Good on Kady O'Mally (warning: CBC link) for digging into the truth about the nefarious relationship between the PMO and Google Canada . I suppose the Prime Minister could have gone on to Redtube (NSFW) instead of Youtube.
All sarcasm aside, it's probably worthwhile bringing up a potential conflict of interest between Google and the PMO. I just think that the rest of her blog post is absurd. When challenged about the CBC being a registered lobby she states the difference being that 'Google isn't actually a media outlet -- no, not even "new media"'.
While I do applaud O'Malley's raw blogging, I do think she should apply some traditional journalistic practices to her commentary. Like say, research. Google's Section 11. Content licence from you.
Now, lest you think that I've gone off my rocker, remember, Google owns blogger.com and youtube.com to name only two. In short, Google shares all rights (except liability) with a content provider utilizing any of Google's services. If a traditional media outlet spends most of it's coverage replaying Associated Press, Canadian Press, et al., just like Google does, is it excluded from the ranks of 'media' too?
Kady continues sticking up for the Corp by saying that the PMO organized PM Harper's YouTube conference and so it isn't media. Well, of course, she would say that taking questions from 'the media' is much more important than taking questions from citizens.
For what it's worth Kady, the term 'media' is a generic term. I wonder if you can find anything in here that might qualify? Maybe you should have used the more explicit, "traditional news gathering entity that hires people like me to follow specific stories and then to emit twaddle about them." Oh, wait, Google does that too.
At least, it's only a $B a year for this...cheap, really.
Cheers,
lance
Remember, the medium is the message
O'Malley is a blind twit.
It's a shame that this person is even connected with Canada, much less connected with a taxpayer funded entity. She comes across as dumb as a sack of hammers with little to no knowledge of the subject that she is talking about.
Only in Canada you say....pity!
Just when I thought the CBC was as bad as it can get, they hired Kady.
Funny they did so after cutting other people.
Why applaud her raw blogging? I'm sure she's cashing her cheque, paid for by Canadian taxpayers.
She belongs on Liblogs, unpaid.
Of course Kady is wrong. Google is a media system. So is Yahoo, so is anything that functions as a communication system to move information from one site to another site. That's the basic definition of the term 'media'.
Mass media is defined as using a television, radio, newspapers - which reach a 'mass' and now, the internet with its blogs, Youtube and so on.
Kady is being silly with her suggestion that the PMO is using youtube to prevent the listener from hearing the voices of the opposition! What nonsense. Since when does asking a question of the PM of a country require that one must also hear the responses of the Opposition? I didn't know that a citizen is obliged to do this.
Is it also the case that when Ignatieff answers a question from a citizen or reporter, that the question must also be answered by Harper?
Oh, and what about Kady's assertion that Google's provision of youtube for this interaction is an unethical gift. No, it's not a gift; it's a media transaction, just as the CBC's endless propaganda for the Liberals are not a 'gift' to the Liberal Party.
The difference is that Youtube is merely a media system and has no biased pundits actually pontificating the praises of the Liberals. All it is doing, is setting up a situation where Harper takes questions from citizens. Not from CBC reporters. But from everyday average citizens.
That's direct democracy - and a modern way to deal with citizens - using modern media systems.
Why do we citizens have to pay people like Kady a salary when they are so abysmally ignorant?
Jim, because I prefer seeing O'Malley's unedited, unscripted bias up front compared to fuming at Mantwits silent lip-twitch.
Your tax dollars hard at work..
Honestly, I cannot believe my tax dollars pays this lib hacks pay cheque.
lance is right. It is better to have the Kady O'Malleys out in the open where rational people can read her for what she is.
Thanks for the warning lance.
After O'Malley's disastrous performance in The Case of the
Warman v. Lemire Fiasco, while then at MacLean's, I'd be
hard pressed to admire her raw blogging skills, Lance.
Key word being, 'raw'. I didn't use the word, 'skills'. :)
Me, I love it when Kady talks. Nothing I could come up with would expose her patent stupidity better than what she says. Nor be a better reason to cut the CBC budget.
Rage on, Kady!
since media basicly means communication, I would suggest that Google is the largest single source media in the world.
and Kady is a complete idiot.
