Bar the doors and windows and get the small children off the streets.
Bourque’s Newswatch is likely to set off another round of entirely spontaneous protests that were in no circumstances encouraged on province-wide radio by a cabinet minister.
That top story is a link to Geoff Meeker’s post on the Premier’s anti-CBC crusade which – as previously noted – is not in any way a partisan attack and bears no connection whatsoever to the entirely spontaneous outpourings of rage and hate aimed at the news media for daring to discuss the fact the Premier was ill.
There are a bunch of comments below the post, including this one from local media bad boy Craig Westcott, a fellow who is more than passingly familiar with being blackballed:
Again though, the real issue is that Danny Williams, Dunderdale and his PR team tried to pull a fast one on the Newfoundland and Labrador public. They didn't get away with it, because NTV broke the story. But by regaining control of the public relations aspect of the issue, they managed to pull off an ever faster one in its wake.
Let me repeat: the local media has treated Danny Williams and his government with kid gloves, CBC included. ELizabeth [sic] Matthews' claim that Bob Wakeham's comments justify a ban on CBC coverage is an excuse. Matthews and Williams have conducted a relentless campaign to silence journalists. This is just another effort in that campaign. It's ironic that having long ignored what the Premier's Office has been doing to intimidate other journalists, the CBC now finds itself in that same uncomfortable and unfair spot.
Our profession, locally, has gone soft.
The second one is to the Globe’s story on the NAFTA challenge Abitibi launched against the provincial government’s seizure of assets belonging to three companies: Abitibi, ENEL and locally-based Fortis.
For the record, NTV ran the Abitibi story toward the front of its major supper hour newscast and included an interview with Abitibi spokesman Seth Kursman. CBC ran a short script story in the second quarter hour. Just sayin’.
Readers not living in the bizarro world just off Cape Breton will find in Geoff’s post the complete record of what the now infamous Bob Wakeham said to piss off Danny all the down in Sarasota. That such tame words have been attacked publicly by one local editor as “contemptible” will surely strike such readers as being entirely beyond comprehension.
For some reason the words “nutty, nutty, nutbar” come to mind.
-srbp-