There has always been a divide in the craft between those who want to be rich or famous or maybe an editor or publisher someday and those who want to muckrake. The first writes what he/she thinks the editor/reader wants. The latter writes news.

I haven't laughed out loud while reading something in a long time. I thought this article was quite well done. I thought it was honest and thoughtful and accurate. At least it confirmed a lot of my opinons. Well done.

I don't agree with Shannon Rupp's assertion that it's easier for the "ethically challenged" journalist to thrive today -- it's just that more fabulists are getting caught. The reason is simple: Google. Type a phrase into the search engine, see what pops up, then "out" the scribe to his or her superiors. Beats blogging, anyway...

I don't buy this argument that competition keeps a journalist honest. Don't forget, until six years ago, there was only one "national" newspaper in Canada; the competitive forces at work at the National Post, as it relates to their long-running war with the Globe, seem to have had little effect on Mr. Evenson's ethics. As for Jayson Blair and the New York Times, there is no more competitive newspaper environment that New York City. Blaming a concentration of ownership, and any other number of external factors, negates the influence of individual agency. The fact is, there is—and always has been—a sprinkling of bad seeds in the journalistic field; even Pulitzer Prize winners, like the NY Times 1930s Moscow bureau chief Walter Duranty, have subsequently been found to have massaged the truth. The lesson, as always, is to not believe everything you read. And read widely: a pattern of truth, amidst the morass of media, ultimately emerges.

A few years back Global TV ran a story about a case “bullying”. Knowing the details of the case, which by the way I can not reveal, I can tell you that from that point forward I take every global story with a grain of salt. Global sensationalized the story, left out key details and at times flat out lied. There are other things that have shaped my faith in the local media. One was learning, much to my surprise and surprise of 7 of my friends that we had been involved in a “riot” up a Whistler the night before (A New Years). Another happened just recently. Having gone to a couple of all candidates meetings on the North Shore, I was mortified to see a staunch Conservative supporter, who showed up to one all candidates meeting wearing a conservative shirt and who was booed when he refused to relinquish the microphone, dominating a piece in the Vancouver Sun on 3 average North Vancouver voters.

Excellent article, shannon rupp. I agree that while journalism has often being tainted that media concentration and monopoly, particuliarly, canwest's has greatly worsened the problem. Canwest papers, first under black, and then under the aspers have desperately, and so far unsuccessfully tried to help elect two neoconservatives as prime minister, first stockwell day, and harper. They have done this by releasing biased polls, by having nine reactionary columnists "balanced," by one with lack of bias. It's interesting that as soon as michael smyth of the province turned on gordon campbell that that paper immediately hired three reactionary columnists. The province newspaper also told us all to vote for stephen bush on their op ed page, as vigorously as if they actually had a right to do so. The stench of their and the sun's bias in the vancouver civic election was palpable -god knows how many right rightwing thugs they have helped install and keep in power. The latest desperate shilling by canwest-lowball is their pathetic, distorted and tainted attempts to try and prove that the last three years of assaults on bc's most vulnerable to pay for the massive 25 percent taxcut for the wealthy that campbell forgot to mention until the day after the election, has somehow paid off for someone besides gordon liars wealthy owners. See todays strategic thoughts column by david shreck to learn about how the bc liars are now claiming that after they have destroyed thousands of decent paying union jobs, "how more people than ever in bc are making over 16 dollars an hour..." right just not more people who we need to stay more than three months in our health care system until they can get a better paid job waiting on tables....SimiLIARly, they have used the ndp's last year in office to boost the numbers regarding job growth in bc the numbers by a full three percent, I can remember when the vancouver sun had articles BESIDES hume's and palmer's worth reading, the sun should just change its name from the Vancouver Sun to the Fraser Institute Pimp, because the sun never shines in the hole the sun has crawled up...and please send jon ferry BACK to the uk....

I'm having a little trouble getting by the name dropping and famous quote stuff from history of journalism 101. ALthough the suject is a good one to consider, I reckon.

