Tuesday, April 23, 2013

A Pay To Play Media In Lotusland?...."Charlie, It Just Doesn't Work That Way"...

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I remember it like it was just yesterday...

Despite a media-minder's attempts to cut off his line of questioning, the Georgia Straight's Charlie Smith kept on going at then BC Liberal Party Premier Gordon Campbell just before the 2009 election campaign got underway:

C. Smith: OK....My question...Is....CanWest contributed $50,000 to the BC Liberal Party in 2005....What would you say to someone who wonders if the government has directed government advertising to CanWest in return for political contributions?

G. Campbell: Charlie, it just doesn't work that way..... I think that the fact of the matter is that we have two major daily newspapers....we have advertising firms that come and lay out programs for the Public Affairs Bureau, and they actually send those ads....place those ads in the paper...So for people to think that I'm actually placing ads in the newspapers (incredulous tone)...I mean, I've got some actually pretty important stuff to do (derisive tone, shakes head, smirks).... I'm not saying that public affairs isn't important, but that's something that's been under Colin Hansen for a number of years...or....the Minister of Finance for a number of years now....uhh...I'm not aware of any change in policy....



And best of all, the GStraight got it all on tape so that you can watch it all over again just in case you need to remember what, exactly, it is you really should be voting AGAINST on May 14th regardless what Ms. Clark's wizards would have you believe...

Now.

Do you want to know what the really ironic thing about all this is?

Well...

It turns out that Mr. Campbell's one-time Attorney General, Mr. Geoff Plant, got all jokey about people who write things in the GStraight on the Twittmachine today....


Gosh.

How the worm has turned for these fine folks, eh?



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Here is the link to former G. Campbell Chief-of-Staff Martyn Brown's most recent GStraight piece that we presume the good Mr. Plant was referring to...
Personally, I'm very much looking forward to Mr. Plant's ironic tweets if and when a public inquiry into BC Rail takes a hard, document-backed look at....This.




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7 comments:

Grant G said...

http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/podcasts/bcearlyedition_20130423_17107.mp3

Nails on blackboard..Christy is so..

Bad and unbelievable.


Cheers

Anonymous said...

Churnalism - Is It Journalism, or Just a Repackaged Press Release?

chuckstraight said...

The guy in the video quite likely should be in jail. ( In my opinion)

Anonymous said...

I despise the site of that man posted !!!!
Why do we still have to see pictures of him and his corrupt bunch !!!!

They ALL need to be booted.

Norm Farrell said...

Since word went out from the Premier's main political operative to not return phone calls to the Georgia Straight, chances are good the instruction also went out to deprive the newspaper of government advertising.

Partisans who aim to reward friends and punish political enemies have already crossed to the wrong side of an ethical line. Lack of truthfulness and ethical behaviour is endemic in the BC Liberal Party.

That explains how our Premier can stand up in public and tell very tall stories without a tiny hint of contrition.

cfvua said...

I need to take some of what Mr. Brown is taking. Although not quite totally there yet, his memory, which had all but dis-appeared during questioning by a couple of lawyers, is starting to re-appear. I have been working to improve my memory of late and look to Mr. Brown to let us know what he has done to get his back into shape. If anyone finds out please let us all know.

RossK said...

cfvua--

I have seen such miraculous memory recoveries occur in academic administrators as well.

The elixir is most often the desire to institute what I like to call a 'discipline protection program'.

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