After months of counting tiny beans, Nova Scotia's politician-despising, publicity-loving, limelight-hogging Auditor General has grudgingly conceded what everyone knows: MLA Michel Sampson Samson lives in Arichat and fully qualifies for reimbursement of necessary Halifax expenses. [See: news release. Full report (pdf)] Then, predictably, Lapointe found a mean-spirited technicality on which he could deny Samson those legitimate expenses. Samson's Halifax residence doesn't qualify because it's a "house" not an "apartment." What tendentious pettifoggery! The campaign to deprive this elected MLA of the tools needed to do his job effectively was cooked up by a not very discerning CBC reporter, who couldn't distinguish legitimate living...

02 August, 2013

One month after the apparent death of chronic lobster poacher and trap vandal Philip Boudreau, the CBC continues to falsely identify him as a fisherman.     [Click images for full-sized image.] This is perplexing  The CBC's very capable reporters and editors know full well that Boudreau held no commercial or sport fishing license of any kind. They know his status as a non-fisherman is both a key fact, and a probable factor, in the events leading to his disappearance. Never discount the role of haste in deadline journalism. Toronto web editors who are not the primary reporters covering this story may have simply assumed that a...

04 July, 2013

On Wednesday, I questioned CBC reporter Phonse Jessome's reporting on the Philip Boudreau killing, and the broader media failure to probe allegations the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the RCMP received many complaints about Boudreau's chronic lobster thievery and trap vandalism over the years, but did little or nothing. In an essay on the CBC's website, Jessome elaborates on his approach to the story (though he makes no overt reference to my criticism). Unfortunately, he sheds no light on why the CBC continues to skirt the DFO-RCMP angle....

28 June, 2013

On Monday, CBC reporter Phonse Jessome recounted sensational excerpts from what purported to be a confession by one of the fishermen accused of killing Philip Boudreau June 1. He supplemented his reporting with editorial comments that portrayed the killing as an unfathomable escalation of a feud over "fishing territory." Based on widely known but lightly reported facts, the escalation is not unfathomable. To portray it as arising out of a "feud" over “territory” is to adopt one side in highly contentious matter. Tuesday, while reporting a brief court appearance by the accused men, Jessome added more editorial commentary, stressing the trauma experienced by the Boudreau's family, portraying defense...

25 June, 2013

In the closing moments of an excellent At Issues panel on CBC's The National last night, National Post columnist Andrew Coyne explained why traditional Question Period theatrics are so feckless when a real scandal envelopes government. [If the Opposition] would slow down and ask short simple questions, rather these kind of multiple-part grandstanding theatrics, but they don't seem to be capable of that. What sort of short questions, host Peter Mansbridge asked. [S]imple questions of fact that put ministers on the record, where you can then compare what they say on the record with what they say later. It's more in the nature...

22 May, 2013

What exactly happened between Percy Paris and Keith Colwell outside the MLAs' washroom in Province House last Thursday night? Was it a "scuffle" (CBC, Global), an "alleged scuffle" (Metro, Globe and Mail), an "altercation" (Chronicle-Herald), an "incident" (CTV, Yarmouth Vanguard), a "bizarre incident" (CBC), a "fight" (Yahoo), a "kerfuffle" (also Yahoo), or even a "brawl" (SunNews). "Brawl" seems way over the top, and to my ear, a term tinged with racism in this context. "Scuffle" and "altercation" seem about right. "I guess there would be some physical contact," said Inverness Conservative MLA Allan MacMaster, the one uninvolved eye-witness who has spoken...

11 May, 2013

Most of the listeners who responded to my debate with CBC manager Andrew Cochran about the network's (in my view) inflated coverage of weather are just fine with the CBC's weather treatment. [caption id="attachment_11355" align="alignright" width="300"] Highway conditions at 3:30 pm, February 20, when Cape Breton schools closed early due to forecasts of possible freezing rain that evening: Pavement dry; precipitation nil.[/caption] This doesn't surprise me. Some people like being frightened about weather, just as others like being frightened about crime. Lurid coverage of crime by some media has led to a sharp increase in the public perception of personal risk from...

01 March, 2013

Kudos to Andrew Cochran, Maritimes Regional Director of the CBC, for agreeing to debate the network's hyperventilated coverage of routine weather events. We hashed it out in an extended session this morning on CBC Cape Breton's Information Morning program. Longtime Contrarian readers know I think Nova Scotia has lost all perspective about weather, working ourselves into a lather over events we would have taken in stride 30 years ago. The CBC is one link in this chain of timorousness. Environment Canada, which issues daily "statements,"  "advisories," and "warnings" about routine weather inconveniences, is another. School officials arbitrarily grant paid holidays to hundreds of...

28 February, 2013

[See update/correction below] The Coast, a Halifax weekly paper, has produced a devastating account of Halifax Mayor Peter Kelly's mishandling of the estate of  a family friend who had named him as executor and sole trustee of her modest fortune. In a prodigious piece of reporting, News Editor Tim Bousquet lays out the complex story in relentless detail, layering  fact upon devastating fact through 5,000 words, illustrated with cancelled cheques and sketchy legal and financial filings. It's too complicated to summarize here, but please read it yourself, especially if you are a resident or voter in HRM. Bousquet's work sometimes suffers from his habit...

17 February, 2012

Arch-conservative David Frum stiffed CBC Radio's flagship The Current this morning [see update below], failing at the last minute to show up for a heavily promoted interview on his reincarnation as a thoughtful moderate. The program was forced to recycle a dumpster diving documentary in place of what I fear would have been the latest in a series of fawning interviews. Let's hope this will, in Canada at least, slow the media juggernaut bent on canonizing Frum as discerning paragon of moderation. Frum, as the saying goes, was born on third base and thought he hit a triple. His father was a...

01 April, 2010
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