Nice quote by H.S. Thompson thrown in there. ("I have spent half my life trying to get away from journalism, but I am still mired in it — a low trade and a habit worse than heroin, a strange, seedy world full of misfits and drunkards and failures.") This article is not my first brush with that particular quote. Interesting article, though, although I'll take that quote from someone I know instead of this author. I am not so sure about the 'wingnut' change though. Stick to drunkards. Certainly, there are still a few of those left in the business, as there are in any profession.

Just my ha'penny's worth at the end of a busy day...

I think the tyee should set up a feature called "Vancouver Sun Watch". The purpose of Sun Watch would be to quantify and document the Sun’s many biases. For example, how many times does the paper back raising tuition fees and cutting taxes in year. How much attention do each of the political leaders get and what kind of press do they receive? How many times is the Fraser Institute positively mentioned? How many times is that same organization negatively mentioned? How many news stories did the paper bungle? In what way were they bungled? Readers could help by sending in bungle tips.

This link says everything I think about journalism in general. It ain't good by and large.In other news, it's fortunate that the Tyee published this article when it did - 2 days after I'd suggested the link above as worthy of "Suggested Reading" from elsewhere. Apparently the trick is to just keep trying...

Damn, Rupp, you nicked a story I was hoping to write and did a far better job of it. Hey, apropos of naught, but you want to see where the old, so-called Heroes of Journalism have come to in 2004, borrow or steal, (don't you dare buy ) Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack. It's a new take on fictional journalism. Talk to a fictional character (Dubya) and print, word for word, what he says, between mouthfuls of mushed bananas. Throw in a few "jutting chins in the sunset" and, hey presto! instant book deal. Journalism, non-fiction aisle. Anyway. Yadda yadda. Nice piece.

one thing for sure we are sorely lacking political coverage in b.c other than a couple of of columnists and limited acces to newsites. our news and how its doled out to us has certainly changed there seem to be a deliberate filtering of news it seems to me some stuff you just don't hear about that should make the news and dosen't i sometimes i watch global, mostly listen to the cbc , global is more like the national enquirer very biased to say the least,,, funny thing when Christy Clarke & Mark Merrisn's house was visited by the cops in connection to the the raid, i sure didn't catch Jon daley lurking in any bushes on that story... as for the b.c. rail deal.. have you heard no passenger service for the north and that billion dollars is is getting whittled down by the day what with lawyer fees from the bungled roberts bank line, and lets not forget the tax give away.. but what did i see was one of the big stories tonight corn in the fraser valley,,, yumm poverty sure is filling!

News reporters - be they opinion-based or fact-based (those I only see in science journals - and even then there is significant bias based on funding organization and patent money to be made) are hardly a uniform species. It has become incumbent on the readers to be a little more selective in both the publications they support by reading and the news they take for gospel. Like Lewis - CanWest and all other media molders made of mold that take the word of the Fraser Institute on what is good science for the environment and the classroom - are essentially a hideous waste of trees and bathroom reading time. The only two people in the media that I would vouch for for speaking golden words of wisdom are Geoff Olson (his drawings speak volumes as well), CBC (especially when dilvered by Evan Solomon) and Jon Stewart for keeping up with American foreign affairs. It annoys me to no end that I cannot sing or write the praises of a prominent and witty female Canadian media reporter that is not fictional. Rhona Raskin and Susie Wall just don't cut it for me as regular columnists that I look forward to. Mayhap that is the problem...

Same old crowd, same old crappola.

Jayson Blair was fired for his fabrications. His NY Times editor, Howard Raines was so discredited that, after his dismissal, the freelance article he wrote for the Guardian criticizing Kerry's looks as not being 'presidential' was held up in the international press as a joke, an endorsement. And rightly so. Of course, the Times publisher has yet to fire Judith Miller or Michiko Kakutani for the bungled reports on WMDs and Whitewater respectively.

shirin, why don't you try Heather Mallick's weekly "As If" in The Globe and Mail?

