Update: A reader sends this item by a decidedly paranoid Greg Weston, in which he claims there exists an;
“… orchestrated Internet campaigns by Conservative partisans, designed to harass, intimidate and even threaten journalists into backing off a party of such fun-loving people.”
Well, Mr. Weston – an “orchestrated internet campaign” should be pretty easy to find, what with it being orchestrated on the internet and all. Instead of whining about negative feedback from unhappy customers, why not sharpen up your investigative skills by collecting the hard evidence of this vast right wing conspiracy and presenting it the old fashioned way?
As we like to say here in Interweb Land – Google is your friend.
Because, you know – presenting a collection of random quotes as evidence that a conspiracy exists is the type of nonsensical crap you’d expect to see from some amateur blogger on the internet.
Dissent, in Liberal land, is not allowed. Either you are For Them, or, you have no right to exist. So there.
Weston’s selection of quotes are hardly offensive and offending; they are merely telling him ‘the way things are’. We, the public, are tired of opinionated news reporting. We’d like the information, please, and all the information.
For Weston to assume that there is a ‘Conservative conspiracy against journalists’, because many people agree that the PPG is behaving in a childish manner and is not doing its duty of providing us with, and only with, accurate information is nonsense.
What it reveals, however, is how alienated the journalists are from the public, how they have set themselves up as beyond critique – from the government or from the public.
They are shocked. They refuse to acknowledge that quite possibly, they are the ones at fault. They resort to blaming others. It’s Harper! It’s the Internet! It’s the Conservative Blogs! The blogs are out to get us, the Pure Journalists who only seek out Truth! Hah.
I’m a bit surprised that its Weston who produced this bit insightful assumption.
In the past I’ve found his writing to be fairly focussed and not ideologically biased.
HMMMM…..
I guess getting a number of unflattering comments has unsettled him.
Its hard to tell whether Mr. Westons article is that of high satire, where he parodys self important media blowhards who attack anyone who do not share their point of view that they, the media, are above reproach or questioning by the ignorant hoards of their readership, or whether he actually simply is a self important media blowhard. Keep talking Greg, whichever it is, it only serves to make Harper look justified in his position.
“why not sharpen up your investigative skills by collecting the hard evidence of this vast right wing conspiracy and presenting it the old fashioned way?”
If he’s not sure how that is done, I suppose he could always ask his colleagues at the National Post, right?
ET: “Dissent is not allowed”????????????
What, the Liberals are still in power? And I missed it??
Scale back a bit on the hyperbole. You’d make more effective arguments.
Ted
Cerberus
Those emailers were just telling it like it is! Harper (and anyone associated with Reform/Alliance) was treated like cheap western trash by the media for years. I guess they thought we would just buy every word they printed/spoke, regardless of whether it was truthful or not. The healthy thing in all of this is that people are beginning to realize that the press is definitely not beyond reproach.
We now have our very own “Vast right wing conspiracy”. The term Un-Canadian is also a weathervain. It is to laugh. The very people who hate America. Employ its political language & import its lib-left fears. The left has finnaly melted.
Weston soumds pariniod. I wonder if he finnaly is begining to see there is a revolution on the way? He’s running scared.
Ted, your defense of the cause is admirable if not pointless. Weston is just trying to dredge up the conspiracy and hidden agenda paranoia that fooled a lot of Canadians for so long. In doing so Mr Weston has shown us that he also one of the childish left leaning Ottawa journalists that cannot handle the fact that they are not the centre of the parlimentary universe.
BTW: Why did dear Belinda not bring a copy of the famed hidden agenda when she hopped into PM’s parlimentary bed????
Poor Greggie.
I can barely believe the e-mails that have got his knickers in a knot. I know. I know. It’s the ones we HAVEN’T seen that are really bad (apparently), but the ones he’s chosen to make public are simply factual statements of what’s going on. Well, maybe being called “a creep” and an “a**hole” is a little hurtful, but give me a break.
