Did Jeff Lee Just Circle Lotusland's CorpMedia Wagons?

AllTheFauxBlameThatFits
AgendalessReporterVille

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Double-Secret Probation Update, 12:00 Midnight....Mr. Lee has responded in the comments (scroll down)....He takes issue with Mr. Reid's analysis and has some other informative things to say....I have a follow-up post where you can read Mr. Lee's comment in full with both the background and my initial response, here.

Please See....Update, 6:00pm at the bottom of the post regarding a comment left by someone who, it would appear, may be Mr. Lee...The commenter does not agree with at least one tenet of the post...
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Jeff Lee has Frances Bula's old civic affairs beat at the Vancouver Sun.

And, while I may be wrong, it is my impression that Mr. Lee views himself as a hard-as-nails, no-nonsense cynic that won't take crap from anybody.

Especially propaganda prop-crap.

Thus, I found it interesting that Mr. Lee took a break from his holidays to crap on just about everybody 'round town that is making more noise (and getting more attention?) in the proCorpMedia than he is these days.

As you might expect, Mr. Lee's toilet-bowl targets were, wait for it......

....Bloggers:

".....I have tried to keep myself occupied finishing a needed workshop, ignoring for the most part the phone calls and emails that would otherwise disrupt a project that has been delayed far too long. But I haven't been able to completely tune out and have been astonished at the stuff welling up around Cambie and Twelfth.

Hmm. We have Alex Tsakumis, the wild card, with his breathless attacks on Vision Vancouver, Mayor Gregor Robertson and civicscene.ca blogger Jonathan Ross (and frankly, anyone who seems to disagree with him.)

We have Mike Klassen over at citycaucus.com, a regular NPA attack machine, chiming in and then taking a serious run at Globe and Mail columnist Gary Mason when he suggests the civic blogging world has become tainted with "juvenile attacks." Citycaucus may break great stories, but you can't miss the political sideswiping that constantly takes place.

We have Global TV giving credibility to Tsakumis' blog post about civicscene.ca being a mouthpiece for Vision Vancouver through communications company FD Element, but hanging the story on a single unidentified source who frankly, anyone over at FD Element would know anyway. The only people who don't know the source's name? The public.

Ross, punctured and wounded, attacks the mainstream media, suggesting they don't follow original ideas anymore. Meanwhile, MSM is predictably badmouthed by respondents to most of the blogs, who seem to suggest that level-headed and responsible journalism is somehow akin to a dinosaur awaiting the asteroid strike.

Oh, were we to wish that those out in the wild and woolly blogosphere were willing to hold fire long enough to make sure a story is correct, balanced and fair....."


Now.

That last bit is most interesting to me.

Why?

Because those who have been paying attention have themselves been wondering lately just where Mr. Lee himself gets some of his stuff.

One of those folks is former Civic Pol Ian Reid, who recently mused on the interesting 'timing' of posts by Prop-Blogger Mike Klassen and the take-no-crap-from-anybody Mr. Lee.

The following is from a piece by Mr. Reid in the Vancouver Observer from a few weeks ago:

"If you're wondering where a certain reporter is getting the "scoop" on civic affairs, look no further than NPA blogger Mike Klassen, the blogger behind the paranoid CityCaucus blog. Yesterday the Vancouver Sun's Jeff Lee posted a story about a leaked memo to City Manager Penny Ballem that said that city staff were "politicized, worn down by aggressive council agenda." This memo originally appeared on Klassen's site just a day earlier. It's not the first time that Lee and Klassen appear to have been managing the same information...."

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Look.

I'm not certain about the Lee-Klassen thing, so I won't make like either Ken Kesey or Neal Cassady (or Woody Harrelson?) and go any further with it.

But to Mr. Lee's point that it is all the bloggers "fault", be they 'Prop-Bloggers-For-Hire' or the Real Amateurs who are up front about their point of view and/or their agenda, I would argue that it is not.

Their "fault" I mean.

Instead, and I'm very serious about this, it is my considered opinion that the real fault lies at the feet of folks in the MSM/proCorpMedia that Wurlitzer's any and all Prop-Crap without first determining if it is, as Mr. Lee said above, "correct, balanced and fair".

And if you think I'm full of crap myself, all you have to do is remember one word.

And that word is....

"Snowmaggedon."

OK?


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Finally, it is also interesting to me, because, I think it perhaps illustrates something else about how Mr. Lee works, that the man from the VSun also took a swipe at Frances Bula for wading into things herself. Why do I point that out? Well, to my mind Ms. Bula is the only person with MSM bonafides in this town who has actually called-out Mess'rs Klassen and Fontaine, by making it clear what they are really up to with their so-called 'blog'.
Oh..And for those waiting...RailGateTimeline Finale is coming tomorrow....promise.
Update: A commenter named 'Jeff'' has made an interesting contribution to the discussion here. I'm awaiting response by Email in an attempt to confirm if this is the real Mr. Lee (will let you know).


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