Good article, and a very important issue to our culture, especially here in Canada where we have a grave situation in media ownership. Thanks to the web, regular Joe's like myself can access news from all over the world, from many different sources. Google is also an amazing tool, and much can be gained from searching for the truth. The Aspers are a current plague on this country, and we are suffering mightily as a result. The Southam empire also was responsible for providing biased and slanted information for decades, followed by Black, and now the Aspers (I can't get over the Asp in Apser). Israel Asper was a frustrated politician, and in his own view, being an elected member of parliament did not allow him to influence society as much as he wanted, and also did not allow him to be the businessman he could be. He found that owning and controlling media outlets was a much more effective method of making the impact on our culture that he wanted to. The Aspers are proud of their proprietary right to editorial bias, and does it ever show. They wallow in their own ignorance and power, and this countrty is suffering as a result. No family/corporation should be allowed to hold such power in this country. Thank gods for the Tyee, Terminal City, The Georgia Straight, and other sources of information that provide the people of BC with a chance to see issues in a light that will never make it into the Asper rags. Here's to a future where people are less happy with being spoon fed proprietary and innaccurate garbage by biased and slanted media ownership.

On a related topic I am very sad to report that the new vi television station in victoria has fired moe sihota, briony penn, norman spector and pia shandel and cancelled island voices, talk tv, right on abd penn's environmental show...I guess they're now going to rely on reruns of "Cops" to make a successful station -stupid, these shows had a lot of very loyal viewers and presented both right and left perspectives, then argued them out. On the bright side a new poll shows the ndp now 12 full percentage points ahead at 45% of decided voters to the bc liberals 33%, with many unreleased details on bc rail and the legislature raid yet to come, after we throw these liars out, let's sue them as well, so they'll never run again....

Lewis- say it ain't so!!! 'Right On!' and Talk TV are really cancelled? When did this crime occur - and a better question - why? I smell the stench of Liberal droppings.... First BC Hydro does a 180 and turn from going "green" to totally black, off-shore drilling is actually being pushed to make BC's next big export something that breathes the life out of living things, we have the immortal RAV coming and going all the while people are dropping not being able to get to a hospital in the vicinity, university students are going elsewhere since neither education or housing is an affordable option for the average person, and our main source of brain-washing comes from the Asper empire. Woe be upon us - but the Province happily reports: "BC consumers going strong and are optimistic about the future" - thus, buy, buy, buy your way to heaven - mayhap they are simply living today like there is no tomorrow and are actually preparing for heaven. As for the Real-mad-canine-without-a-muzzle's suggestion - I will be happy to acquaint myself with Heather Mallick's viewpoint in the Globe - the brief taste I got as I scanned articles written by her are refreshingly the antithesis of opinions expressed in CanWest papers - so at least I know she has a brain.

I am afraid it is true, shirin, as you can verify by turning on island vi, at 6pm tonight where you will find only news...island vi is developing a habit of firing its best people, as they did with tasha larsen earlier, who was nearly as classy a news anchor as gloria macarenko, I agree with the mad fox that heather mallick is probably the best, brightest and fairest mainstream columnist in the country...she appears every saturday in the globe, online and in print...

Lewis - the dolorous news about the cancellations was shortly confirmed shortly after your amber alert. The silver lining is that a political pundit (not known for his overzealous support for the NDP) was mourning more the possibility that Moe may turn back to left-wing politics; and Moe himself said that he (along with Norm, ironically enough) will be scouting out a new venue for a left-wing political discussion show. I say that we need a news (both print and broadcast) co-op business - for the people and by the people of BC. Perhaps the new left-wing commentry talk show helmed by Moe could be the TV extension of the Tyee - call it TV Tyee - at least it rhymes.

Sounds good shirin ....a remote possibility, rightwing shaw cable-vision is at least 5 years behind on their community tv station obligation (shaw cable usually found on cable at channel 4) of course they have only the obligation to provide airtime, not payment -if moses znaimer (sp?) was smart he'd move moe and norm to city tv in vancouver, cable 13, which his company also owns -and how high could the budget have been for briony penn's excellent environmental show, for god's sake...I can't help wondewring if martyn brown or someone of his ilk threatened the new vi with a lawsuit -so disappointing!

"The New York Times is reporting that the source for the New York Post's whopping Kerry-picks-Gephardt front-page gaffe the other day was none other than Post owner Rupert Murdoch himself. Sourcing its own story to a Post employee who insisted on anonymity, for fear of losing his job, the Times reported, "Mr. Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of the News Corporation, called his tip in to the Post's news desk just after 10 on Monday night, between the first and second editions, the employee said," adding that the story was then rewritten to include the Gephardt tip by an editor on the city desk. A spokesman for the Post denies that Murdoch was the source of the tip. (N.Y. Times)"

How very much like everything I've ever heard abot murdoch, mad fox, the guy wouldn't know charcter if it bit him in the ass...

