Because many traditional news sources have been sidetracked by political, commercial and personal interests, acquiring accurate information is now more time-consuming. People with other priorities are vulnerable to lies of commission and lies of omission. Postmedia’s obfuscating political reporters are experienced practitioners of new style journalism.
Rafe Mair was a man with long experience in government, journalism and political activism. He warned us of the consequences after Canada’s largest newspaper chain crawled in bed with the fossil fuel industry.
Agreements between Postmedia – the country’s largest newspaper chain – and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), plus an equally disgraceful deal between the company’s Vancouver Province and the LNG industry have permanently stained the organization’s journalistic credibility… Once a newspaper is committed to a controversial view, it’s like a clock that strikes 13 – it can never be trusted again.
On April 8, Vancouver Sun published an opinion piece by BC Hydro Chair Brad Bennett titled B.C. Hydro, vision, planning and fortitude — getting the job done. The Vancouver Sun does not identify Bennett as a partisan campaigner in BC’s current general election. In the article, Bennett applauds Liberal power policies and repeats an outrageous lie that has been part of BC Hydro’s misinformation strategy for more than 12 years.
Journalism should be at the root of the journalism business. Instead, daily publishers cut the news staff in half and charge twice as much for inferior content. Consumers responded by walking away. Rather than improving the output and persuading news consumers to pay for content, media moguls aim to have the Trudeau Government bail out their news businesses. It will happen too because Liberals have always been willing to spend public money if private advantage was there to be gained.
From a presentation by renowned columnist Erik Andersen on CBC: …After BC Hydro made all the IPP contracts Premier Campbell found that California did not consider “run of river” generation green. Not […]
I was reminded of this item from July 2014 after hearing Michael Campbell’s latest rant on CKNW. He suggested too little attention had been paid to inappropriate spending at the Portland Hotel Society […]
This week we learned that Ron Giesbrect has been re-elected as Chief of the Kiwkwetlem band. The following was first published here October 8, 2014——————–My initial reaction to reports of compensation paid […]
Are you unhappy with rapidly increasing electricity rates and the general state of BC Hydro finances? Are you looking for the party responsible? Well, the Vancouver Sun has the answer. It’s a […]
It is no secret that Postmedia, owner of daily newspapers from Montreal to Vancouver, accumulates losses at rates it cannot sustain. Raising prices and reducing expenses is not a solution. Despite higher […]
Paul Willcocks writes a blog with the perceptive eye of a skilled and experienced journalist and editor. I suspect Vaughn Palmer might even exclude Paul from his description. Nincompoops ranting in their […]
I add to a piece from a few days ago because Rafe wrote what amounts to Part 2: “Why Rafe Mair is Cancelling his Sun, Province Subscriptions” This part I appreciate particularly: […]
In Fissures appear in scientists’ assurances about safety of fracking, Globe and Mail writer Mark Hume describes how industry used the work of Charles Groat, of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas, […]
In 2006, Rafe Mair wrote News Media, Defanged for The Tyee. It included the headline: Politicians, not too long ago, feared the press. Of course miscreants particularly feared Rafe Mair during his […]
National Post, January 25, 2012 “… For everyone’s sake, the CBC should offer Mr. Smart a better assignment.”
As Ian Reid succinctly observes, the Vancouver Sun “has apparently merged with Encana’s communications department and is now almost desperately spinning the Northern Pipeline on their behalf.” The Sun and its parent […]
“On the left you can see yesterday’s Vancouver Sun cover page the day after more than 60 First Nations announced they will not allow the Enbridge pipeline through their territories, on the […]
Canada kept detection of salmon virus secret, Craig Welch, Seattle Times environment reporter, Nov. 30/11 “A decade before this fall’s salmon-virus scare, a Canadian government researcher said she found a similar virus […]
The following article was first published May 24, 2010. Since then, Sean Holman suspended the Public Eye website, Postmedia has focused on serving business not public interests, the destruction of CBC News […]
One might argue the four traditional estates of the realm — clergy, nobility, commoners and news media — may now be joined by a fifth: think tanks. In most cases though, these policy institutes are agents of the second estate, the nobility. If one examines the most influential of the thousands of think tanks spread throughout the western world, they are mostly financed by and serving one-percenters.
Among the special advantages granted to billionaires? They can create monopolies which politicians will both subsidize and protect. Are domestic…
You mention investing. Anybody remember Canada Savings Bonds? Seventy years ago it offered people worried about becoming destitute pensioners a…
A huge fan of long-eclipsed Russian military glory, Mr. Putin expected Ukraine to collapse in 3 days. Three years ago.…
One thing I think people forget is - it became a good idea to invest in real estate as an…
in-sights.ca 
Blair Fix at _Economics from the Top Down_ also wrote two very good papers on the converion of housing into…