All The News That Doesn't Fit

AFreePressIsOnlyFree
ToThoseWhoOwnItVille


Bill Tieleman, who has been on top of the LedgeRaid/BC Rail case from the beginning, clearly and succinctly reported the significance of Madame Justice Bennett's statements in another (in a string of endless) pre-trial hearings yesterday:

Bennett warned that she would make the case as open as possible after receiving a complaint letter from a member of the public about being unable to access the defence document through the court registry.

"Just so we're clear, the public interest in having this case heard outweighs just about everything else," Justice Bennett told the courtroom full of lawyers at the end of yesterday's hearing.

Mr. Tieleman also named Robin Mathews as the member of the public most likely responsible for facilitating this important courtroom development.

Robin Mathews, a retired professor of Canadian studies who has been closely following the case, told 24 hours he was the complainant.


And today Mr. T., who writes for 24 Hours and The Tyee, wondered aloud why so few print organs in British Columbia reported on this important courtroom development:

".....neither the Vancouver Sun, the Province nor the Victoria Times-Colonist reported that the most important political criminal trial in British Columbia has been delayed again, or that serious questions were raised about the evidence and about the lack of public access to court documents."


Now Mr. T. may be surprised by this development (or lack thereof), but we are not.

After all, when BC Mary enquired as to the reasons behind a similar lack of reporting after a pre-trial hearing last September she received this response from Times-Colonist Editor-in-Chief Lucinda Chodan:

"There was indeed a pretrial appearance by Basi, Virk et al yesterday. Our reporter staffed the appearance, and nothing of note happened. As is the case in such instances, the reporter consulted with his editor and did not write a story. When there is news, we plan to report it."


To which we can only ask.....

Is it news yet?

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At the time, back in Sept 2006, we made a list of some of the 'news' that kept the Ledge Trial story out of the pages of the T-C. Details are here.


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