Call it one of the Great Unsolved Media Mysteries of our Time.
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I watched Tom Clark interviewed on Mike Duffy Live yesterday. I waited for him to round out his critique of the performers with a mention of the many stunning inaccuracies uttered by 35 year Senate veteran and head of the Foreign Relations Committee, Joe Biden. They never came.
Why was I waiting? Because, as a private, unaffiliated blogger in rural Saskatchewan, I receive alerts from McCain campaign. (Indeed, I receive more from their campaign than I do the Conservatives). I didn’t sign up for those – they found me.
Therefore, I can only assume the CTV Washington Bureau Chief would be among the thousands in media who received a copy of the rapid response that landed in my inbox in the hours after the debate; Joe Biden’s 14 Lies.
In addition, he’s being ripped far and wide for “hallucinations” like this;
IRAQ-AFGHANISTAN SPENDING: Biden said that the U.S. spends more in Iraq in one month than it has in Afghanistan in six or seven years.
That figure is off by 2000 percent.
Hell, even I noticed the nonsense about Hezbollah and the denial of his “rope line” statements on coal.
As CTV’s Washington Bureau Chief, with media status several orders of magnitude more important than mine, I find it inconceivable that Tom Clark was, over 12 hours later, apparently unaware of the factual errors and untruths uttered by Biden during the debate.
Thus, I can only assume that someone made a conscious decision not to share the information with viewers of CTV. That’s not editorial decision making, it’s filtering.
Just another brick in the growing wall between informed media consumers and the self-destructing profession we refer to as “mainstream” journalism.
Or it could be that many in the media including Clark are just not that smart. He is nothing more than a glorified news reader, couldn’t find the real story if he tried.
Is there some way for all of us to clip this article and forward it to CTV? ( news@ctv.ca )
I wonder how many such e-mails would cause them to wake up.
Cheers. Eric
Clark’s filtering just like you’re filtering Kate – you all filter. He filters Biden’s mistakes and you filter Palin’s mistakes. You’re even.
Peter D
If Kate is filtering, how come your post appeared?
Actully, Peter D – there’s a difference between Clark and Kate. An enormous difference.
First, could you provide factual evidence of kate’s filtering of Palin’s comments? Her filtering, not that of commentors.
Second, Clark is a public news broadcaster; he’s presenting data to the public. He’s paid to provide us with the news. The news, not his opinions. Kate is a private blogger.
Third, blogs are self-correcting. If Kate or anyone presents non-factual data on a blog, a commenter immediately corrects this. This doesn’t happen in the authoritarian, one-way communication that is television, radio, newspapers. They present, as gods, in an authoritarian manner.
OK?
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c’mon, joe biden? don’t you know…
he’s all about “the science”.
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If Kate is filtering, how come your post appeared?
I never said that Kate filters commentators, but comments made by Palin. How come she didn’t say anything about the mistakes Palin made in the debate? Or the mistakes Palin made in the weeks leading up to the debate in her interviews? It’s called filtering.
Second, Clark is a public news broadcaster; he’s presenting data to the public. He’s paid to provide us with the news. The news, not his opinions. Kate is a private blogger.
Yes, I know the difference and that’s been Kate’s excuse for years – she’s not a pro so she doesn’t have to do what she criticizes the msm for.
Third, blogs are self-correcting. If Kate or anyone presents non-factual data on a blog…
Which one of you went out of your way to correct Kate about the fact that she didn’t talk about Palin’s mistakes? Or that she called Plain the clear-cut winner of the debate? Or when she said Biden was too detail obsessed?
All I’m doing is pointing out the inconsistency. If you are going to criticize others for not doing something, then shouldn’t you try and do your best not to do that as well?
I wonder if Tom Clark paid for that new suit and expensive overcoat himself….. Perhaps it’s not bribery, but just incompetence. That’s it, he was out shopping and didn’t watch the debate either.
At what point are the people going to wake up to what’s being played out in the media across the board in this country?
They’re using Banana Republic tactics to influence peoples’ choice through filtering and omissions. They’re skewing news to manipulate opinion both in the print media and television coming into our homes daily.
Where do we turn to wring their fat necks?
Maybe he’s just too stupid to be able to figure it out.
After all, people who can do Math & Science don’t go into Journalism.
thank you for pointing this out.
Peter D
You failed to answer question #2.
Peter D:
If we all followed the dictum that we can’t possibly criticize others until we’ve cleaned up our own act, the entire human race would’ve been mute at least from the time of Jesus of Nazareth (and possibly long before).
