Thursday 28 March 2019

Reporters are 'used' all the time. That's the way it works: Neil Macdonald


https://twitter.com/DavidRayAmos/with_replies




Replying to and  47 others
Methinks many would agree that journalists have always been political operatives and everybody knows which way the various media outfits lean politically N'esy Pas? 


https://davidraymondamos3.blogspot.com/2019/03/reporters-are-used-all-time-thats-way.html 


#nbpoli #cdnpoli 


https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/wilson-raybould-trudeau-leaks-snc-1.5074010








Replying to and  47 others
Samual Johnston "I read your tweets regularly good comments just one observation I think on twitter they would come off better minus the methinks and the N'esy Pas"

Thanks Sam Theres a method to my madness

https://davidraymondamos3.blogspot.com/2019/03/reporters-are-used-all-time-thats-way.html 


#nbpoli #cdnpoli  


https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/wilson-raybould-trudeau-leaks-snc-1.5074010
 



Reporters are 'used' all the time. That's the way it works: Neil Macdonald




547 Comments
Commenting is now closed for this story.




Robert Campbell
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You are not a reporter Neil....you are a Liberal ventriquist dummy. Reporters are used all the time...sounds a little dirty.


Don McKenna 
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Reply to @Robert Campbell: Ventriquist? Neil is one of the better reporters we have. Do you remember Mike Duffy? He claimed he was unbiased.

David R. Amos
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Reply to @Don McKenna: Methinks as a son of the Keith Clan who recalls the evil event on the 13th February 1692 I should not be surprised to see a McKenna disagree with the words of a Campbell about the work of a MacDonald N'esy Pas?









Fred Urson
Content disabled
Reporters volunteer and trip over one another in order to be "used" as political operatives, so its not like they are being abused but rather the fact that the get into this shady business for the opportunity of becoming the mouthpiece for one political party or another, whomever pays the most .
This of course is a pity because such behavior has left a big void in journalism itself and an eroded public trust that will never come back.


David R. Amos   
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Reply to @Fred Urson: Methinks many would agree that journalists have always been political operatives and everybody knows which way the various media outfits lean politically N'esy Pas?









Dave Lerner
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The peculiar and bizarre notion that attending journalism classes makes for a good, noble, truthful or honest person is wonderfully funny. And 80% of medical school students are in medicine for the money. Did folks imagine people want to be lawyers for the great unwashed? There is a desperation that shapes our ends.


David R. Amos  
Content disabled
Reply to @Dave Lerner: Well Put Sir









Awistoyus Nahasthay
Once again Neil Macdonald points out the hypocrisy of the players involved in this melodrama, both politicians and media.
People are starting to notice the wisdom of his observations.


David R. Amos  
Reply to @Awistoyus Nahasthay: "Macdonald points out the hypocrisy of the players"

Methinks Mr MacDonald is one the biggest hypocrites who not many are allowed to criticize N'esy Pas?


Steven Arsenault
Reply to @David R. Amos:

Please I beg you to stop with that silly ending. I will pay you just please enough with the nails on the chalkboard approach. Is it on purpose you seek to drive people mad.....?









John Gallant
Absolutely Neil. The press need to expose crap, but making a major deal out of something to sell their investments is ruining free press.


Lee Weideman 
Reply to @John Gallant: I agree the press needs to expose things but what is happening is not making a major deal out of something. What is going on is a major deal.

David R. Amos  
Reply to @Lee Weideman: True








Larry Chegus
I am sick and tired of media using the term, a unnamed source , providing info


Lee Weideman 
Reply to @Larry Chegus: Do you really think a person will say anything about anyone or anything if their name is in the story? In this day and age of comments online it is better to keep your opinion to yourself unless you can be sure no one knows you said that. I have seen people say one thing that the right or left do not agree with and that person has been harassed to the point they have to shut down their accounts. Do you think Watergate would have happened if not for an unnamed source?

David R. Amos  
Reply to @Lee Weideman: "In this day and age of comments online it is better to keep your opinion to yourself unless you can be sure no one knows you said that"

Methinks everybody knows why I disagree for obvious reasons N'esy Pas?

https://www.scribd.com/doc/2718120/integrity-yea-right










Barry Martini
Fact is only 1 person would have wanted the SNC non story leaked....Revenge woman herself.