What this article makes clear is how unused to criticism Greg Westin is. He’s just going to have to develop a tougher skin, that’s all. He’s sure able to dole it out (check him out on Politics and Mike Puffy Live), so now that the shoe’s on the other foot he finds he doesn’t like it. To mix my metaphors: Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr. Westin. Now you may have an inkling of how Prime Minister Stephen Harper feels, and he’s been dealing with this kind of criticism and worse from the entitled, spoiled, MSM for years.
LOL I emailed him this:
What? There really is a conservative conspiracy to get rid of the media bias?
Cool, sign me up!
I’ve been provoked by Can’t Broadcast Courage for a long time now.
Enough.
It seems to me Weston’s complaint is part of a ‘conspiracy’ by the parliamentary press gallery in its on-going feud with the PMO over how the PM intends to handle questions from the press.
On CBC’s “Politics” in recent weeks former PPG president, Don Newman, along with James Travers and others have been calling Harper “grumpy”, “arrogant”, etc as well as suggesting the PM’s attitude is “dangerous”. Travers and Newman even said that their role is as a “sort of official opposition”.
What a load of unmitigated crappola. If anyone is “grumpy” or “arrogant” it’s the PPG crowd. And the BS about it serving as an “official opposition” proves its arrogance and underlines the validity of Harper’s complaints about it.
Greg Weston, et al need to get real, get off their lazy asses and supply some decent reporting along with their biased editorializing. And their resistance to even small procedural changes, like the way the PM handles reporters’ questions, is ridiculous.
Well,what was the point of THAT column?(LOL)…Any other political writer,radio host,etc.,will have a similar stack of hatemail from the right or left,depending on their own partisan twist to things.You see how he conveniently fails to clarify that there are indeed a certain % of idiots on both sides.However,we rarely see them put on display in such a fashion as to smear an entire political movement as evil(sound familier?).
This is the exact type of trash journalism we are rallying against on these sites!No better than the “moonbats”so many here like to refer to!
I think also that the PPG are stunned, absolutely stunned, by Harper’s saying that ‘if you don’t play by our rules, then, there are no meetings’. They are stunned because it effectively means that they are out in the cold as far as information gathering.
I’m not into hyperbole, Ted. But the PPG are. They are now into right-wing conspiracy theories, but, they’ve always been into that and into Harper and his ‘hidden agenda’ etc.
But the PPG are trying to downplay the issue and say that their interest is only in ‘lining up at the microphone’ and having the ‘most experienced reporters at the front’. They are saying that they want these reporters, because they will be able to provide us with the ‘most accurate reports’. Sure. That’s not what it’s about.
The real situation is their loss of control over the information, and, a political control over the MSM.
They are now saying that the ‘green young reporters (ie, local reporters whom Harper is talking with) won’t be ‘savvy enough’ to ‘get the news correctly’. Hah. They won’t be opinionated enough to distort the news. They’ll give it to us straight, not through the PPG selected ‘first in line’ reporters with their anti-Harper Liberal bias.
But, it’s the PPG that is in a sweat at the moment; they are ‘out of the loop’ and they don’t want young journalists in; they want to maintain control over ‘who gets the front page story’. So, it’s really about MSM power, and control of power in the MSM.
It’s not about information or providing us with information. It’s about the Politics within the MSM World, and Who Gets The Story. And, as far as the PPG is concerned, it had better be THEM, and not any young reporter in a local newspaper.
We aren’t interested in PPG power games and hierarchies in the MSM. We aren’t interested in old hack journalists who see everything through brainwashed Liberal glasses. We want information. That’s all. The PPG can’t provide us with that information.
Weston should learn two things, One, As Lao Tzu said “Feedback is a Gift” and Two, to look up the words Self Effacement. Of course I don’t expect Left media types to understand either.
Initial reaction for now: I can’t believe you’re still using Google, Kate… beware… they might be sending subliminal messages to you somehow… after all, they’re evil… and might have been lured to the side of darkness… and are practicing the black arts, messing with peoples’ heads right through their monitors…
I need to go eat now. Brain getting too little glucose… long, hard day at work…
You are now experiencing what we in America have since late 2000…
I think the site that is getting Weston’s ire up is this one:
http://www.freedominion.ca/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=547181&
ALthough one site does not a vast right wing conspiracy make.