It is not my job (nor your job) as a private citizen to be “fair and balanced”: that would lead us into an untenable state of paralysis by analysis. If you’re actually planning on voting in this election (regardless of whether it’s U.S. or Canada), you’re making a choice to filter and overlook the foibles, peccadilloes and general lapses (moral and otherwise) of whichever candidate you’re voting for. In fact, in a democracy, we expect that to happen.
What we don’t expect to happen is to have public media, paid for by everyone in the society, to filter specific information so that I cannot even know about all the problems with all the candidates before I go into the voting booth.
That’s unacceptable. It’s interfering with my ability and right to know the devil I’m voting for and the devils I’m not voting for. It’s manipulative in ways that the private opinions of a private individual never are.
I don’t think you’ve thought through the full ramifications of this difference.
Garth
It is unnecessary for bloggers to point out Palin’s errors since the MSM does a thorough job of it. Now if only the MSM did the same in regards to Biden/Obama.
“How come she didn’t say anything about the mistakes Palin made in the debate? ”
Peter D:
Kate pointed out the mistakes by Biden.
Now why don’t you point out Palin’s Mistakes?
If you do, you can bet they won’t be filtered.
I’ve seen Kate take some pretty good shots at people on all sides of the political spectrum.
I hardly call that filtering.
He’s a minion. He did his job. He gave cover for Duffy to lie through his teeth to the idiots that still watch CTV, (or Global, for that matter). It’s reached the point that we here in darkest Clayville are paying $110. a month for sat prog that gives me approximately 4 hours per day of watchable television, as I refuse to watch most of the pap from the networks, NOT ANY OF THE MSN NEWS EVER! I also don’t watch any of the slimy EXTRA! channels you are required to take to get the individual ones you actually want. Then the one you wanted spew crap at you 90% of the time.
My wife still watches a bunch of it, but I’m not allowed in the room, she can’t stand my constant bitching, moaning and arm waving.
IanV
Peter D – again, you are setting up a red herring.
The fact that an MSM news station is paid to present us with the news, the factual news, is completely different from a blog. The difference is not an excuse; it’s a reality that you are ignoring. This difference is not that of a ‘pro’, which suggests that the blog is amateur or deliberately misleading.
The difference is that the MSM has only one agenda, to provide us with facts, as differentiated from its other provision of opinion. The problem is, that the MSM merges the two; that’s called propaganda.
A blog doesn’t have such an agenda. And again, a blog is open not closed like the MSM. Any and all comments are open to rebuttal, clarification, analysis. Not the case with the MSM.
Kate’s view that Palin was the ‘clear-cut winner’ in the debates is her opinion. Same with her view of Biden. Others, like you, have a different opinion.
One opinion may have more validity than another opinion – based on its adherence to facts and logic.
Did you ‘correct’ this blog’s views of Palin? I don’t recall that you did. I’m aware of real’s post, in another thread, where he attempts to correct – but, his corrections are, in themselves, false (eg..’the Bush doctrine’)or irrelevant (newspapers).
So, a blog is not simply the postings of the blog owner. It also consists of the comments. You don’t seem to understand, or accept, this.
As for Palin, she’s a chisel against the frozen monolith that is the Washington Culture. I’m completely in favour of her as such. I don’t want just more Monolithic entrenchment..which is what we’ll get with Obama-Biden. Except, with Obama, we also have a self-absorbed, narcissistic opportunist. And that’s dangerous.
I don’t know if he’s a shill for Democrats/liberals etc. Just a case of him not doing his homework, I think. Because in the early 90s, he was blasted for hosting a phone-in show on CTV, taking calls with his guest Mulroney on the GST just before it came into law. There were no angry calls, just people wanting to lean more about the hated tax. Cartoonists, like the Sun’s Donato, made fun of the program, by depicting a wall dividing Clark and Mulroney from those making the calls, inferring they were made by CTV employees.
Bullseye ET! Bullseye!
Another one like that and you’ll split the arrow.
The Great Steyn is back and offers more commentary on the debate, including Biden’s command of “the facts…”
“By contrast, Senator Biden was glib and fluent and in command of the facts — if by ‘in command of the facts’ you mean ‘talks complete blithering balderdash and hogwash.'”
http://tinyurl.com/4aj6ms
Thhanks lynnh: that about sums it up. SP has been vetted by the MSM, not to their liking but the common American folks like her and her views. The reporter is payed by the Canadian tax payer to give an unbiased account, “which he did not”. That is real nice clothing he has on which is again payed for by the Canadian tax payer. I bet he stays in nice diggs which is payed by for the Canadian tax payer. Where does his camera crew and support system stay, which is payed by for the Canadian tax payer. I wonder if flew down on 1rst, 2nd or business class which is payed by for the Canadian tax payer. CBC is part of the budget of Canada which is payed by for the Canadian tax payer.
