Something's Happening Here........

WhatItIsAin'tExactlyClear
LotuslandianMediaMudVille


Actually, I'm not talking about protests and signs and such because I'm pretty sure the two guys leading the charge on this one hate all that stuff.

After all, they are not snivelling young snarkoleptics who do nothing but pour bilge on the floor of the Bloggodome all day long.

But they do hang out here.

In the 'dome I mean.

And they are kicking up quite a fuss about the weird and wonderous way's Vancouver's pro-media works these days.

Which is somewhat ironic because both are veterans of the scene.

The Lotuslandian media scene I mean.

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First up is Mr. Harvey Oberfeld who has had all sorts of critical things to say about the local media recently, not the least of which was when he took pretty much the entire 'lectronic division to task over their swooning sycophancy at the feet of Premier Gordon Campbell's lockdown-assisted economic stimulus press release that was packaged as really, really, really important, 144 point headline type, breaking 'Newz':

It was bad enough three private television stations aired in the Vancouver market (CTV, Global and CHEK) abandoned their integrity and embarrassed themselves by giving Premier Gordon Campbell a full 12 minutes in the middle of their major evening NEWS shows to make a partisan, political speech … unedited and uninterupted and unchallenged.

What the spineless wankers or partisan corporate bean-counters, who now run these stations, don’t seem to undertand is that the major evening news is the ONE PLACE viewers have, until now, always expected to be able to turn to and see top quality journalism, telling the truth about what’s going on in our society … all of it delivered clean, spin-free and laid out in honest, critical stories by highly principled reporters on an indepndent, totally UNCOMPROMISED show.

{snippety-doo-dah}

And Thursday morning, I would submit, CKNW was even worse.

There was talk show host Bill Good, introducing “special” extended coverage on the economy … not only completely filling his own three-and-a-half hour show, but also Christy Clark’s two-and-a-half hour show that would follow that.

Now it IS possible CKNW had those SIX HOURS of special programming on the economy “and it’s impact on you” planned for days or weeks … nothing to do with the premier’s speech Wednesday night. If so, they should be still embarrassed: so late out of a gate that opened weeks ago!

Good stuff, no?

And that is just one sample amongst many.....

Next up, is our old friend from his radio days at the (no-longer-so)Giant'98, Mr. David Berner, who is currently (ie. at this very minute) on a rampage about the $100 million dollar Olympic Village boondoggle. And as part of his commentary on that subject Mr. Berner is starting to get steamed with some in the local media. For example, today he took Pete McMartin to task for an 'everything's gonna be fine folks' bit of pollyanaism that Mr. McMartin wrote in yesterday's VSun. The following is the money quote on the McMartin column, but Mr. Berner's entire post on the subject is worth the read:

"You think the Olympic Village project is going to be just fine? What's your name, Pete McMartin? What are you injecting these days? No wonder so many educated people support Insite - they know they may need it soon for themselves....."

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Now.

The kind of pushback from old pros like Oberfeld and Berner described above is all the more interesting, and probably all the more important, given the multitde of whispers and sighs that I have come across in the both the pro- and not-so-pro-media insinuating that Gary Mason's original Scooptacular on the Boondoggle was soft and/or unfair because it didn't have any named sources attached to it.

Thing is, in the entire avalanche of words that have been spoken and written in the ensuing days since the Scooptacular hit the streets, I have not seen a single word, or even a single letter or singlepunctuation mark, which indicates that anything in Mr. Mason's original story was off the mark.

So.......Keep on plugging Mr. O. and Mr. B.

Because we, the people of Vancouver, clearly need thee.

OK?




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Oh, and for the record, despite the fact that I often enjoy and respect reading about Mr. Berner's POV, and, despite the fact that he, apparently, has similar feelings in reverse, we do not always agree - Insite would be just one example.

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