Since when did 'journalistic standards' mean anything but a gimmick used by fringe leftists to bash majority viewpoints, personalities, and politicians? These people are about as trustworthy as telemarketers, as has been proven time and time again.
Actually, I'm quite looking forward to seeing how the PM's Youtube-ified Q&A goes -- it should be a fascinating exercise in *something*, at any rate -- although if I had been in Google's position, I probably would have offered to set up the same platform for all four leaders. My eyebrow raising over the potential appearance of conflict of interest was provoked by the preferential treatment that Google Canada seems to have given the PM's Reply to the Speech from the Throne. Why not stream the full debate -- including the PM, of course -- so that Canadians could see what all the parties had to say, as well as the Questions and Comments from MPs? We do, after all, have a parliamentary, not presidential system, so the comparison to the State of the Union Address doesn't quite work. (Actually, the closest parallel would probably be the Speech from the Throne itself.)
Finally, I know that I'm probably wasting my time in trying to explain this to this particular audience, but I really, truly do not understand where y'all -- that's a loosely collective y'all, by the way; I'm sure not all of you feel this way -- came up with the theory that I don't want to see the PM -- or any politician -- respond directly to questions from regular, non-press-pass-holding Canadians. It's just not remotely accurate, nor have I ever, at any point, said anything that would suggest that I feel that way.
For heaven's sake, I liveblogged all party candidate debates during the last election, and plan to do so during the next one. Roundtabls, town hall meetings, Manning Centre breakout sessions -- heck, I'll make an extra effort to show up for anything that involves questions from the floor. I don't feel threatened by bloggers, or citizen journalists, or the relentless march of technology. It's a great big universe, and there's plenty of room for all of us.
kady - if it's really you who is reply - you have missed the point of our concern. There's also no need to move into 'folksy' rhetoric to deflect our criticism of your column. You made some very specific comments, and these are the focus of our concern.
First, we pointed out that your rejection of the internet and its electronic capacities as a media system is an invalid statement. The internet is a valid method for communicative interaction with the public. However, you made it clear by your rejection of it as a media system that its use by a politician was worthy of criticism.
Second, we pointed out that your claim that the PM is using youtube to prevent people from hearing the criticisms of the Opposition is a false claim. You have no proof of this speculative opinion and therefore, it is unprofessional of you to make such a claim.
Third, your assertion, now, that since we are a parliamentary system rather than a presidential system, that this means that any citizen interaction with the PM must also include similar interactions, questions and answers with all members of all other political parties - is pure specious nonsense.
You are ignoring a key fact: the difference between a political party and a government.
The fact is, that in our parliamentary system, one party forms the govt, and citizens have the right to ask questions of that party in its role as the govt - without having to deal with it in its role as a political party and with, as well, all the other political parties.
Your attempt to introduce the old meme of anti-Americanism as support for your assertion is equally invalid. Again, the facts are, that citizens have a right to interact with the government, without having to also deal with the other political parties - in their nature as partisans rather than as a government.
This youtube interaction with the PM is a constructive and innovative acknowledgment by the govt of the role of modern media in modern government and therefore, the more inclusive and involved nature of citizens with their government.
You may say that you don't feel threatened by modern technology, but then, why did you define it as not a media system, when by definition, it is? Why do you reject the reality of a government in a parliamentary system and instead insist that the government is instead, merely and only, a political party?
If I were you, I'd do some thinking about these issues before flinging out such shallow opinions as you do.
Hey slimeball CBC liberano give your ill gotten paycheck back to the citizens and go get a real job.
I here they are looking for someone to shovel out the cattle pens in the local feedlot. A much more apropos job for the likes of you.
Kady O'Malley is about as sharp as a sack full of wet mice.
If Kady is worried that someone like me will be tuning into the new media instead of her CBC, all I can say is TOO LATE !! Been happening for 5 years already.
Just received my invitation to ask PM Harper a question on YouTube - any suggestions ?
Missed the point, again, while deflecting, I'm shocked.
"Plenty of room for all of us."