This gaffe bit Murdoch in the ass. Simma Holt, on the other hand, should have her "News Hall of Fame for BC" award changed to the "News Hall of Shame" for the number she did in the Vancouver Sun on the Doukhobors back in the late 50s. Imagine what would happen today if someone called a cultural group in Canada a "huge crime syndicate of at least twenty-five hundred people" or accused an entire Canadian village of being a "stronghold for terrorists." Her books should be mandatory textbooks on spinning hate literature for journalism students.

I'd like to see the vancouver sun put on trial, fox, especially for helping campbell get elected with a huge majority, then refusing to report on the impact of his policies on vulnerable groups...I remember hearing that some doukabour leaders used to get a lil' orangatang when they went into town and spend funds that they shouldn't have, but that sort of pales to the money campbell's spending that he shouldn't be, and isn't spending that he should, if you follow my drift...

From the sound of it, it was more than the doukhobor leaders, lewis. All the same, I admire them because, as a group, they were the original culture-jammers long before Naomi Klein. Holt had no right to take on the entire people .... As for Asperrags, I don't read 'em. I don't know anyone who gives 'em the credibility to wipe their shoes on. None of the business owners I know waste their money advertising in 'em. I'm less concerned about the impact of big media, since most people I know are abandoning traditional sources and picking up their news from a variety of places: internet sites with commentaries that reflect their own beliefs or leanings, the local independently owned community paper or magazine even if it comes out weekly or monthly (since that's the only place which reports on local events anymore), news services who rely on reports from their own foreign correspondents instead of the wire. People who never had a chance to say their piece before are finally speaking up without the thought police and kulture-diktat muzzling them. It's a lively time for the written word.

Rupp missed a couple quotes: "Why should any man be allowed to buy a printing press and disseminate pernicious opinions calculated to embarrass the government?" V.I. Lenin, Moscow speech, 1920 "In old days, men had the rack. Now they have the press." Oscar Wilde, from The Soul of Man Under Socialism

The general consensus appears to be that printing presses are being used, not as Lenin feared, to embarrass government, but to the purposes which Wilde described except within a capitalist society.

A quotation from an essay on the media from the diary of the heroic George Monbiot:

"A middle-aged man discovers that, for the first time in his life, he is making money, getting invited to the smartest dinner parties and hobnobbing with ministers and editors. He begins to identify with his new friends. He no longer sees himself as an outsider, but as a member of the cultural and political elite. He accumulates loyalties towards the people he once took pleasure in knifing. His politics shift to reflect his circumstances, and we all fall about in astonishment.

"Of course, the press loves a convert to the right, with the result that just as a journalist pulls away from his readership, he is licenced to impose himself upon it as never before. The paradox of journalism is that those with the most opportunity have the least to say, as they come to owe so many favours to so many powerful figures that the only people they can attack are the weak and the voiceless. This explains why it is that the bigger they get, the smaller their targets become." On becoming a bilious old git.

Those are excellent and very apt comments, mad fox. Yes, the doukabours were excellent culture jammers, and what better way to jam than to use public nudity, in the uptight decades of the twenties to the early sixties after which such methods presumably became less effective. I once knew a guy that was bit of a wild man, who had really hit it off with a doukabor when he went to interior bc, although I never met the fellow, myself. I guess the doukabours perfected their tactics of protest in soviet russia, which I believe led to their expulsion, or did they emmigrate voluntarily? Ah, yes, oscar wilde, who many credit with being the father of modern wit, and a forerunner of people like dorothy parker as in parker's poem: Upon my honor/ I saw a madonna/ Sitting in a niche/ Above the door/ Of the private whore/ Of the world's biggest son of a bitch. I don't know monbiot, but how true, sort of a more explicated version of the peter principle where everyone is guaranteed to rise to the appropriate level of incompetence....I too am heartened by alternative media on the net and in weekly papers, about the only outlet for dissent besides a few magazines, but am still greatly concerned about the huge numbers of apparently uncritical readers of daily newspapers, if we had just one decent daily newspaper, nationwide this uncritical tendency could be much better countered, in my opinion...always enjoy your posts....

amen on the 3 cheers to monbiot.

