Friday, September 19, 2008

Drive-By Media Strikes Again

I am insulted to the core this morning.

Insulted that once again our drive-by media are displaying incredible political bias. Insulted that well paid and supposedly experienced reporters and editorial writers are not telling us the whole story. Insulted that, for the most part, the news media is just too damn lazy to dig up a few facts.

So let me inform you of a few facts which are very strangely being ignored by most media outlets:

At about 11:30 the morning of June 26 this year, a group of native Indians from the Barriere Lake Algonquin Youth Association and their supporters showed up at 127 Joseph Street in Buckingham, Quebec and began a sit in. It is the office of Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon. I won’t go into details about everything that happened here other than to say that finally Quebec Police were called and laid disorderly conduct charges against six of the protesters. According to witnesses, at least one of the protesters appeared to have been drinking.
Now fast forward to this past Wednesday.
A group of native Indians from the Barriere Lake Youth Association arrive in Maniwaki and demand to speak with Lawrence Cannon. He meets briefly with some of them.
After that meeting, Norman Matchewan, a Barriere Lake youth spokesman gets into a conversation with Darlene Lannigan, Mr. Cannon’s constituency assistant. From what we understand they wanted to arrange another meeting with the Transport Minister.
During that conversation, caught on videotape, Ms. Lannigan, who by the way is an experienced, seasoned political veteran, begins to lay out the rules for any future meeting. Keeping in mind what happened back in June, remember six disorderly conduct charges, Ms. Lannigan says, "If you behave and you're sober and there's no problems and if you don't do a sit-down and whatever, I don't care. One of them showed up the other day and was drinking."
"Are you calling me an alcoholic?" asked Norman Matchewan, a Barriere Lake Algonquin youth spokesman.
"I'm not calling you an alcoholic, no," Lannigan said. "It was just to say that you're in a federal office. If you're coming in to negotiate, I expect, there's decorum that has to be respected."

That’s it.

According to newspapers and TV and radio newscasts from coast to coast in this country, this is a terrible insult. Headline in the Sun this morning: "Natives insulted to core"

Headlines in the Ottawa Citizen’s major front page story this morning: "Cannon aide under fire for remarks". The Citizen story written by Meagan Fitzpatrick makes absolutely no mention of the June 26th sit-in or the arrests. In fact the only newspaper that makes even fleeting reference to the sit-in is the Ottawa Sun.

Sadly, what is supposed to be our only national Conservative newspaper runs a shortened version of Meagan Fitzpatrick’s story, with no mention of what prompted Ms. Lannigan’s warning.
Nor is there any mention of the June 26th arrests in the Globe and Mail’s editorial this morning which of course would have you believe this is just one more example of the terrible Tories.
Disgraceful reporting I would say. Disgraceful bias.
And why in the world Lawrence Cannon would feel compelled to apologize for this is beyond me.
In fact I think the biggest mistake was the fact he apologized. Of course Lawrence Cannon, just as is every Conservative, more than fully aware of how the media will play this.

Let me ask you this:

Instead of insulting the Algonquin’s with her warning, is it not true that Darlene Lannigan in fact was entirely within her rights to tell this group she did not want a repeat performance of the June protest?

I would go further:

I believe Darlene Lannigan would have failed in her duty had she not issued the warning.

I repeat, since the rest of the media is mute on this, On June 26 of this year a group of young people from the Barriere lake Algonquin Indian Youth group carried out a sit-in at Lawrence Cannon’s office which became so unruly police were called and arrested six of them.

If you were Darlene Lannigan would you not have said exactly what she did?
And what do you think of the media’s failure to tell us the whole story here?
Of all the newspapers I have read this morning, only the Sun mentions a previous problem with this group.

Haven’t seen TV newscasts. Help me out here. Has the June 26th sit-in been mentioned in anything you have seen or heard?

Do you think the June 26 arrests are relevant to the story?
Would you have done anything differently?

13 comments:

Unknown said...

The liberal media is like a school of sharks just waiting for a drop of conservative blood and then the feeding frenzy starts.
It is so strange that almost all of the media has this bias against the conservatives.
I guess because the prime minister doesn't let the press gallery have their way that this is how they get even.
The NDP and Liberals have had to drop canidates but we hardly hear a word about it. The sharks just circle and wait for conservative blood.
I can't even watch the Mike Duffy show anymore because he is openly helping the liberals. He made a statement about Bob Ray not being a NDPer anymore and that we should all read his book because he now knows the right way.
Mr. Green you are about the only friendly conservative voice on the media today. Please keep up the good work.

