Whatever one might think of Canada’s Afghan mission, what do you think of our journalists? Matters start really developing at the Update here.
One all-too-usual suspect:
Apologies to American readers, a bit of Canadian inside the Queensway (it’s in Ottawa) pressball. Your journos are on the whole a whole lot better, amazing as that may seem. There are still blessings to count on the day after Thanksgiving (“Black Friday”? What the world is coming to knows only God).
Great post, Mark. I wish you’d transplant a little more of the body of your posts at Unambig over here to SDA.
Don Martin:
The only reason that Canadian journalists like Martin are given “sanitized, censored exposure” is because they go to Afghanistan to cover *Canadian Politics*. They don’t cover the country of Afghanistan – “the Afghan people, outside the wire”, as Glavin put it. I don’t see how any journalist can deign to write about worthwhileness of the mission without actually visiting the country away from the front lines.
What’s stopping a Canadian MSM journalist from, say, staying in Kabul for a month or two instead of sticking to Canadian soldiers? Not enough of a Canadian partisan-politicsl angle, perhaps?
Don Martin is one of the poorest journalists on the planet. When he was at the Calgary Herald about the only thing he ever reported on was garden parties. An empty vessel.
Unfortunately, this isn’t confined strictly to Canadian journalists.
There were only three journalists who had the courage to travel well beyond “the wire” into the heartland of Al Anbar province and actually report on what was being accomplished.
It’s the same situation our Marines are experiencing in Afghanistan out in Helmand.
Which is why …. you should source out military blogs for the whole “scoop” on what’s really going on.
Cheers,
stopshouting.blogspot.com
Used car salesmen can breathe a collective sigh of relief. The journalist as eclipsed them.
As the saying goes, they’re there “for a good time, not a hard time”, and if all you have to do is run your mouth on paper, its not a hard time. But, it takes more than a pillow to have a decent love life, and its not good enough to rag on the underchallenged alone – their employers are just as guilty. Rummaging around the world for good journo is not without its cost and the front office has to step up too. Sadly, most of those are as deficient as the staff. Weston going to the CBC says more about the CBC than it does about Weston.
Its a bit of a circle jerk – the front office won’t pay because all they’ll get is pablum and little increase in sales. The good ones won’t get out because you really can’t do much on a 3-day pass but give the FO pablum, so its back to the Hill for popcorn and beer. At least a couple of sneering op-eds will get some letters.
Martin thinks he’s a real joker. One thing for sure he’s high on himself,hard to take him seriously.
He’s also a little high on the tabloid side of journalism.He has a soft spot for the pretty gals in public life. Didn’t he write a book on Belinda?
During all other wars the Journalists were on the front lines, not imbeded nice and safe with the troops. Gawd what squacky bunch of wimps journalists have become.
Rose, they are nothing more than angry faced liberal shills, like Louise said, the used car salesman has more cred that Don Martin and his ilk. They think chasing a guy that is crossing a street, between meetings and eating a cookie is newsworthy, and the sluts won’t quit until they get the guy fired. They are to stupid to look to who hired the guy, they just want to make someone elses life miserable like their own lives are. What a profession, like I’ve told my chidren,if you are going to be a failure, better to be a street hooker than a urnalist.
I can’t stand Martin and rarely read him. He is lazy reporter who uses cynicism as a way to sound intelligent. I wouldn’t waste a too much time on that jerk.
I think I am sort of on-topic – I can hardy wait for the SUN to Rise and expose these saps for the ’empty vessels’ (see above) that they are.
I would be extremely pleased if my cable company could replace each and every CBC channel that I am forced to pay for but never ever watch and the CTV jerks with SUN TV. My Cancon vewership would incease immediately.
ON a side note, I think it is a bit of stretch or bordering on sensationalism in using the comparison about Canada and driving around in Vancouver’s west end.
A better perspective would be driving around Regina and Saskatchewan, or even Vancouver East end and Lower Mainland to Hope.
Or Seattle and Washington State.
http://www.vendian.org/mncharity/dir3/afghan_map/
What a dumb post. Have you even considered that the reason that Journos don’t want to embed in the Afghan people is that it’s incredibly dangerous? And I don’t really see how America’s Journos are a whole lot better than Canada’s. Certainly the National Post is a whole lot more intelligent thatn Fox News.
libertariansaresmarter at 6:48 PM, I’ll let you in on a little secret. Every time someone takes a swipe at Fox news, we instantly know you have nothing between your ears. If libertarians really were smarter, they would have figured that out a long time ago. All it does is increase the level of curiosity about Fox and gives them more viewers from the ranks of the viewers who want to make up their own minds. Now, those people are the smarter ones.
And also, re. your 6:48 PM post, why on earth would a journalist agree to cover a war if he’s so afraid of danger? And if he is a chickenshit, why isn’t he upfront about his behind the chicken-wire perspective? Truth in journalism, anyone?
I’m pretty sure that SDA is already pretty pro-Fox here. Oh, and I love your implicit tautological logic: people who don’t like Fox are stupid because smart people like Fox. Great argument derp.
To answer your question, the Journolist is, like everybody else, afraid of dying and wants to get as good a look at the war without dying, hence the need to stay behind the wire. As far as I can tell, they are upfront about it.