Sorry Kate, I know that I am not supposed to feed the people who has objected to way you post but I had to stress that you are not being funded by the Canadian tax payer.
Er, Merle, “the reporter” in this case works for CTV, a publicly-held corporation, but not something paid for by the Canadian taxpayer (just by all our purchase decisions based on advertising they show us).
Doesn’t change the fact that a news-gathering org still has to disseminate fact rather than filter it.
Not that it matters much any more. I’m more and more pessimistic about Western society, based on the way the apparatchiks seem to want to drive the agenda…
Garth
Tom Clark’s a Rosedale toff. Like most of the other Toronto Toffs, he’s liberal, if not Liberal, and like most of the Toronto MSM, he’s a shill for “the natural ruling party.”
Whether he purposely let Biden off the hook or just didn’t “know” about all these inaccuracies is simply splitting hairs. It’s HIS JOB to dig deeper and neither he, nor Duffy, obviously did.
This is why more and more of us get our news from the blogs. Thanks, Kate, for the heads-up here.
Tom Clark how dare you not read spam propaganda, why just the other day I recieved one telling me that Obama’s a muslim terrorist. And you call yourself a journalist!
As for Palin, she’s a chisel against the frozen monolith that is the Washington Culture.
ET, all you provide here are your personal opinions. No facts. No logic. No reasoning. That’s a pretty weak presentation –
Well then Jose, why don’t you quote it in full here including the email addy of the sender?
Or Jose, if you could scan it and host it somewhere and provide the link.
Peter, I don’t think you get how this blogging works. Bloggers like Kate tend to present the side of the stories that the MSM won’t. There WILL (have been)be tens of thousands of words written about Palin’s “mistakes”. That’s the default position of the MSM. What doesn’t make it to print or screen is the balance about the other side.
Kate’s never actually stated her political persuasion, although you are free to draw a conclusion from the participants in her blog. You could be wrong, though.
You guys can’t seem to get past your partisanship – no critical thing whatsoever. There is a report out of CNN (go to newsbusters for the lead) by a speech analysis firm (yes, apparently there are those…) that the newspaper business writes to a grade 6 education level. Please tell me you’re smarter than that. If you are, you should get that there are two (or more) sides to a story, not just the side from the grade sixers.
But he can pronounce nuclear.
Thanks Garth for the correction. That’s how it works, put something out there that is incorrect and you can be corrected with a statement of fact.
manny – so now you are into lifting the words of someone else, namely, my own words? Heh. Try to do some thinking. On your own.
Facts: that a news station is supposed to provide facts and clearly differentiate such facts from any opinions it may also provide.
Facts: a blog is not obliged to behave as a news station. However, it does, if it has comments, actually function as the correct nature of a news provider, because it is self-correcting in its entirety.
Facts: Peter is mixing up an MSM news station and a blog; they are two different communication systems.
Facts; an MSM system is linear; it is unable to self-correct itself. A blog is interactional; it is able to correct itself.
Fact: the Washington (and Ottawa-Montreal) govoernment infrastructure is isolate and monolithic. It talks to and with itself.
Fact: Sarah Palin is not a member of this Set. Therefore, it logically follows that she is an outsider, i,e., not a member of the Set.
My opinion, based on the above facts, is that a monolithic structure requires destabilizing and some fresh air. I define Sarah Palin as such.
Now, Manny, try, try to think a bit. On your own. Use your own words. And remember, facts are first, followed by logic, leading to reasonable opinions. Try it. Just once.
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“anon says… I wonder if Tom Clark paid for
that new suit and expensive overcoat himself”
what’s with collar on that puppy, anyway… is
he auditioning for a part in a new “star wars”
movie?
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act: the Washington (and Ottawa-Montreal) govoernment infrastructure is isolate and monolithic. It talks to and with itself.
Fact: Sarah Palin is not a member of this Set. Therefore, it logically follows that she is an outsider, i,e., not a member of the Set.
My opinion, based on the above facts, is that a monolithic structure requires destabilizing and some fresh air. I define Sarah Palin as such.
ET, those are your unsubstantiated, personal opinions. No facts. No logic. No reasoning. That’s still a pretty weak presentation.
Trolls disappeared on this one.
They dug a hole in the sandbox, then got buried when the real cats showed up.
neo:
I assume the upturned collar’s supposed to make him look “rakish” and perhaps a little bit dangerous, like Bogart in Casablanca. Whatever else you may think of him, Clark’s a good-looking male and I’m sure the PR flacks at CTV want to play that up, since, sociologically speaking, humans tend to trust good-looking people more than average (or unattractive) people.
Sad, but true.
Garth
yoo hoo, manny. Use your own words. And insert some facts. Add logic. Then, come to your own opinions.
