Parsing CTV

Media 65 Comments

What exactly do they mean by this sentence?

But Harper stopped short Friday of vowing his party would avoid negative campaigning in its bid to mislead the public in his bid to form a Conservative government.

Update – SDA readers get results! The passage has been edited.

65 Replies to “Parsing CTV”

  1. Freudian slip or sloppy editing? This portion does not appear in the televised version.
    Of course, Fife was the first one to bring up the comparison to the “supporting paedophelia” gaffe and Harper’s assertion that PMPM wants a separatist government to rail against.

  2. Unbelievable. Here is what I posted to CTV’s feedback:
    Can you explain the sentence “But Harper stopped short Friday of vowing his party would avoid negative campaigning in its bid to mislead the public in his bid to form a Conservative government.” How exactly is Mr. Harper trying to mislead the public?
    Is your freudian slip showing? Are the biases of your staff unintentionally slipping into your articles?
    I suggest cleaning up this article and making it factually correct and not a representation of your staff’s personal opinions.
    And you wonder were the notion of media bias comes from…

  3. Reading the piece again, I don’t know if one can attribute the sentence to Fife or the anonymous “news staff” so I changed the title of the post to reflect that.

  5. Typical of some with CTV news, hiding behind the anonymous “staff”. This is exactly the kind of deceptive practice that is contained in the Lie-beral Party of Canada’s standard operational procedures. I for one hope they go all out with the negative attack, because this time around it will burn them mercilously, as if in a funeral fire, until they’re nothing but ashes blowing in the cold winter wind.

  6. This is another clear example of how editorial comment is creeping into CTV’s online news coverage – almost daily now.
    Whether it’s their photos, photo captions, or errors in story content, it always seems to be a quick jab at Harper whilst the other leaders are spared…it could be completely innocuous – perhaps no one is proof-reading for bias before it’s posted live, but it has been raising this broadcasting grad’s eyebrow repeatedly. Good eye Kate! Can’t wait to see the e-mail reply from the CTV online news staff – they are usually quite prompt with a reply.

  7. Am I the only person in Canada moraly outraged over the Liberals using a holocaust memorial as a backdrop for it’s attack ads???
    Ahhhh, why should I expect any liberal to think this is wrong… I mean, it’s not like they have ever TRIED to show any decency during an election.

  8. Even the sentence that immediately precedes the one that Kate points out had me shaking my head.
    “Saddled with a nagging reputation for negative campaigning, the Conservatives are taking a more subtle tack in their newest advertisements.”
    Really? The Conservatives have a “nagging reputation” for negative campaigning? As opposed to the NDP who have already run negative ads in this campaign, and the Liberals who ran a slew of negative ads in the last campaign? And who exactly have “saddled” them with this reputation? Care to name names, CTV?

  9. The line for the re-education and re-socialization centre forms to the right. Left line is to the latrines only. No shoving please.

  10. CTV has the nerve to write about Harper and ‘negative campaigning’–what about negative reporting? I have written to them also.

  11. I submitted the following in feedback to the CTV:
    But Harper stopped short Friday of vowing his party would avoid negative campaigning in its bid to mislead the public in his bid to form a Conservative government.
    Please explain to me what the sentence in this article means. Not only is it poor grammar but it is poor journalism. This is obvious bias. Even with the knowledge that the CTV is biased, I must say I am still shocked when it is that transparent. Is this an editorial or a news article? If it is an editorial, perhaps you should state that.

  12. Apparently, some Liberal campaign workers have found temp jobs over the Christmas period replacing vacationing CTV editors and staff. This explains why it took such a long sentence to slam Harper and why it was totally incomprehensible to the average reader.