"Great big universe"
That's funny because you're confined only to a stitched-on-with-piano-wire-liplock onto the Billion dollar a year gubmint tit, and nowhere else.
Here's a question from the "floor".
You and your statist's cheerleaders at the CBC, won't ever go into the "great big universe", will you?
Quit, seriously, go look around a little.
Get out of my wallet.
Go explore anywhere else; take your rent seeking friends with you.
I consider the forced trade of the CBC's idiotic statist blabbering for my money nothing short of theft.
You SUCK, the organization of leftists you represent SUCKS, you are a hack with nothing to add but smearing unfounded inuendo, deliberate omission, rabid bipartisanship, anti-Americanism, dumb as dirt, one sided, unwatchable, unreadable, leftist boilerplate garbage.
The most laughable comment was the one that described Harper as a "dictator".
So the leader of an elected minority government that could be brought down by the opposition at any time is a dictator?
Now that's clutching at straws.
Again, what is astonishing is both Kady O'Malley's ignorance and her bias.
She ignores that a parliamentary system actually sets up one political party in a role as the legitimate government. Her hostility to this is obvious, when she insists that questions from citizens to their government must instead be deflected to questions to political parties - and in this case, to all four political parties.
So, if a citizen wants to ask the government about its actions in, for example, cleaning up the Great Lakes Water system, according to Kady, that citizen must also ask, and wait for the response, from the Bloc, the NDP and the Liberals. Because to Kady, the question is to a political agenda not to the government.
Same with other questions about road infrastructure and water treatment, and expansion of rapid transit and the opening of the North to development. The poor citizen isn't allowed to interact with his govt; nope - only with four political parties, as if political parties carry out administrative actions only within the narrow horizons of a partisan perspective.
Notice how Kady's response here is, again, sidestepping facts and mired in innuendo, ambiguous smears and speculation.
She writes that the PM's response should be a 'fascinating exercise in 'something'. What's that supposed to mean, Kady? Why are you already smearing his responses?
Why are you insulting we who post here, with your assertion that you are wasting your time explaining your viewpoint to us? Could it be that you reject criticism of your viewpoint?
Why is Kady setting up a false analogy that this question and answer session is akin to the all-party response to the Speech from the Throne? This is false; this session is for regular citizens, not elected members of the House, to interact directly with the PM.
Notice how Kady tries to divert our concerns about her comments by asserting that she's completely in favour of citizens interacting with politicians, all politicians. But Kady, that's not what you wrote in your column. And that's not what we were objecting to. Kindly be accountable for what you wrote.
You were insisting that the youtube interaction ought to include ALL the leaders of the opposition parties as well as Harper! Why? That's what we were criticizing.
Notice how Kady is now claiming that she's fine with 'modern technology'. But that's not what she wrote; her complaint was that this modern technology wasn't a valid media system, when by definition it is not only valid but very much part of our modern media process. And her complaint, again, was that she opposed its use for interaction with the government; she insists that it be used only for political parties - and all political parties at the same time and on the same issues.
Kady O'Malley doesn't understand the operational structure of our government and doesn't understand the role of modern media in empowering the citizens to interact with their government.
Keep talking Kady baby! Keep reminding us what kind of propaganda enterprise we're funding for a billion bucks every year.
You know what Kady? When I want to know what the PM is going to do about something, I ASK the guy. I send a letter. Call his office.
I bug my MP who sees Harper sometimes and ask him. I bug the head of my local CPC riding. I bug all kinds of guys up and down the CPC food chain and get in on the rumor mill and stuff like that.
In short, I do what YOU are supposed to be doing.
I do it myself because I know that you'll say whatever you think will make Harper look bad this week, no matter what he says or does. If he walked on water this afternoon with a ten foot halo around his head, you'd make some comment about global warming.
By the way guys, its "bag". "Dumber than a -bag- of hammers". Sand comes in sacks. "Dumber than a sack of sand." Or other things that come in sacks. And start with "S". ~:D
Phantom:
Potatoes come in sacks. Onions come in sacks. Wet mice come in sacks. Flour comes in sacks.
And sack of hammers is common usage. You could look it up.