What you do, manny, is lift the opinions of others. That’s why you are so angry. Nothing seems reasonable to you, because you don’t do your own thinking, your own filtering, your own weeding, watering..and come to your own conclusions.
Now, try it. Again. But use your own words. And think, think, think. Don’t just copy others.
Peter, your words from your blog read:
“The Conservatives record on the environment, drug policy, and the arts are abysmal and we as Canadians deserve better- we need someone who can ditch their ideology and partisanship and see the world for what it really is.”
I know you are a Green voter but please elaborate on your writing. I’m a Canadian and you don’t speak for me. I think Harper has done a great job by focusing on real pollution not CO2, which is not a pollutant gas, doesn’t believe providing a site to consume illegal drugs is the way to go and has increased the Arts budget by 8% though refusing to continue to pay for elitists to travel to exotic spots on our dime. Seems “real” world to me.
You seem to dislike Palin because she doesn’t fit neatly into your environmental cocoon with her hunting boots.
garth, as that great canadian poliwog pet once said, the world is unfolding as it should. i could be wrong on the exact wording. i wonder if pet read the bible. it would seem we are heading toward some serious prophetic comeupance.
What you do, manny, is lift the opinions of others. That’s why you are so angry. Nothing seems reasonable to you, because you don’t do your own thinking, your own filtering, your own weeding, watering..and come to your own conclusions.
Yet more unsubstantiated drivel. Where are your facts to support that conjecture? Weak,ET, weak.
And not being a member of what you opined as the “Set”, qualifies one for one of the most powerful political positions on the planet? Pitiful.
You keep falling into ET’s trap Manny. That shows your lack of logic and imagination.
manny …not sure where you get your info, maybe the rag mags.
I read ET’s assessment of Palin and I agree with that assessment based on what Palin says about Palin. Governor Palin has clearly informed us that she is not part of the Washington elite. ET didn’t just pick that out of thin air, or a rag mag.
Now…we can ignore the trolls.
manny, you can get back to your rag mag.
dave – exactly right.
Harper doesn’t merge pollution and emissions – as does Dion. [And the MSM doesn’t confront Dion on this.] Harper is doing a great job with his Turning the Corner Action plan on both emissions and pollution, and cleaning up the Great Lakes and other waterways.
And – all those water treatment and water clean up projects across Canada.
I DO want the arts cut – I know that Harper has increased arts funding – but, I want the arts funding cut. I’m tired of subsidizing self-absorbed, undecipherable ‘stuff’ that is called ‘art’ only by those receiving funding. I’m tired of the incestuous, in-grown cabal of ‘arts people’ in Canada, who are on the boards, who award themselves and their set all our govt funds. They don’t represent me or my Canada and I’m tired of them claiming to do so.
Sorry Kate…must stay on topic.
manny …you keep on listening to Pretty Boy Clark.
Garth wood wrote, “Whatever else you may think of him, Clark’s a good-looking male and I’m sure the PR flacks at CTV want to play that up, since, sociologically speaking, humans tend to trust good-looking people more than average (or unattractive) people.”
What do you mean? Half the time he looks red faced (more than Fife) like he spent hours at the saloon before going to air. As well, his face is all pock marked.
Right Mary. The saloon, certainly not the salon.
CBCpravda moved this to the back page after about 3 hours.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canadavotes/story/2008/10/03/debate-reax.html
frankly Im surprised they could find the cahones to print it at all. they will use it as fodder for redemption when the “Harper regime” looks at selling them to Fox.
I just did a search on CBCpravda Harper Regime 22 stories, Martin Regime 2, Cretien Regime 2.Trudeau Regime 3, Mulroney Regime 5.
Tom Clark told viewers on Mike Duffy that his grandfather was founder of Toronto Star. This was just a few months ago. Connections…..
There are a few things to consider. Like a foreign tv network (that is part of a huge conglomerate doing lots of business down south) going around poking a US senator with more seniority than god in the eye. There would be painful payback, that you can bet on. And with Ivan Fecan the big boss, you would be toast.
So what if Biden acts like he is losing it? That’s change, right?
mary:
Information isn’t the only thing that filters are used on in the MSM. 😉
Garth
Did he happen to mention Palin’s 18 lies?
If not, I don’t think he can be called Partisan. He mentioned neither’s lies.
Oddly enough, you aren’t giving much coverage to these 18 lies either. Hypocrisy, perhaps?
As someone uninterested in who wins, this was one of the few election related broadcasts I watched. For laughs, of course. It wasn’t bad. Palin didn’t have me laughing, and Biden was a bore. I would call it a Palin victory too, albeit a marginal one.
The only criticism of Palin that I have is her bizzare “Gosh darn” attitude towards Americans. Why does she treat them like ten-year olds?