. I knew about this appointment, as I always do.  

No one was more surprised than my husband when the police informed him of allegations of potential wrong doing at this establishment. He told me about the incident after it happened. Any insinuation of wrongdoing on the part of my husband is completely and utterly false, which is why after 16 years and 8 election campaigns that my husband has campaigned in, this has never been an issue.    

In the last hours of this election, this is nothing more than a smear campaign in an attempt to question my husband’s character. This is another reason why politics in this country need to change and on Monday, Canadians will have their chance to do just that.   

Lawyers for the NDP sent a letter to Sun media, which reads as follows. Continue…

'Bad information is an occupational hazard'

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 10:50 AM - 36 Comments

The CEO of Sun Media says—and the Conservative campaign confirms—that a Conservative strategist forwarded a dubious photo of Michael Ignatieff.

Three weeks ago, our vice-president for Sun News, Kory Teneycke, was contacted by the former deputy chief of staff to Prime Minister Harper, Patrick Muttart. He claimed to be in possession of a report prepared by a “U.S. source”, outlining the activities and whereabouts of Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff in the weeks and months leading to the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. The report suggested that rather than being an observer from the sidelines, as he wrote in a New York Times op-ed piece after he entered Canadian politics, Ignatieff was in fact on the front lines and on the ground at a forward operating base in Kuwait, assisting U.S. State Department and American military officials in their strategy sessions. Muttart also provided a compelling electronic image of a man very closely resembling Michael Ignatieff in American military fatigues, brandishing a rifle in a picture purported to have been taken in Kuwait in December 2002.

What Mr. Muttart provided was apparently enough for the Sun papers to run a story that claimed Mr. Ignatieff was “was on the front lines of pre-invasion planning when he worked in the U.S.” Still, Mr. Peladeau believes this was part of an effort to discredit both Mr. Ignatieff and Sun media and that this episode should debunk any notion that the Sun is a tool of the Conservative party of Canada.

Does the CBC want Quebec to separate?

By Martin Patriquin - Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 11:00 AM - 29 Comments

Ezra Levant is wrong. The CBC Vote Compass thing isn’t a shill for the Liberal Party of Canada*. For fans of National Unity™, it’s actually much worse. The CBC, or at least the CBC Vote Compass, is apparently in bed with the coalition-loving, Canada-hating, tax-and-spend separatists. Gadzooks!

A nefarious CBC mole of my acquaintance pointed this out to me while we rode the Métro together yesterday. Basically, he pointed out that if you say you’re from Quebec and answer the Vote Compass questions in a mildly lefty fashion (strong yes to getting out of Afghanistan, soft yes to government policies to stimulate economy, etc), you have a good chance of being designated a Bloc Québécois voter—even if you answer “strongly disagree” to “Quebec should become an independent state.”

I did it with my riding, just for fun. Here’s the crucial question:

I finished the questionnaire, the Vote Compass thought long and hard, and spat out the following:

Weird. Based on the national unity question alone, you’d think the national unity question would disqualify the Bloc entirely. It’s the reason the party exists, after all, despite whatever late-game spin Duceppe is spouting these days.

*A quick note: my God, Sun News been slogging that tired narrative for all it’s worth. I guess it sucks for them/it that most Canadians are part of that giant, mushy, feel-good sort-of-left-of-centre usurped long ago by the Liberal Party of Canada. They even used to win election after election thanks to it.

Sun News Network: Hard News. Straight Talk. Short Skirts.

By Scott Feschuk - Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 5:08 AM - 344 Comments

Sun News Network launched yesterday with a half-hour “pre-game show” in which we were introduced to some of the on-air talent and their thighs. “They said it couldn’t be done and boy were they wrong,” anchor Krista Erickson declared – although to be fair, I’m pretty sure what they actually said was “It shouldn’t be done.” Still, it’s done now.

If you didn’t see the launch, you can watch some of the buildup while simultaneously watching this random guy watch it and talk over the national anthem for some reason:

You’re probably thinking that an upstart news network would hire a bunch of dull, uncurious people and set them to work on stories that no one cares about. But not Sun News! Sun does things differently. Curious reporters! Stories people care about! Eat that, status quo. One reporter emphasized that she’d be interviewing people “in the middle” of the day’s big news stories, proving yet again that the mainstream networks get it wrong with their stubborn allegiance to News Gathering From the Distant Periphery.

Other apparent guiding philosophies of Sun News:

• People in the West think differently from people in Toronto and Ottawa.
• Free speech? Good.
• Political correctness can suck it.

Pat Bolland, a broadcast veteran, is one of the Sun News personalities. He pledged that his new program, The Roundtable, which he’ll co-host with Alex Pierson and his moustache, would be a “breakfast show with bite.” That seemed to be description enough, but Bolland decided to Continue…

Sun family values

By Andrew Potter - Wednesday, April 6, 2011 at 10:10 AM - 290 Comments

Photo courtesy of Tom Magliery

I was determined to let this slide but the facts that have emerged are too loathsome to ignore.

