It’s weird because the by-line on the tendentiously headlined “news” story about Prime Minister Harper today at CTV.ca, “Rush to help Haiti also helps Harper politically”, reads “The Canadian Press”, not “Some hack, opinionated, Harper-hating or anti-Conservative reporter, who holds both Harper and the Conservatives and possibly his own job in contempt.” And it’s in their CTV.ca “NEWS” section, rather than over at, say, Ujjal Dosanjh’s little blog spot.
It’s in the news! Harper is “high-handed”, and he has a “contempt for democracy!”
GRAMMAR REVIEW: The word “contempt” means to totally despise or even hate, or to hold something in complete disrespect and disgrace. In a court of law, it’s punishable by jail time. In a politics “news” story, using the term “contempt for democracy” would best describe some brutal tyrannical dictator who, you know, really does hate democracy, like some communist or socialist dictator, of which there are many.
The term “high-handed” is typically used by opinion writers like me — not reporters, because it’s clearly an opinion and a very negative one at that — to describe someone we utterly loathe. Reporters today are apparently taught in our state-funded schools to refrain from describing their sitting Prime Minister that way unless you don’t dig him, and if as a reporter, you’re also toeing the liberal-left political line and are regurgitating almost verbatim the latest liberal-leftist talking points in order to sway opinions against the one you so loathe. You know, like a hack left-wing blogger at CBC or Rabble.
They reserve the really complimentary terms for socialists and communists dictators. A few years ago the CTV wrote a long glowing article about the Socialist President and leader of the Communist Party of Cuba, Fidel Castro, happily entitled “Fidel Castro—a long history of survival”, and called him “intriguing”. They didn’t mention once that he had “contempt for democracy”. Or that he was “high-handed”.
He’s good —America’s bad, see?
In a more recent news article at CTV about Castro, written when Castro was bashing the city of Edmonton as “a dumping ground”, the CTV article only referred to him as “Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro”, not once mentioning his hatred for freedom and democracy. And naturally he wasn’t “high-handed”, he was simply the “leader”. Later in the story they repeatedly referred to him as “Fidel” —like he’s a buddy.
If being horrible at your jobs is something you’re striving for, particularly in journalism, this was a superb example. Good work, Canadian Press and CTV News. Great editing. Great management. Fine jobs all around.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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