She has proven to be so disloyal and untrustworthy she has MANY people against her who would have leaked the "judge" story


David R. Amos   
Reply to @Barry Martini: Methinks you overlook the obvious. Ask yourself who would have benefited if the stories were never leaked. Certainly not the Canadian citizens he purportedly serves N'esy Pas?










Dionne Albert
Politicians on the right (and, by extension, their supporters) are always outraged by anonymous sources and leaks unless, of course, it suits their purposes (like the anonymous sources used by the initial Globe and Mail story on the SNC Lavelin scandal). Everything's cool there, eh?


David R. Amos  
Reply to @Dionne Albert: "Everything's cool there, eh?"

Methinks it depends on which political party you are betting on as the most ethical while armed with the knowledge that there is far more to the story that journalists know but will never tell for the benefit of their political pals N'esy Pas?

Lloyd Jones 
Reply to @David R. Amos:
None of them are ethical. They will always put their own interests before those of the state if they believe they can get away with it. Remember the Mike Duffy affair. It's not just the Liberals.

David R. Amos  
Reply to @Lloyd Jones: Methinks you should Google David Amos Federal Court and read my lawsuit N'esy Pas?










Jennifer McIsaac
I have become very upset with the mainstream media over the past few months. It seems to me that in order to survive these days, with the threat of social media and online 'news' sources that there is a desperation for ever more sensationalism in what they report. Presumably this is to attract viewers/readers who gravitate to the salacious.

Now it is not just reporting events. it is about speculation and the amplification of anything in the least controversial. It is about getting 'scoops' and exclusive tidbits to compete with other main stream outlets.
The side effect of all this is to work at dividing the nation according to existing worldviews without any facts at the time. Allegations and suspicions are all that is needed these days.

I think this trend is immensely dangerous for the country. One only has to read twitter posts to see the enmity, hate, vilification and nastiness that has been created over an issue such as the SNC one, which all started from an allegation, ramped up by pundits speculating, and we still do not know nor will we ever be able to see in a video exactly what is behind this whole issue.

I despair over the direction that this country and many other democracies are heading. Lynch mobs seem around every corner - all amplified by social media. I think we will come to regard social media as one of the greatest threats to our society. 
David R. Amos
Reply to @Jennifer McIsaac: "One only has to read twitter posts to see"

Methinks you should check my Tweets before you try to argue me N'esy Pas?
 

Robin Mack
Reply to @David R. Amos: The fact that you admit to tweeting only proves that you're a twit. End of story.

David R. Amos 
Reply to @Robin Mack: Methinks you would hard pressed to name a politician who does not tweet these days N'esy Pas?









Edward Vella
"Leaks a sign news media is doing its job"

Exactly. The job of helping Liberals cover up their acts of obstruction. The CBC is corrupt. And I'm a left-winger!!!


David R. Amos  
Reply to @Edward Vella: Methinks we should wonder how long that comment will last N'esy Pas?









Basja Broches
Neil MacDonald: lucid, articulate and brilliant.


David R. Amos  
Reply to @Basja Broches: but not ethical






Gorden Feist
"Commentary/reporting in this regard with respect to a SCC appointment(s) could compromise the integrity of the appointments process and potentially sitting Justices.""

I humbly disagree that Canadians knowing how their government works compromises the integrity of said government.


David R. Amos    
Reply to @Gorden Feist: Methinks you would enjoy reading my lawsuit and its judgements thus far N'esy Pas?








Larry LeBlanc
Like the PMO is using you now ?


William Lyen 
Reply to @Larry LeBlanc: Like Jody and Philpott have been using the globe and Maclean's magazine.

David R. Amos  
Reply to @William Lyen: Methinks that is how the wicked game is played N'esy Pas?








Bob Doucette
That was not a scoop by those 2 reporters. It was a planted story by the PMO office to 2 reporters who have been used by the Liberal party (provincially and federally) for years.
That’s why there is no doubt it came from the PMO office.
It was a story designed to hurt a political enemy that also damaged innocent bystanders (the judge).