Whoops,
reading and typing too fast, that last commment of mine makes no senses. If possible, please just kill it.
M
It looks like even the conservative pundits are growing weary of you internet cranks.
Well according to Robert Fife of CTV, it is their duty to hold government accountable.
Please see the today’s video, under http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060525/street_racing_060525/20060525?hub=TopStories
Huh? I thought the unelected Press Gallery was there to ask questions on policies and proposed legislations (stuff like that) so that they can report “facts”. What we have seen from them is their own interpretations and way too many commentaries. I also that the House of Commons opposition parties were there to hold the government to account? Should the press be doing the opposition parties’ job?
BTW: when President Bush said that Stephen Harper has a steely resolve – can his stance with the PPG be considered steely?
” Posted by: Robert McClelland at” …
Worn Kinsellya’s friend has shown its heads.
Red-Green has returned from the crypt; sent by Arafat; Achtung,Himmler, the Joos are under yer cot.
Come on all you geniuses in the MSM, tell us what Stephen Harper’s hidden agenda is all about. After all, you talked about it incessantly for years. A group of top notch reporters like yourselves should have been able to discover the details of it by now. You’ve had Scott Brison and Belinda to fill you in. What is it? Where are all the juicey details? Perhaps some proof that it ever existed would be a start. Or were you just a bunch of paid off liberal hacks hoping to land a cushy patronage appointment? I almost feel sorry for you, you’re so covered in slime and corruption you can’t see the real world anymore. Nearly everything you report on is colored by your expectations that anything a politicion does is simply for the betterment of his party and not for the good of the country. There were too many years of Liberal corruption that went unchecked to have any greater expectations than that, I guess.
So where is it? Where is this hidden agenda?
Or are you finally able to admit what everyone else already knows, that the only hidden agenda was that of the media itself?
I eagerly await the next round of screeching and braying about the scary new PM.
Robert: I have just begun reading SDA a few weeks ago and have posted just a few times but I have seen you enough in that short time to recognize your cyber vomit in a heart beat. Keep your dung to yourself.
Looks like the point Greg Weston makes here is that his ego is mightier than his pen as are his Zig-Zag rolling paper-thin sensibilities.
Truly these dweebs can dish it out, but really really can’t take it.
Greg … this isn’t a conspiratorial right wing campaign to thwart you and your under-worked media pals. it’s the long awaited “backlash” from the right whose patience with the wrong headedness of Liberal and left media has been pushing upon otherwise sensible, peaceful Canadians who have tolerated the intolerable for too long.
There is a change in what Canadians want, now that they have had enough of what they don’t want and you have only felt the first wave of it.
I know it looks scary to you right now, but it’s all good and we will all be a lot better off for it.
Wells chalks it up to laziness and the need to do sexy, ‘gotcha’ stories. That’s partly right.
But it’s disingenuous to discount the bias factor. It’s there, and even the Liberals and Dippers know it, according to those two web polls done today.
Is Weston mocking the entire 55% of respondents to the G&M and CTV polls who believe the press is biased in favour of the Liberals?
As for Weston coming unhinged…. I would gladly participate in a conservative letter writing campaign… if asked. Problem is, I never got the memo that Mr. Weston is talking about. Some conspiracy.
Weston and company are so accustomed to sitting on their thumbs waiting for the Tim Murphys and Scott Reids to tell them what to write and when to pee, that they think we all operate in the same lowly manner. I’m afraid not, Greg.
I have to say it is funny as hell to have the Liberal press acting like the loons with tinfoil hats ever since Harper came into power. The bullies are running scared, and I’m loving it.
If Harper is wondering whether or not he’s doing the right thing, he needs to look no further than the feigned concern being dished out by the liberals, worrying that Harper is hurting himself. If these people thought Harper was committing political suicide, they would clam up and smile. Their panic speaks volumes.
With any luck all the the PPG will go on strike and then we concentrate on the business of the country.
I used to wonder why Greg Weston (who occasionally writes like a conservative) is a frequent guest on Don Newman’s Politics program.
Unlike Michael Coren, Greg is a Press gallery guy who “fits in” to the CBC’s notion of political punditry for public consumption.