  17. I’m not sure but I think I disagree with y’all. While paragraph 13 and 14 are spun left as noted, the majority of the article is spun right. Same with this CBC article: http://tinyurl.com/ayg9p
    Historically I’ve been used to the Liberal spin being put at the top of the article, and the Conservative spin being buried. That didn’t happen in these cases, even though it would have been easy to spin some Liberal perspective first.
    I have found that if I’m looking to find some tree to disagree with, I almost always can. I have also found that said habit tends to interfere with my seeing the forest. I’m not sure those observations apply here, but they do suggest themselves to me. Or maybe it’s just the spirit of the season.
    Merry Christmas Everyone
    Peace On Earth and Goodwill Toward All

  18. I’m Peter Mansbridge for The National.
    Liberals were reduced to bare opposition status in a Tory majority parliament under Prime Minister Stephen Harper three years ago today.
    Belinda Stronach, who won her seat by a single vote, folds paper airplanes daily in her seat next next to Paul Martin, who has suffered a nervous breakdown and refuses to resign. Martin, his unwashed hair now shoulder-length, has Scott Reid bring his meals into the Chamber so that nobody takes his seat during Question Period.
    Jack Layton still shaves his head clean and sports a gold hoop in his left earlobe. His mustache is now a fully grown handlebar. “Call me Mr. Lover.” he whispers to anyone within earshot – except when Olivia is around. “Let’s make a deal, baby.” Layton informed us today.
    Harper sent Mackay on a two-year trek across the Prairies, to count all the missing grain elevators. Mackay got lost somewhere in the Palliser Triangle and hasn’t been heard from again.
    Harper today announced the renewal of Anne Mclellan’s subscription to ‘Guns and Ammo’, sending it along to her work cubicle in the basement of the Agriculture Building in downtown Toronto, where Annie sexes chickens for a living.
    Here’s Keith Boag with his report…

  20. Well, CTV’s online staff must be getting the e-mails – they have finally fixed it. Faster than when they accidentally had Andr� Boisclair’s female alter-ego Andrea Boisclair named in a story three times.

  22. The text has been corrected, although it still refers to “a nagging reputation for negative advertizing…”.
    All in all, still more negative for the Liberals.
    well done Kate et al!

  24. “But Harper stopped short Friday of vowing his party would avoid negative campaigning in its bid to form a Conservative government.” Revised version. Modified: Friday, December 23, 2005 10:42:53 PM >
    Original version:
    “But Harper stopped short Friday of vowing his party would avoid negative campaigning in its bid to mislead the public in his bid to form a Conservative government.”
    as per link.
    Chopped? “to mislead the public in his bid”
    MSM/CTV for SSMartin. CTV slandering Harper. >

  25. Ahh, now I get it. Well, my original observation stands, but my missing your point on the specifics of the inappropriateness of the “mislead” phrasing was rather sloppy of me.

  26. Buried at the bottom of this story is:
    “Meanwhile, the Jewish community is demanding an apology from the Liberals, for making them the first casualties in what is expected to be an increasingly nasty campaign in the weeks leading to Jan. 23.”
    link provided
    Which “Jewish community”? Montreal? Toronto? Winnipeg?
    This is a damning indictment of the Liberal Party of Canada. The Liberals have made the Jews of Canada/World into the “first casualties” of the Liberals’ slanderous election campaign. How? Here it is:
    “I think it’s beyond tasteless,” Harper said Friday, noting that the photo was taken when all four federal party leaders were attending a Holocaust memorial on Parliament Hill last spring.”
    “Jewish community” : Please speak publicly about this. Has any Jewish group issued a “press release”? RSVP
    http://www.jewishwinnipeg.org/
    http://www.jewishwinnipeg.org/contact_us.html

  27. Off Topic to Kate:
    I was looking through the comments section of one of your previous posts and saw a comment by the moonbat known as Robert McLelland – of the infamous, except to the CBC, Myblahg website – calling you an “ignorant twat”. You do know what a twat is…it’s British slang for, well, it rhymes with ‘hunt’.
    I know that rightwingers rarely ban people, like the lefties often do, but if I was a female and someone called me a twat in “my home”, I would ban them.
    P.S. Keep up the great work. This is only my 2nd comment, but I visit this site every day – or nearly every day.
    P.P.S. Congrats on winning best Canadian Blog for 2005; you deserved it.

  28. CTV, CBC and the Liberals should avoid turkey this Christmas.
    Cannabalism is just not socially acceptable.

  29. Is this Robert y’all keep referring to the one who used to hang around here long ago making an annoyance out of himself? I’m just asking because if so then there must be something wrong with my end of the Web: I haven’t seen anything he’s posted for quite some time now.

  31. Toontowner,
    Just my opinion, but banning someone like Robert is counterproductive. He illustrates *so clearly* the type of political cancer that is killing this country. Moonbat defined.