Maxim Verite 
Reply to @Bob Doucette: Bingo

David R. Amos   
Reply to @Maxim Verite: I agree











mo bennett
this is totally reminiscent of the bit " The Last Spike " starring Mike from Canmore.


David R. Amos  
Reply to @mo bennett: YO MO This ain't classy stuff you may see in movie theater but a down and dirty comedy that you can only see behind the circus tent N'esy Pas?








mo bennett
loose lips, still sink ships!
 

David R. Amos   
Reply to @mo bennett: YO MO Methinks they sink punky little canoes too N'esy Pas?


Samual Johnston
Reply to @David R. Amos: I read your tweets regularly -good comments -- just one observation I think on twitter they would come off better minus the methinks and the N'esy Pas. --more of a statement then a casual comment and reading the same opening and closing a bunch of times in a row takes away from the actual comment. --- ok here but not so much on twitter. but just my take on it --- keep on fighting.







mo bennett
loose lips, sink ships! and the ensuing bozo eruptions from our totally inept politicians are just plain old hillaryous!!


David R. Amos   
Reply to @mo bennett: YO MO That is the way Circus is supposed to be N'esy Pas?



Reporters are 'used' all the time. That's the way it works: Neil Macdonald

Sources who leak information to reporters always have an agenda — nobody knows this better than reporters



Neil Macdonald · CBC News ·

Former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould speaks to journalists after testifying before the Commons justice committee on Feb. 27. (Chris Wattie/Reuters)


Glen McGregor and Joan Bryden were no doubt faintly amused this week to discover they were merely puppets, their typing fingers attached to strings being jerked by venal operatives within the Prime Minister's Office.

McGregor is CTV's senior political reporter. Bryden is the equivalent at The Canadian Press. Both of them have worked on the Hill for decades. And both of them are good at emerging from Ottawa's miasma of propaganda clutching a scoop, something both of them did again this past Monday.

Their story, attributed to unnamed sources, was, essentially, that in 2017, long before the SNC-Lavalin scandal emerged, Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould was plumping a Manitoba judge, Glenn Joyal, for elevation to chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, a recommendation ultimately ignored by Justin Trudeau.



Not earth-shaking, but one more bit of insight into Trudeau's relationship with Wilson-Raybould. Trudeau, according to the story, felt Joyal was too conservative on, among other things, LGBTQ issues. By extension, the reader was invited to believe Wilson-Raybould, in supporting Joyal, was not a Trudeau-flavour progressive herself.

The leak was clearly meant to discredit Wilson-Raybould, who has become Trudeau's chief antagonist since resigning from cabinet and claiming she'd been pressured to give SNC-Lavalin a settlement that would have ended the company's prosecution for fraud and corruption.
McGregor's story (disclosure here: my wife, Joyce Napier, is CTV's Ottawa bureau chief and contributed to it) was posted early in the day. Social media, predictably, lost control of its bowels.

By the time McGregor appeared on CTV's late-night newscast, critics of Trudeau were portraying him and Bryden as witless tools of dark figures inside the PMO who will stop at nothing to smear Wilson-Raybould, even violating the sacred confidentiality of judicial selection. The word "smear" was used a lot.


Wilson-Raybould and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appear to be fighting a war in the media. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

Wilson-Raybould herself, responding in writing to reporters, nobly stressed how "CONFIDENTIAL" (her capitalization) such matters must remain:

"I … find it extremely worrisome why you are even asking such questions and where you received any such information ... Commentary/reporting in this regard with respect to a SCC appointment(s) could compromise the integrity of the appointments process and potentially sitting Justices."

The response is almost comical in its contention that journalists should give a toss about government confidentiality, the very thing they are employed to pierce.

Leaks a sign news media is doing its job


Then, on Tuesday, a counterpunch, seemingly from someone in the Wilson-Raybould camp. Remember, there is now an open shooting war going on between the two sides, all of it carried out through leaks to reporters.

Citing a single source, the Globe and Mail reported that (surprise) Wilson-Raybould's advocacy for Joyal's appointment to chief justice of the Supreme Court was, in fact, a result of her progressive agenda. According to a single unnamed source, Wilson-Raybould was concerned that Trudeau's pick to lead the high court, Justice Richard Wagner, was himself too conservative, and might be "received negatively in the LGBTQ community." Further, her long-range "vision" was to elevate an Indigenous judge to Joyal's top spot on Manitoba's Court of Queen's Bench, the Globe reported.