The CBC has been taking a lot of criticism for its Vote Compass, an online quiz that asks you questions about where you stand on various questions of public policy, and then tells you which party you should vote for. Lots of people, from the right and the left, have been complaining that the result it gives is biased, or somehow misrepresent their political views. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. Maybe these sorts of quizzes are just very poor devices for sorting the population by party.  I don’t know, and at this point I don’t care. What I do care about is the way Peter Loewen has been treated by Sun Media. Continue…

Who is the second-most influential person of 2010?

By Philippe Gohier - Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at 12:41 PM - 5 Comments

In case you’re joining us a little late, today’s breaking news is that Pierre Karl Péladeau is an amazing human being. Somewhere in heaven, Jesus is wearing a mesh cap enjoining others to ask themselves: “What would PKP do?”

To honour PKP’s astonishing victory in QMI’s poll to name the Person of the Year for 2010, Deux maudits anglais would like to invite its dozens of readers to vote on the second-most influential person of the past year. Just remember: dissent will be punished severely and you can vote as often as you want.

News will never be the same

By John Geddes - Wednesday, September 15, 2010 at 11:17 AM - 0 Comments

It’s the end of an era. Kory Teneycke is hanging up his battered fedora. The clatter of his trusty Remington manual falls silent. It feels like it was only a few months ago that he was putting his feet up on his desk for the first time as vice-president of business development at Quebecor Media, with the aim of launching its Sun TV News network. Back when a newsman was a newsman.

Then came the glory days. Memories. When you tell these kids nowadays about Teneycke’s epic Twitter war with Margaret Atwood, they don’t understand. That was what we called “hard news and straight talk.” We went to sleep not knowing if Russian jets might swoop down in the night, or at least come somewhere close to Canadian airspace. A kid named Baird was just a transport minister dreaming House leader dreams.

And so we in this crazy business reach for the brown paper bags secreted in the bottom drawers of our desks to raise a toast to one of our own. They don’t make ‘em like him anymore.

Péladeau was for taxpayer subsidies before he was against them (II)

By Philippe Gohier - Thursday, July 15, 2010 at 2:02 PM - 0 Comments

From a Canadian Heritage press release issued yesterday:

“The grant from Canadian Heritage is critical to the viability of small newspapers like ours,” said Dave Sykes, Group Publisher, Sun Media. “It ensures that people in rural areas have access to local news.”

The Government of Canada has provided funding of:

• $57,291 to The Goderich Signal-Star
• $40,701 to The Exeter Times Advocate
• $40,673 to The Shoreline Beacon
• $32,246 to The Kincardine News
• $30,603 to The Kincardine Independent
• $28,518 to The Clinton News Record
• $23,329 to The Citizen
• $23,190 to The Huron Expositor
• $22,525 to The Walkerton Herald-Times
• $21,381 to The Wingham Advance Times
• $21,325 to The Lucknow Sentinel

This is an outrage! Right?

By Paul Wells - Tuesday, July 6, 2010 at 6:34 PM - 0 Comments

From Sun Media, one in what I can assure you will be an endless series of stories about people spending your! tax! dollars! on lavish things you didn’t get!!!

How much more appropriate it would have been for the Prime Minister and Governor General to welcome the governor of California, the vice-president of the United States, the federal opposition leader, eight cabinet ministers and officials from a half-dozen other countries with a big steaming communal bowl of Red River cereal and 40 spoons. Or… or… or donuts or something. It was good enough for your parents! Wasn’t it? Huh?!?!

It’s fun to see this sort of thing scorch the PM, because 15 years ago when the Reform party was all about turning Stornaway into a bingo hall, one of the guys who was sure this was an excellent line of argument was Stephen Harper. I’d say turnabout is fair play, but one of the words in that saying is three syllables long and I hate to come off as an elitist snob. All I’ll say is that like you, I can’t get enough of these how-much-did-it-cost stories, and I’m so glad we’ll soon have a 24-hour cable-TV outlet for many, many more like this one.

Shaking up the news world

By Paul Wells with Martin Patriquin and Philippe Gohier - Friday, June 18, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 285 Comments

Photograph by Blair Gable

The evidence of your eyes deceives you, Kory Teneycke was saying the other day.

It’s true that only a year ago the boyish, flint-eyed 35-year-old spent his days trying to push news out of the Prime Minister’s Office—where until July he was Stephen Harper’s communications director—into the nation’s newspapers and broadcasts. And it’s true that now, suddenly, he is in charge of finding news to fill the political pages of Sun Media’s newspapers and that he plans within months to have the same role at a new news-and-talk cable TV channel. What does his old job have to do with his new one? “I think it’s neither here nor there.”

Continue…