Claudette Dumont said...

"If you behave and you're sober..." are the words used by this "seasoned" reporter to address adults who wanted to speak to Mr. Cannon. I doubt that Lannigan would have used these same words to address white folks. And, to paint all Aboriginal people with the same brush as Ms. Lannigan does by comparing these individuals to others that came to that office before them surely indicates to me a racist attitude.

Claudette Dumont

Unknown said...

I agree completely. Many groups are happy to twist words into a perceived insult. It is obvious with even the Sun's brief mention of the previous incident that this aide was not saying "Natives are alcoholics" but instead "We don't want a repeat of previous bad behaviour". If anything, Cannon's response should have been simply "I apologize for the media's reporting, taking her words out of context and only reporting half of the story". But then I suppose the next reports would have been "Cannon feels he should be in control of the media"...

Unknown said...

It is obvious that the Drive-by's are lapdogs for the left. This incident is a non-issue. Any organization has the right to require decorum.

Anonymous said...

This is an inditement of all the media out there....

Even IF they do not have an 'anti-conservative bias', failing to dig up and report on the earlier meeting IS PROOF that our media is failing to do its one and only job...

Which is to tell the story, the whole story, and nothing but the story....

They did NOT tell the whole story....their authority to tell us anything else is G-O-N-E.

Now, how do we tell the rest of the country this????

Beast said...

It's the sign of weakness. It's also good indication of what to expect if the Liberals are elected. They are not concerned about the country. They are interested in power. That's all. Power and money. As the election continues the Liberals are talking less and less about the green shift, even going as far to say it was never a part of their platform. I suppose they think we will forget about it and then implement it once in office. Out of sight out of mind? Canadians are not stupid, and this will be proven come Oct 14.

Anonymous said...

Not only has the media smeared this into an unrecognizable shape, how about their complete lack of volume about the fact that the Liberals were running a candidate (now thankfully forced to resign, no thanks to the media) who called for the death of Natives? What was it he said?

'Fifty dead, a hundred dead, a hundred and twenty five dead...we burry it and life goes on...'

Read more at: http://rjjago.wordpress.com/2008/09/18/angrier-and-angrier/

How come we are not being bombarded by news about THIS racist - and he was not just an aide??? And did not say anything about alcohol, but about killing people????

Or what about the NDP running a candidate who has organized fundraisers for the CIC and whose campaign manager has Hezbollah ties? We read a lot more about the fact a radio talk show host gave her a 'difficult intervies' (yes, she is calling for him to be silenced) than about the fact she has directly promoted hate-mongers who oppose Canadian values???

Beast said...

Lowell, I have noticed you never converse or have and rebuttle with any that comment on your blog. Why is that?

Anonymous said...

Another victim of the 'drive-by media'....

Chris Reid, in Toronto Centre, has resigned after his past blog posts (which are now only accessible to 'private members') have been criticized by left-wing bloggers...

http://rjjago.wordpress.com/2008/09/21/the-chris-reid-resignation/

This is an excellent candidate, with level-headed ideas and intelligence.... He chose to resign rather than cause embarassment to the party. Dang them liberal bloggers!!!!

deneb said...

If racism didn't exist, the "progressives" would invent it!
There is a whole industry awaiting --and gold in them thar hills.

xiz said...

It slays me to see the resignation of Chris Reid attributed to some mythical 'drive-by media'.

Reid's *own* comments were posted on a publically accessible blog, and when someone actually *read* them, he resigned, rather than stand by what he posted.

I thought conservatism was all about personal responsibility and accountabiliy. Yet it seems that more often than not, conservatives when faced with the consequences for their own actions, try to blame anyone - the media, liberals, Al Gore, whoever - but themselves?

Funny thing, that.

R B MAC. said...

The Drive By Media just trying to fabricate "News" by using a "politically correct" version of the "gotcha" game. Pretty lazy and meaningless in the grand scheme of things that affect our day to day lives.

DIB said...

Lowell,

My only comment to you in response to this blog post is as follows:

"Pot, kettle. Kettle, pot."

'nough said