Get your CV's out - The Province is looking for an Editor for their Editorials page - I think both Lewis and the angry canine should be seriously considered for the gig - if they can stand being part of the Asper colony (as an aside, I find it sweetly fitting that asper can be used as short form for a parasitic fungus -Aspergillus - thus, colony is an apt term for the mold growth).

The liberal media is as liberal as the rich conservative media mogul that owns them. there is no such thing as objective, unbiased media. It died with E.F. Stone or it hides in Orion Magazine and Z Magazine. Remember Lies of our times? Also known by the acronim L.O.O.T. ? Noam Chomsky and other wrote LOOT in order to correct the miskleading news at the New Yor Times. So to think that the media is having a trust problem now, is disingenous. The media has become a propaganda and oublicist machine, there to disinform and manage dissent... Do not kiddy yourselves... even the Tyee. Because when money talk bullshit walks!

At the risk of breaking one or another rule against self-promotion on this forum, I'd like to suggest folks tune in to Knowledge Network at 11pm, July 22. They're showing my documentary film "A Tribe of His Own: The Journalism of P. Sainath". For those who don't know him, Sainath is the kind of journalist most of us think we'll grow up to be. Sainath freelances for The Hindu, among other publications, and he wrote the Indian bestseller "Everybody Loves a Good Drought".

LOL, shirin. I'm holding out (but not holding my breath) for executive producer of FOX. First power move: Get rid of all the chickens**ts in fake-fox pelts!

The Douks learned their passive resistance techniques in Tsarist Russia, lewis, back when about 7000 of them burned their weapons in response to Nick II's forced conscription of the Caucasus. So Nick sicked his Cossacks on them. Thanks to a radical underground press and the intervention of Leo and Lev Tolstoy, they were brought to Canada. Needless to say, many of the Sons of Freedom sub-sect did not practice pacifism in Canada, except that the mainstream media and books of the day were so racist, religion-biased, and filled with cultural hubris, it's impossible to sort the sh*t from the shinola. So things haven't changed much.

Very interesting fox, thanks for the info, and you've got a pretty good sh*t detector.....

Shannon is just trying to justify all the scribbling scriveners. Good Job , keep it up.

Well, judging how the news media handled the recent election campaign, no wonder there is skepticism. Like, the Toronto Star, pretender to protect the little person, boosting the Liberal party in the fact of scandal, waste, and corruption.

I gotta get in a shameless plug for Robin Mathers at vive le canada

Have you noticed that the Vancouver Sun & Province seems to only use Associated Press? Are there no other news agencies?

"The Manipulation of Information" at http://www.watchtower.org/library/g/2000/6/22/article_02.htm

Yikes! The URL (above: anonymous) is posted on a Tyee thread. Hey, I thought, I'm among friends, right? So I looked it up.

Be warned. It's the Watchtower Bible Society of Pennsylvania."

wellherewegoagain, you couldn't be more right! It was the very labelling "liberal media" that allowed for the proliferation of ultra-conservative media to offer "balance" to the overwhelming effect of this ghost. I can't help but feel the free press can only exist in ideology. Even the web has become polluted and the voices of the free press are drowned in the ocean of agenda-driven media ownership. This is an era disallowing open dialogue, replacing it with agendas and rhetoric. It would be pretty hard to objectively report for American media without fearing charges of anti-Americanism, or worse, aiding and abetting the enemy. These are the accusations I see constantly levelled at attempts to get out a Middle Eastern story void of pro-American content. Methinks pendulums swing too far and pray we can get somewhere near a more central political framework within which reporters are free to consider both sides of any story in their proper proportions. In all fairness, I shouldn't just pick on right-leaning media. Any outlet that doesn't try to get the facts by carefully weighing data derived from chasing all angles is equally guilty. There's enough media in Canada that could see no wrong in our last two Liberal governments. Miguel Sanchez Canada