The Tyee republished a recent In-Sights article but with a slightly softer title:
We’re Paying More and More for the Liberals’ BC Hydro Mismanagement
Motorcycle Guy is a regular reader and a person who has followed the IPP fiasco closely. He posted a comment on The Tyee that is worth repeating here:
He recalls a Vancouver Sun reporter teaching a seminar to independent power producers on how to win favour on social media.
That reminded me of a letter sent to the BC Government by IPP lobbyists in those same days, when creating private power in public waterways was new and controversial.
On the same date as the letter, a Press Gallery pundit was “reporting” its contents. Clearly, he was promoting IPP interests and coordinating with the industry. Since getting a column into print takes time, the pundit had to have had a copy of the letter even before the minister to whom it was addressed.
Around this time, I was complaining—as Georgia Strait editor Charlie Smith had done—about journalists taking undisclosed fees from business groups affected by their reporting.
This is an issue that has not gone away.
One journalist told me about refusing payment after appearing on a public panel. Another person involved professionally with media took the payment cheerfully and couldn’t understand why it should be refused.
After all, cash is king.
Categories: Independent Power Producers (IPP), Journalism
in-sights.ca 
The corporate owned and controlled press and the reporters that promote developments for the advertisers are bad enough. They are also now taking cash from the industries directly? Nothing says press independence like that.
LikeLike
Am I just seeing too deep into things or does Political journalist and Commentator Keith Baldrey and others mentioned, sound more like the politicians and governments preferred journalists and press gallery heads, rather than the strong balanced ones I’m used too as an every day citizen.
LikeLike
Motorcycle Guy along with Norm have completely expanded and reconfirmed and reaffirm everything I believe about those slimy Corporate Media and Press Gallery pundit sleaze and some questionable journalists who seem to have lost any semblance of real journalistic professionalism and morality.
LikeLike
A number of years ago I labelled people who were in Public Relations as “Professional Liars”. I now put people in big corporate media in the same category. And we all know what “Freedom of the Press” really means, don’t we.
LikeLike
Like many others, I have read with interest the robbery that plays out by IPP’s in this Province. I was hoping for some drastic changes after the NDP were elected. I still can’t believe that our government does not have the ability to implement a sizeable tax on these burglars. There must be a way to tax IPP’s before this cash cow bankrupts BC.
After reading the letter by ” Motorcycle Guy “, instead of he/she said….. just give us the names of these so-called journalist. After all if they’re so proud to report these biased stories, then they should be proud to be named.
Guy in Vic
LikeLike
We have the best politicians that money can buy and the mainstream media has the best journalists that politicians can buy.
LikeLike
It’s so dam disgusting when one hears about these immoral goings on involving press gallery, media personalities, journalists etc. The bottom, below the bottom of the barrel.
LikeLike
The lineup of the complicit is long. Nobody, the BCUC and other cheer leaders picked up on the relatioship beween the price of natural gas and the contract certain unit price of electricity to be produced from the proposed generation plant destined for Duke Point.
I think the unit cost of natural gas, for contract revenue purposes was about $6.00 when the open market North American price was about $3.00 and is now under USD $2.00. The BCUC and BC Hydro were okay with constructing a contract tariff for all of us, using natural gas prices that were double the open market rates at the time and would be triple using todays prices.
LikeLike