Clearly, whoever the Globe source was (and a prime directive of journalism is that any scoop must be double-sourced, unless a single source is or was a primary player in the issue at hand, with access to first-hand information) had no qualms about speaking of CONFIDENTIAL matters that could compromise the integrity of the appointment process, etc., etc.

In fact, with no evident irony, the Globe ran a column by veteran pundit John Ibbitson, the headline of which declared that the leak to McGregor and Bryden "only shows how little Trudeau's camp respects the rule of law."


Two scoops published by different news outlets this week, both citing unnamed sources, provided contrasting insight into a disagreement between Trudeau and Wilson-Raybould in 2017 over who should become the next Supreme Court justice. (Chris Wattie/Reuters)

The leak was shocking and appalling, thundered Ibbitson, who, apparently, had nothing to say about the Wilson-Raybould counter-scoop source discussing CONFIDENTIAL details in a story that ran right next to his column on the Globe website.

In any case, a few observations:

All of this is perfectly normal. It is, in fact, a sign that news organizations are competing and doing their job. The idea that any of the reporters filing on the Wilson-Raybould story are anyone's unwitting tools, or "in the tank" for the Liberals or the Tories, is idiotic – the foolish notion of political partisans who cannot imagine anyone else not being a political partisan.

I know most of the reporters working on this story, including Bob Fife, whose big scoop on Feb. 7 cracked open the whole SNC-Lavalin scandal, and I can say confidently that their only allegiance is to themselves. They'd laugh out loud at the very idea of supporting a particular political party.

Let's not forget that it was Fife, while at CTV six years ago, who broke the biggest of the Mike Duffy stories, driving Stephen Harper's PMO crazy. (McGregor, then at the Ottawa Citizen, wasn't far behind.)

I can further confidently say that I and all my colleagues welcome tips from sources with axes to grind. All sources have agendas, or at least all of mine have. So what? As long as their information can be confirmed, who cares why they're providing it?

That said, reporters are human, and reality does have wrinkles.

A story is a story


Did McGregor's and Bryden's scoop tend to favour the PMO camp? Indeed, it did. No doubt, both reporters would have preferred an exclusive that caused discomfort to people in power. Scoops that tend to work in the government's favour aren't as treasured as those that expose official hypocrisy or corruption, because news organizations see themselves as courageous speakers of truth to power.

And has the Globe and Mail's reporting tended to favour the Wilson-Raybould-Jane Philpott camp? No doubt about it. When you've developed solid sources on one side of a story that result in a major scoop, you tend to keep dancing with them. You also want to keep the story alive, to use a rather crude phrase favoured by editors.

And when the other person has the big scoop, and you're left with the miserable task of matching it, and can't even do that, it's natural to attack the scoop itself. That always happens.
Ultimately, though, a story's a story, no matter whom it favours or whom it wounds. You go with the information if it's relevant and verifiable. You are, in a sense, a conduit, arms open to leaks and brown envelopes from anyone.

The leakers may be hypocrites – a police chief once publicly denounced the leak of a story he'd given me himself, and a cabinet minister once stood in the House of Commons to indignantly blame his antagonists in a high-profile legal case for a leak that had come to me from one of his own senior staffers. But that's just the game.

Just today, both Wilson-Raybould herself and the PMO, through a spokesperson, categorically denied leaking.

Journalists are like the businessman who, pursuing his own selfish interests, performs to the benefit of all. In fact, that is what separates pros like McGregor and Bryden and Fife from the howling mob of self-appointed "citizen journalists" on the internet: they couldn't care less who benefits or loses; they just want the story. And they do the hard due diligence.

This column is part of CBC's Opinion section. For more information about this section, please read our FAQ.

About the Author


Neil Macdonald
Opinion Columnist
Neil Macdonald is an opinion columnist for CBC News, based in Ottawa. Prior to that he was the CBC's Washington correspondent for 12 years, and before that he spent five years reporting from the Middle East. He also had a previous career in newspapers, and speaks English and French fluently, and some Arabic.


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