Greg is finally discovering the internet community is on side with Harper in the media bias issue.
Greg, the pathway from the press gallery to the Senate is blocked.
No more Jim Munson appointments.
By Stephen Harper, Prime minister.
In 2006.
In Canada.
I am not making this up!
Unlike a lot of columnists, Greg Weston’s column does NOT actually have his email on it.
I have a habit of dashing off e-mails to sundry journalists, mostly when I don’t agree with them. I have criticised numerous people including (but not limited to) Chantal Hebert, Don Martin, Norman Spector, and Richard Gwyn, and with the exception of Mrs. Copps, who didn’t reply at all, they have all responded almost instantly. I got the impression that most of them sit there with bated breath after they have filed their story, and are absolutely delirious to find someone has actually read it all the way through. Even someone criticising is better than no-one reading. Which makes Greg Weston’s hissy fit even more strange. I can only conclude he is running out out of things to write about, although at least he has not been reduced to writing about his son’s girlfriend like Jim Travers.
If being called a creep and an a**hole is his idea of a supreme insult, he must have led a very sheltered life, and maybe he should get out more. I also find it a pretty low trick to publish people’s names when you are quoting part of their e-mail, not necessarily in context, but that just bears out a lot of the comments.
It is official policy here that any journalist who uses the term “scary” in reference to Steven Harper or the Conservative party in a twit.
Cheers
” I can only conclude he is running out out of things to write about”
Judith, I agree. I’ve read Weston’s column for several years and always enjoyed his skewering of the Liberal party and JC and PM in particular.
Since SH became PM he has really, noticably, changed directions. It seems that he has forgotten all the details he has written over the years and now just wants to complain about the current state of the PMO.
Maybe Greg is just a chronic complainer… At least when the Libs were in he had lots to complain about.
http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Weston_Greg/2006/05/16/1582297-sun.html
contains the words email Greg Weston but of course he put it at the bottom of his column. So I’m not sure that counts as a conspiracy or an invitation.
Mr. Harper has to keep on “worrying advocates”.
He is Mr. Plain Spoken Man. The power of the English language, words plainly spoken is telling. Mr. Plain Spoken Man is scaring the heroin crowd.
Stand fast, Mr. Harper. No tax money for heroin addicts or their advisers. Shut them down. Starve them out. Go, faster, and more. …
Harper says he’s “not committed” to injection site, worrying advocates
By CAMILLE BAINS
VANCOUVER (CP) – Proponents of Canada’s first safe-injection site for heroin addicts say they don’t understand why Prime Minister Stephen Harper isn’t committed to the facility that appears to have saved lives and slowed the spread of diseases such as HIV.
Harper told a news conference Thursday the Conservative government is still deciding on the fate of the site where addicts are allowed to shoot heroin or use other injection drugs under the supervision of health-care workers.
“I’m not committed to it,” he said in Vancouver….
cnews
I also find it a pretty low trick to publish people’s names when you are quoting part of their e-mail, not necessarily in context, but that just bears out a lot of the comments.
Posted by: Judith Davies
A very valid point. Thank you for bringing it up.I never thought what the recipiants of his wrath would feel being used without full quotes. As well, being used as his foil, in this rant.
Your right. It paints him as a cad.
“While Stephen Harper has been doing everything he can to not look too scary these days…”
The Gregster presents his bona fides right off the bat! No wasting time with this guy! Harper is still “scary.”
“But the preponderance of identical themes, comments and buzzwords across dozens of e-mails on the same topic…”
I take a drink every time I come across the words/phrases “schadenfreude” and “fin de siecle” in the Mope and Wail. Needless to say, I get pretty friggin’ drunk!
I love how Greggie doesn’t realize how he’s talking down to potential, current, and former CUSTOMERS. That’s right, Greggie, the people who allow you to whip off a column while you’re sitting on the throne.
Enjoy it while you can, because we innernut conspirators are on to you!
Farce: # A ludicrous, empty show; a mockery: The fixed election was a farce.
