TheSteeringOfTheHerdVille
So.
Good on Gary Mason for, as we and others had been asking him to do since Saturday, looking at the real numbers.
And good on Mr. Mason, too, for then saying that he was wrong about teachers salaries in B.C., at least on the Twittmachine.
The thing is, that is not all Mr. Mason said:
Now, in the aftermath of all that rapid-fire tweeting (they were posted, in succession, from the bottom, up)...
First....That business about 'widely-cited' in the first (i.e. bottom) tweet....Can't tell, for absolute sure if that is Mr. Mason setting the deflector spin jets to spin or not but, regardless, it does make it very clear, as we suggested early yesterday, that the Lotuslandian proMedia can be herded up, anywhere, anytime.
Second...That business about how the Provincial Government should not not be citing the wrong report and citing it out of context (again)....Well, given that all that citing was done so widely, it tells us that the herd is willing to put on the blinders and be herded.
Third...That business about how the about how the Provincial Government should not not be citing the wrong report and citing it out of context...
Well, that gets me to a comment left on our post yesterday by Paul Willcocks:
"...It's good that Gary Mason has recanted, but it would be better if he reported who suggested he use the shoddy numbers..."
To be absolutely clear, I agree very much with Mr. Willcocks here.
Because it would seem to me that when a herd of pro-journalists is deliberately missled by a 'source' (or 'sources') to generate a demonstrably false meme that gets splashed across every major media print-organ in town that the misleading itself should become the real story.
And aren't real stories what real journalists get to the bottom of?
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11 comments:
No Ross K..
Journalists do not get to the bottom of stories anymore, they get to the bottom line on their paycheque, how much and when can I cash my complicit in spin remuneration reward!
Sort of reminds us of that fine fellow that Norman Farrell wrote on:
Sanctimonious, who me?
Say it Ian!
http://therealstory.ca/2013-07-24/bc-liberals/lame-ducks
SH
I've heard of this herding---too much!
We are up against it on all fronts: from Liberal stable boy journalists, to unpaid Liberal reservists recruited as "digital influencers", and most worrying of all to me: those dark shades who haunt the ether conjuring tricks and practicing mayhem.
SH
(Gotta luv the Captcha code below! "Enclosing storyfy" )
http://thechronicleherald.ca/thenovascotian/835525-locke-when-did-manipulation-become-politics-as-usual
SH here, must address a glaring blemish on Greg Locke's otherwise juicy little piece in the Chronicle Herald article:
Locke: "At least B.C Liberals are open and honest enough about what they are doing and put it on their website."
Hopefully Greg Locke will find his way through the fog of NFLD to your blog RossK, and will be schooled in the ways of the great fan-dance machinators...
Sorry to intrude, but wow, just wow, the CBC let this past re Linda Reid mega pin money spending:
STAR FIRE WHEEL
In the days of the French Revolution, all of our liberals would be lined up at and dispatched by guillotine, as quickly as possible.
Too bad they did not live back then, IMHO.
45 minutes ago
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Edward01
Edward01
I am just blown away that the speaker of the house has a $70 million budget to over sea what MLAs spend. Where the ?!?! does the money go???
50 minutes ago
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STAR FIRE WHEEL
STAR FIRE WHEEL
Lets cut off all funding to all the liberal mlas except for the basic welfare rate of $660.00 per month, and force them out of their homes, cars, and onto the street, for 2 years, and then cut them all off entirely, like they do to welfare recipients.
After all, what is "good for the people," must be made equally "good for their so called representatives." Don't you think so?
1 hour ago
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STAR FIRE WHEEL
STAR FIRE WHEEL
"Before that, Ms. Clark spent the better part of a week embroiled in controversy over comments she made to a reporter four months earlier. In them, she said she wanted to avoid the provincial capital as much as possible because it had a “sick culture” and no “real people” – just pundits and politicians all drinking each other’s bathwater."
And this is the person leading our province... no wonder we are in such trouble.
1 hour ago
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Still nothing in the fish-wrap version Ross. I'm not sure that Twitmachine walk-backs really mean much. None the less, apparently Gary does pay attention now and then to what the great unwashed has to say.
Nice work everybody!
8:30am - Putting down the fishwrap verstion I have to note that Mr Mason has, finally, in black and white, admitted his error and corrected it.
Which is fine as far as that goes and deserves to be mentioned.
But, and this is a big 'but' he goes on to chastise the BCTF for using other data from the same source (statscan) that he did to further bolster their entirely supportable claim that per student funding in this province does not stack up nicely when compared with the rest ot the country because it too includes administrators salaries!
Pardon me Gary, are you sure you want to go there? FIrst of all the BCTF is in the business of representing teachers and fighting for their interests (that's what unions do) AND, whatever comparitors one uses, province to province, to compare student funding will NOT CHANGE in a relative sense as long as the SAME NUMBER is used for the province to province comparison.
The point being, Mr Mason, include or leave out the administrator salaries when you're comparing per student funding per province - as long as the sample data from each province are measuring the same basket the result (as a ratio) is the same....
Mr Mason is to be congratulated for recognizing his error and acknowledging that he's been duped by government spin - he'd be wise though to consider at the same time that he's still spinning. It would also have been gentlemanly and accurate for Mr Mason to acknowledge where the facts about his error(s) were first pointed out..
Thanks Ross, and everyone else!
RossK sound familiar?
SH
"Is Blogging Journalism?" Paul Andrews, Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard
"...blogs—in tandem with another much-underestimated medium, the e-mail list—are transforming the ways in which journalism is practiced today and perhaps are giving impetus to new journalistic venues that have not yet clarified themselves. Author Elbert Hubbard once said editors separated the wheat from the chaff—and then printed the chaff. Bloggers print, link and comment on the wheat. In doing so, bloggers often nudge print media to richer and more balanced sourcing outside the traditional halls of government and corporations...'
http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/article/101027/Is-Blogging-Journalism.aspx
Thanks all --
Sorry to have been slow on the uptake. Just really busy these days.
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