I just gotta weigh in on this....
technically....bag and sack...are direct synanyms...they actually means exactely the same...
Not like pistol vs revolver....
However I have noticed that the term sack is more popular in the US.....much like calling pop...soda.
With one exception.....in the US bag generally refers to luggage.
In the US tags go on a car bumper and in Canada are on a dog's collar....
It's sorta like them crazy Brits: They fuel their "motor" with "petrol" then "motor" along looking through the "windscreen" over the "bonnet" with their "loot" in the "boot" as they gayly drive on the wrong side of the road. Oh yes....Brit cars lack a horn...it's a "hooter".
sasquatch- and the British smoke fags and knock you up in the morning if requested!
Like you dp, I think 'sack' is a bitter 'fit' for Kady than is 'bag'. I have purchased beautiful 'bags' but I have never shopped for a nice'sack'.
It seems Kady has forgetten this little pearl from Marshall McLuhan:
"The medium is the message."
So YouTube is a media outlet, and perhaps "Da Google" (to quote Pearls Before Swine) is simply trying to get the CPC more involved in their medium, just like how the Liberal Party of Canada has its own channel on YouTube, where we see the Liberals' version of the unvarnished truth (warning: might as well be a CBC link):
http://www.liberal.ca/en/newsroom/liberal-tv
I think Kady is more concerned with the aggresive growth of alternate forms of media like YouTube, such that the CBC may (and should) soon be referred to the Office of Redundancy.
I've think you've pretty much nailed that, ET.
After going over the idiotic ramblings and mis-information spewing of Kady O'Malley, it would seem that her underlying criticism is the worry the PM can talk directly with Canadians without the bias, distorted, or demented cult like Liberal party filter that is the CBC and other equally Trudeauvian minded MSM pulpits.
Could someone please copy and paste the portion of my "column" in which I suggested that having politicians take questions directly from the public is, in any way, a bad thing?
I see liberano scumbag from the cbc didn't take my vocational advice.
Kady O'Malley - I think you're right, and lance's 5th paragraph is a little unfair to you (sorry, lance). But if you really want to engage us non-CBC-liking types here at SDA, please read or re-read ET's posts at 8:57 and 10:24, and respond to her points. (I'm not thrilled with some of the invective on this thread, but that's the internet for you.)
If you can't refute ET's points, then at least take what she's said on board.
'although if I had been in Google's position, I probably would have offered to set up the same platform for all four leaders.'
Kady makes an 'interesting ' statement here and my question is who is the 4th 'leader. Ducippe is the 'leader' of a separatist outfit in Quebec! What question could a Yukoner have for that 3rd member of the Troika?
Black Mamba - I apologize for not responding thoroughly and promptly to ET's comments, and I'll try my best to do so when I get the chance, but first, I'd really like to take *off* the table any suggestion that I am opposed to politicians dealing directly with the public, whether live or via Youtube. I've never said anything of the sort, probably because it's pretty much the opposite of what I think, so you can understand why I'd like to clear that up first.
As for the assertion that people have the right to ask questions only of the prime minister, I would agree completely -- should they not be interested in hearing what Michael Ignatieff has to say about his shifting views on torture, or Gilles Duceppe on his vision for a sovereign Quebec, or Jack Layton on Israel, they can feel free to pass on the opportunity to do so. In this instance, however, I was looking at the situation from Google Canada's perspective; as a business with a stated interest in various public policy areas -- the copyright and telecommunications acts, specifically -- it really doesn't seem to make much sense to act in a manner that could be viewed as partisan.
It's like ... okay. you know how on the nightly political shows that I'm sure few of you watch, or will admit to watching, at least, given your oft-aired animosity towards the mainstream media at large, during which panels of sitting MPs are frequently invited to appear to share their respective parties' views on the issues of the day? There's a reason why the producers do everything they can to ensure that at least the three federal parties are represented; failing to so would almost certainly lead to allegations of favoritism. Even if the party refuses to send someone to fill that seat, you can make it clear to viewers that the offer was made, and refused. That's why it struck me as so strange that Google Canada wouldn't have taken that into account, or why they didn't make the same offer to the NDP, which had indicated its interest in taking part.