# A seasoned stuffing, as for roasted turkey.
dictionary.com …
Wretchard is deep, no? Help explain this …
“Its true purpose is to enforce a certain point of view.” Uh, huh… a POV? Those POV’s are challenged now by bloggers, and talk radio. The MSM is in a catatonic state; kick them while they are down. Harder…
The War Against The CIA
Commentary
If journalism were held to the same standards as fiction, the courts would be clogged with accusations of plagiarism. Although plot details may vary, news “narratives” bear a closer resemblance to each other than Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code did to Baigent and Leigh’s Holy Blood, Holy Grail. That plaigarism case went to court, though Baigent and Leigh lost; and Time doesn’t have to sue itself. The real function of an editorial room isn’t to maintain stylistic consistency. Its true purpose is to enforce a certain point of view. The mainstream media’s strength lies in its role as a foundry of news objects; as the creator of stories and masters of its lifecycle. Media power consists in being able to determine a narrative’s birth, evolution and its final fate. The media has, as Orwell said, the power over history; a history which as Marx observed and Time demonstrates, always appears twice, first as tragedy and the second time as farce. …
http://www.fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/
I heard Greg Weston ranting with Charles Adler about this whole thing this afternoon. It was pathetic. Their noses are so out of joint they’ve been dislocated.
I don’t think it is even so much a left or right bias with some of them. It is a power trip that somehow some of these unelected hangers on feel they have the absolute God givern right to call the Prime Minister of our country fatso, Stevie, a doughboy in a fishing vest, petulant, angry, iceman,Bush buddy, Neo-Con …(insert your own slanderous defamation personal attack words here)…and they feel somehow that THEY can get away with it because THEY have freedom of the press and THEY are holding the goverment accountable!!!
Would THEY do that to any other citizen of our country and get away with it? Think about it.
So the Parliamentary Press gallery is still looking for monsters under the bed, how childish!
Wouldn’t that be fabulous if they all went on strike and there was no MSM reporting from Ottawa. The fact of the matter is print is dying and the dinosaurs in the press gallery are headed for extinction…
Harper and his supporters accuse the msm of an orchestrated campaign to undermine the Conservatives.
Weston and the msm accuse Harper supporters of an orchestrated campaign to undermine the media.
Paranoia: noun 1. a mental condition characterized by delusions of persecution, unwarranted jealousy, or exaggerated self-importance. 2. unjustified suspicion and mistrust of others
In the media’s own spin on this story they are doing exactly what we have said they do. Presenting misinformation; using exageration; getting spokespersons who are apologists for their point of view and using FEAR – the slippery slope argument that somehow if the PMO gets to coordinate who gets to ask questions from a list THEY sign there COULD possibly be an attempt for Stephen Harper (the CONTROL FREAK) to ignore questions from biased media who MIHGT ask hard questions that he MIGHT not like answering.
Of course – none of this has happened. The story is that the PM is the most acceisible PM in years and answers pretty well all questions without spin and barflegab.
But BOOGA BOOGA.
But, the most distrubing for me in all of this is how many of these reporters have claimed that it is THEIR JOB to hold the government accountable!!!! Ipso-they truly believe THEY and not the democratically elected members of the Opposition ARE the official opposition.
Something is very very wrong her. These are senior level Press Gallery members claiming that their role is NOT to report the news but to usurp the democratic role of parliament by BEING the opposition.
Exactly as Stephen Harper said yesterda -“Some members of the Ottawa Press Gallery believe their role is to be the Official Opposition”. He said it and they are in an uproar. But they proved he was right by claiming today that is their role. Bob Fife – if you really want to be the Official Opposition run for a seat as a Liberal.
Other wise -report the news – we don’t want your opinion; we want verified sources and not half truths and propaganda and spin.
Come clean on the truth behind the Liberal’s day care, Kyoto, Kelowna and the myriad of other lies you have perpetrated as the “official opposition”.
Why no headlines these days on the Chuck Guite trial. There are real stories out there that affect Canadians more than your pity party enroute to a political appointment one day which you may see fading away with new ethics in Ottawaa.
.