  32. I could not resist firing off the following email to CTV.
    I noted in a recent online article a reference to the Conservative campaign, the following was stated “Saddled with a nagging reputation for negative campaigning”.
    Although it is no secret that a media bias is present and in regards to CTV, Charles Bird, Ontario Liberal campaign manager and vice-president at Bell Globemedia is calling the shots, surely there is non partisan evidence of your comment.
    Would you please inform your readers where you have found the proof of that reputation you suggest they are saddled with. Can you also put it in perspective in regards to the other parties? I have seen the upcoming Liberal ads and they surely fit into the negative campaigning mode. I am confident that you have a reliable source that can verify your comment and it is simply not shoddy reporting or a personal bias.
    As well, since antisemitism is a serious offence that can be attributed to numerous hate crimes, can you expand on which “Jewish community” you refer to and the issues they currently have with the Liberals. We have already seen the CBC.ca website use the tragedy known as Nazi Germany and the holocaust for partisan purposes. In terms of responsible reporting, I would believe it would be the duty of CTV if the Liberals have used that tragedy for their benefit.

  33. Buried at the bottom of this story is:
    “Meanwhile, the Jewish community is demanding an apology……” (Maz2)
    Maz is right, this is the real story here. It’s obvious that a personal prejudice of an editor found it’s way into an online story. Not the end of the world, but it probably would have stood all weekend without someone shining a light on it.
    Back on topic, is there an identifiable group of Canadians the Liberals *haven’t* insulted in this election?

  34. It was clearly a typo.
    Take a look at the video clips attached to that article – that actually played on the evening news – and try and claim a ‘Liberal bias’ in that story.
    I’m sure the Liberals would gladly change places with us.

  35. One Anonymous to another: Even if it was a typo, this does appear to be happening more and more frequently at CTV.ca. Their news writers are paid to get the facts right, sans opinions, plain and simple. If it were spoken broadcast (ie. teleprompter misread) or in a daily newspaper vs. online content, a true and proper retraction would be warranted. I am sure there are others with less “left-hand” typos that would love that job.

  36. Let’s recap. (1) Bad copywriting, possibly freudian, fixed possibly under duress. (2) Overall, article presented Mr. Harper’s case well. (3) The final paragraph is damaging, possibly undeservedly, to the Liberals. (4) Everyone’s missed Mr. Harper’s most important quote in the article:
    “Anything we will be saying in this campaign will be factual and accurate. I can’t promise it will all be pretty.”
    I’m not sure that saying something factual and accurate and not pretty counts as negative campaigning. After all, the Auditor General’s reports are often factual and accurate and not pretty, yet I consider them a positive.

  37. Anonymous is going around to all the blogs and forums and pasting in the same response everywhere. He is clearly someone trying to put out a fire. Do you work at CTV anonymous???
    The reality is that it would have had to have been about 50 typos that resulted in a coherent phrase. An infinite number of monkeys couldn’t pull that off.

  38. But FerretHouse, the evidence to date shows that it should be considered a mistake that has been corrected (fire or otherwise), independent of our agreement that recent history suggests that those who made this particular mistake have had a habit of doing that sort of thing.
    If one wants to get the media on one’s side in a battle, it doesn’t help to badger them when they back off. They too, you may have noticed, are human.
    Meanwhile, I still must ask: is it not the case that overall the article presented the story well, from Mr. Harper’s perspective? Remember, if you read new releases like this through to the end, you will usually find that they present both sides of the story, it’s just that they bury the story they’re not promoting.
    This time they buried the Liberal’s story.

  39. How wonderful to read there is fire in the
    comments sent to CTV. The liberal bias must be
    shown to be what it is, spin and outright lies.
    If we do not work at stopping them, they will
    become like the American MSM, just a group of
    lefties who think they run the world, and really
    think it would be better with Kerry as president.
    Nightmare time.
    The conservatives are runnning a very organized
    campaign and get right on any real lies, but
    they can only do so much with the liberal
    MSM, so in order to refute their lies, it is up
    to the blogger.
    Great Job, Kate.

