Paul Tellier speaks to the imbalance of coverage in the media about the Afghanistan mission, in which they concentrate on the negatives and never mention the positives.
He’s absolutely right of course, as I’ve been harping for years. I may quibble with his solution, which is for the government to step in and fill the void in the terrible media coverage (the government shouldn’t step in—that’s liberal-left talk! The solution is that the media should be called-out as totally biased and as not-to-be trusted!). On the other hand, he may have been implying that the government has itself done a terrible job of explaining the mission—something else with which I would wholeheartedly agree, but still—the media finds all sort of angles to report on OTHER THAN the myriad positives out of Afghanistan.
Either way, it was something worth mentioning.
Here’s a direct transcript from my recording:
NOTE: These comments were made immediately after the answer which John Manley gave to a reporter in the news conference following the release of the Manley report, which I transcribed and blogged here.
Committee member The Honorable Paul Tellier: And it’s a fact that information Canadians are getting today are not well balanced! You know, we visited four [Afghan] provinces, we saw some outstanding projects, which had NOTHING to do, you know, with the military contribution, per se, and so on an so forth, and we are saying the average Canadian, he or she never hears about that! So therefore the government has a responsibility to speak up, to explain, and so on. The same with the NGOs [non-governmental organizations]: the NGOs—you know there are some organizations are there who are doing an outstanding job! And you NEVER hear about them, you know, as much as we should and so on. And so what we are saying is that this information out has to be far more balanced than it is today.
It was interesting to me that at the conclusion of those words, the news conference abruptly ended, and no more questions were asked. I thought that was beautifully symbolic of what Tellier just got through saying.
EXTRA:
From later in the day:
Note the first few words of this quote as transcribed by me from a later interview with John Manley on the CBC “Politics” show. Allow me to direct you to ask yourself and anyone who will listen: “why not?!”
John Manley:
…not that I would ever be critical of the media but Don [CBC “Politics” anchor Newman], when we visited a project in the center of Kabul—an amazing redevelopment project, largely funded by CIDA [the Canadian International Development Agency], you know, you’ve got the whole package there: redevelopment, girls in school, the whole thing.A group of Canadian reporters came to see it because it was a CIDA project. That afternoon, regrettably a Canadian soldier was killed — [so] the whole story was killed, so that we could report (a) the incident; then, a couple of days later we show the ramp ceremony; then we show the return; then we show the funeral. Canadians have the impression that all we do over there is sit and get shot! Well we’re doing a lot more. And balancing that story is an important element of ensuing that Canadians actually know what it is they either support or oppose with this huge investment of our resources in Afghanistan.
The interview pretty much ended right after that.
Manley Report Coverage at PTBC up to now:
• Manley: “…not that I would ever be critical of the media…”. Well therein lays problem #97.
• Manley Report’s Pamela Wallin also had good words
• Manley report’s Paul Tellier speaks to lack of balance in reporting the Afghanistan mission
• John Manley’s strong, good words: seemingly plays against Team Dion’s Modern Liberal Party stance
• Post-Manley report: Dion looks, sounds embarrassed, sheepish, and defeated
• Know the enemy: Stephane Dion lies—says Canada’s “tradition” is to train folks, pile bricks
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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