A Conservative self-fullfilling prophecy: The msm supports the Liberals/NDP, so don’t talk to them and they can exclusively promote the Liberals/NDP.
poor greg has been chastised and does’nt like it a bit. so sad. those of us who are free thinkers are just not with it. as previous posters remarked he is writing with parinoia. people dissing him, poor soul. he should take a good look at the pic on his column. if ever i saw parinoia there it is. by the way greg the ducktail haircut went out with sqiggy and lenny.
LOL
Unclemeat — I just sent off my own Email to Greg Weston (via the editor) calling him a twit. I will say it again — Greg Weston = twit. I asked him if I qualified for the mild category.
Relax people. The socialist lefties are just peeved that they can’t control the gubbermint anymore. Like all socialists, they will just run around, yapping, in circles, until they disappear up their own a**holes, where their heads are anyways. People like Steve and Robert are just scared that they may actually have to start thinking for themselves, instead of being told what to think by their masters.
One of the checks and balances in a healthy democracy is an independant press. They certainly aren’t the official opposition, but it is their job to report what’s going on in government. As for editorial writers and columnists, it’s their job to think critically about what the government is up to. Regardless of the government in power, we need the press to hold our elected representatives accountable.
Yes, I do think there’s a centrist bias in Canadian media, but I’d say that’s fairly reflective of the Canadian population as a whole. That said, I don’t think we need to look too far back in the stack of papers in the garage to see Martin get skewered on a daily basis for being a lame duck PM. And in those papers, be it the Globe, Star, or Post, you’ll see far more positive press for Harper than for Martin (as was appropriate — Martin was running on the notion that he deserved to be PM, and Harper ran on a platform).
Regarding Harper and the PMO trying to micromanage the press with the lame excuse that they’re biased against the conservatives, I say suck it up. Yes, there certainly are left-leaning media in Canada, but we’ve also got significant sources of right-leaning media (the Sun papers, the National Post, Global — and MacLeans is heading in that direction).
I find the whole idea of the PMO determining who gets to ask questions incredibly lame and cowardly. I want a press that asks the PM tough questions — regardless if it’s a Conservative PM or a Lib.
And if we’re being honest here, let’s imagine the outrage over here at SDA if Chretien or Martin were to pull a stunt like this.
Dirk — I don’t read the Sun papers. Can’t comment. Anybody that still is putting bikinis on page 3 cannot be taken seriously. National Post seems to swing the direction they feel they should be. Global and Macleans are so far left, that there is no other direction but to swing right. The press should suck it up.
Does anyone notice how msm keep saying that if Harper doesn’t do what they want he could pay for it later (next election) They’re threatening to do what? Tell lies,what does that tell us? Something is not right about those statements.
There is no orchestrated campaign against the media. If there is, then someone forgot to send me my weekly check.
The mainstream no longer has control over the flow of information. Plus, thanks to the internet, we can fact-check them. Fact-checking went out the door long ago for most mainstream journalists. Now their feet are being held to the fire and they don’t like it.
-Michael McCullough
Stingray: a blog for salty Christians
“Global and Macleans are so far left, that there is no other direction but to swing right.”
Huh? I’m beginning to think that many posters here have no clue as to what “left” or “socialist” means. The Globe is most certainly *not* a left wing, or even a somewhat left-of-centre paper. Are you forgetting that the Globe endorsed Harper in the last election?
At its core, the Globe is a fiscally conservative and socially liberal paper.
As for MacLean’s, the former Post editor Ken Whyte is now the editor, and has brought in a number of former Posties. Can you really say with a straight face that a magazine that features columns by both Barbara Amiel and Mark Steyn is a left-leaning publication??
Agreed on the Sun. It’s a piece of crap. But it’s a right-leaning piece of crap.
Unless and until the PPG can tell us what they knew and when they knew it concerning Liberal corruption so vile and excessive they HAD to know all about it, they serve no purpose whatsoever except to testify in court to the vermin who were our government , are no longer and should be in jail. They are accessories before, during and after the fact and should also be handcuffed to their lords and masters who were the liberal party. They should very carefully remind themselves of that before they get their shorts in a knot over what the PM decides to do.
They do not run things as much as they would like to continue to believe they do.
Far from it, they may soon find themselves quite
UNemployed!… and unemployable..