PerhapsNotSoFreeOrUnfetteredVille
In case you missed it, in the wake of the tempest-in-a-tea-cup issue that was the one involving the Dipper candidate from Vancouver-Kensington, Mable Elmore, Georgia Straight columnist Charlie Smith called out the Parliamentary Press Gallery in Victoria.
In a follow-up blog post today Mr. Smith was even more disdainful, not to mention specific:
"....The press gallery is a club, both literally and figuratively. There’s a collegial atmosphere among the members, who don’t criticize each other publicly.
In fact, the dean of the press gallery, Vaughn Palmer, often praises the other members, even if they work for rival media companies. As the alpha male in the gallery, Palmer sets the tone in the place.
I’m not a member of that club, which has more than its share of employees of Canwest Global Communications Corp.
Last week, I also broke from the press gallery tradition by writing how I felt last Tuesday morning. I was sick and disgusted and embarrassed to be a working journalist in B.C. after seeing coverage of the Mable Elmore apology. She's the NDP candidate in Vancouver-Kensington.
I was troubled by how members of the press gallery interacted with NDP Leader Carole James, and then reading, watching, and listening to how this story was presented.
Two senior members of the press gallery took an opportunity to rip into me on CKNW on Friday morning. Global TV’s Keith Baldrey and Palmer of the Vancouver Sun pointed out that James summoned members of the press gallery to a scrum to tell them that Elmore had issued an apology.
Palmer said that members of the press gallery were offended by my column which, in his view, suggested a “giant Canwest conspiracy”. Palmer told CKNW listeners that he didn't think I knew what I was talking about because two of the people asking questions, the CBC's Jeff Davies and the recently laid-off Sean Holman, are not Canwest employees.
I believe I also heard the voice of the Globe and Mail's Justine Hunter asking questions, though I can't be certain of this. She doesn't work for Canwest, either.
Baldrey said if I felt sick and disgusted, I should seek another line of work.
I chose my words very carefully and I stand by what was written.
On CKNW, Palmer and Baldrey also made it appear as though I didn’t think it was a news story that the Opposition leader had wrung an apology out of a candidate. I'm not that stupid. It was a news story--that wasn't the point of the column.
In my view, the real story was that our so-called watchdogs refused to ask a single question of the Opposition leader why she was forcing a candidate to apologize for using a common descriptor of someone who supports a Jewish homeland in the Middle East....."
All of which are fightin' words, I'm sure.And I, as someone who have been critical of the coziness amongst the persons of the PPGallery in the past, was glad to read them - even if I had already come to pretty much the same conclusion about the general state of affairs there.
However, there was a wee bit of completely new news in Mr. Smith's blog post today that I didn't know, which is the following:
"There are members of the press gallery who've accepted speaking fees from business groups that lobby the provincial government regarding pieces of legislation."
Say what?
I mean wouldn't that make any and all persons of the parliamentary press gallery who have done so a.....uhhh......what's that word I'm lookin' for.....
You know.
The one that starts also starts with a 'p' and ends with an 'e' (not a 'y') that is most definitely NOT the first word in the header that tops this post.
OK?
_____
Meanwhile, Mr. Palmer responded to Mr. Smith's original column on his own blog, and while he did his best to stay above the fray (I think), he did do a pretty neat and nasty turn on the descriptor 'dim-wit'. And, I'm quite certain that in doing so he was not referring to this guy. Although, it is entirely possible that Mr Palmer once wrote about the no-longer-with-us Mr. Montgomery in days way long gone by.
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