  40. At this stage in the campaign the MSM has been very subtle and subliminal with thier Liberal biases. They seem to be keeping up the appearance of being fair and non-partisan. Expect that to change in the very near future as we all know most in this business lack any journalistic intergity. It would be worth your while to stop by cbc.ca to see the holocaust photo(Harper/Duceppe) positioned next to a friendly cartoon of Layton and Martin.

  41. Vitruvius:
    If one wants to get the media on one’s side in a battle, it doesn’t help to badger them when they back off. They too, you may have noticed, are human.
    Do you honestly think that being “nice” to these organizations will bring them onside?! Bell Globemedia is run by Liberals and stands to gain hundreds of millions of dollars by seeing through a Liberal victory. Me “badgering” them isn’t going to make an ounce of difference. Me helping to expose their agenda however might convince a few Canadians to take their perspective with a grain of salt.

  42. Of course people are going around saying to ‘back off.’
    CTV made an error this evening, and corrected it. There is nothing to suggest it was intentional.
    They had a typo at the bottom a news article that will be read by a few hundred people on the internet, which was insulting to the CPC.
    They also ran blistering attacks on the Liberals this evening on their national news programs, which was seen by hundreds of thousands of people.
    Get some perspective here.

  44. Moose:
    Although it is difficult to get non-biased media in Canada, CPAC seems to be the only political news station that I can stomach. If you can get past Susan Smith (she exemplifies what the liberals are all about), there seems to be a bit more balanced information. The main commentator is biased but I am happy that he grilled Martin as hard as he did Harper.
    I am thankful for blogs – it is a breath of fresh air to know there are people out there who are as upset as I am over the direction our country has been going. According to polls and the media, I am one of few.

  45. I finally figured out why nearly all the commentary at this blog sounds oddly familiar. It’s because lefties 25 years ago were saying exactly the same thing.
    And still are: everyone on all sides feels as though the mainstream media is biased heavily against them; everyone from all sides feels the other political parties represent secret interests; everyone from all sides feels there is a privileged group taking unearned benefits.
    And it’s been like this since I can ever remember. People sold on the Liberal lies think the Conservatives are evil plotters and their supporters, dupes; those sold on Conservative lies think the Liberals are out-and-out criminals and their supporters, fools; those sold on the NDP lies think both parties are only tools of big business and both their supporters are blind.
    Meanwhile, the whole nation of citizens is sold lies, and we’re all suspicious of each other.
    There was hope that new technology, like these blogs, might change everything, including this system. But look, give a blogger a bit of attention, invite them into the tent where the silly game has been going on for so long, and what do they do? Sit right down and join right in.
    Kate is just campaigning for the Conservatives, nothing more or less. She has bought into the system completely once she was fed from their hand. She used to be outside, unconnected, mystified, and writing about that. And that resonated with a lot of Canadians. Now she is inside, and her writing is just more of the same, and her blog is just another lawn sign.
    Kevin Potvin

  46. I don’t know, FerretHouse, as I said at 10:07 PM, maybe I’m just feeling the charitable spirit of the season. But overall I still think the article in question was net positive for Mr. Harper. I’ll just leave it at that, since it’s only 27 hours ’till Santa Claus stops by for port and brisket (as I mentioned at this site yesterday, milk and cookies alone are not a balanced diet), so I have one more sleep before then to do now.
    Merry Christmas Everyone
    Peace On Earth and Goodwill Toward All

  47. In a “democratic” country, it finally gives the general population a voice. Conspiracy? Oversensitive? Perhaps. We have a “national” media that is funded by the government. I’d definitely say there is a priviledged group taking unearned benefits! If you want to diss the public for finally having an outlet, you are not looking for democracy. You deserve the government you get and pray that you are in the priviledged group…..

  48. Just out of curiousity, am I the only one that remembers when that picture was taken and which media outlets were splashing it all over the place?
    Just askin’… There’s a CP credit on the cbc page, I assume it’s the same at ctv…

  49. Kevin scroll down to the Best of SDA and read “I Concede”..you just mite get a better idea of how alot of people feel about this Gov’t.

  50. A(lice) Cooper:
    //Just my opinion, but banning someone like Robert is counterproductive. He illustrates *so clearly* the type of political cancer that is killing this country. Moonbat defined.//
    You make a good point.

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