Vancouver is a bizarre media market - very closed...

The truth is Victoria is one vast tourist trap! Grotty ay best, Victoria has succumbed from being truly interesting, to jusy another overbuilt, badly panned city.

Writing the truth about certaibly is not a firing offence and if the tourist industry realy want to change things, then compete!

In fact BC is one vast tourist trap, best to be avoided.

This capitalist keyboard of mine sucks!

So what's the story behind this story? If McKenzie sucked up to the advertisers, then had his decision trumped by Skulsky, how long will McKenzie be in charge? Or will he merely be told to "never do that again" (sound of slap on wrist) and allowed to continue in the chair? And how did someone in McKenzie's position make such a fundamental error? It's not just a simple oversight here, cancelling a contract of a jurnalist because of an advertiser complaint is a move that is indicative of an individual's mind set and principles. I can't think that Bob McKenzie would have a whole lot of juice in the newsroom after this. Skulsky's cred, however, should soar.

You are one piece of work, Grumpy....

That said, Victoria (and Vancouver for that matter) hid behind a low dollar for years. I am stunned at the cost of attractions in both places. For example, admission to the Vancouver Aquarium is $17.50. For a family of four, that is $68.00, plus parking. Absurd!

The Times Colonist is even worse than the Sun and Province. Note how thin their classified ads are now? Craigslist is thumping them. Do like me and refuse to buy any of them. They, in a word, stink and have no investigative journalism of any kind.

I have stopped reading fish-wrap and bird cage liners long ago.

This writer would do wonders for the world of future information by starting her own weblog & getting advertisers with a vision to pay her for it.

Hear! Hear!

And every time I get phone solicitations to subscribe, I inform them that I "might" accept delivery if offered for free and that I'd consider subscribing if the publishers changed.

Until then, it's The Tyee, The Guardian, Der Spiegel and various blogs for me.

" Do like me and refuse to buy any of them."

Right on, workingman! When I get phone solicitations, I ask them why I should be expected to pay for their propaganda. That shuts them up.

There was a relevant article in the Globe yesterday about the “leadership deficit” in the workplace. It showed that workers’ #1 complaint isn’t pay or benefits or working conditions. It was the mediocre standard of leadership. “Most people don’t quit their jobs, they quit their boss.” Unless, of course, they get fired first, by the ubiquitous Bob McKenzie’s of the world.

In a rare exception to the general rule of vacant leadership, Skulsky did the right thing. Whether he remains good to his word that TC journalists “are free to cover any organization or subject with full support of the editor and publisher” remains to be seen.

Will his edict extend to all of CanWest?

Q1: Why is there even a debate with the zombies in the advertising world, especially in our non-competitive media environment? Where else would they go? Gouge them till it hurts AND write about their poor level of service, if it exists.

Q2: The PR zombies say Victoria’s tourism industry is hurting. A reporter barely touches upon a possible cause (too pricey). This is not a chicken-egg dilemma. We know what came first. Was it really so hard for the TC and their advertising rulers to see that Smith was possibly offering a solution?

Good work Tyee and Sean Holman at the Public Eye.

I don't mid paying for value but here in BC, you pay for third rate C***. I have travelled to Europe many times and atleast you get valur of money, here just sleazy tourist trap stuff.

Grumpy:

Just refuse to participate in the tourist trap crap. Avoid the miniature worlds, Empress teas of this world.

Instead, visit the Provincial Museum (too bad we need to pay for it now); that'll keep you busy for at least a day. Just like in North Vancouver, I'm always happy to steer tourists away from the Capilano suspension bridge to the one in Lynn Canyon.

Tourists need to ask themselves what they want from their visits. Do they really want to visit a wax museum? Is that what Victoria really represents to them?!

Well said, Grup. Lynn Canyon is a regular destination for my family and when we are in Victoria on the holiday weekend, we will be sure to hit the museam.

Grumpy, life is what you choose or don't choose to make it.

What has happened in BC is that the tourism business has morphed into a numbers game. A cruise ship full of people are more important than happy families. Money is spent on PR, not on product. The result, overpriced trash, of little or no value.

Quite right about Lynn Canyon, but do tourists understand?

Look at the interior, vast potential, squandered on tourist traps and alike. God knows the government spends a lot of money, but where?

All out lakes used to have paddle steamers, why not now? In the UK and now Europe, preserved railways are very big! Not so here, yet our scenery is head of tails than most.

One doesn't mind paying big bucks, if one feels that is the correct price. But we sticl with expensive non events. High Tea at the Empress was/is a fiction. Certainly tea was seved in past days, as in every other hotel in the province before WW2!

It is good to write about our dwindly tourists and why. If you have the right product, you don't have to worry, the tourist comes to you!

-so said the fired writer, Smith.
Amusing, considering she works for CanWest, the Canadian media giant most associated with heavy handed treatment of journalists and editors who ever offend the owners/management by voicing verboten opinions or facts!

She's lucky it IS only flowers and tea this time, as those don't happen to be on the Aspers' "A List" of subjects that must be propagandized - or else. If she'd crossed CanWest on their "acceptable positions" on Israel or on Mr. Harper (their new champion - it used to be Chretien), it would have been different - no reinstatement. The worst case (of many) was the firing of a popular Ottawa Citizen editor for daring to call for the resignation of then PM Chretien in an editorial! How right wingers like the Aspers could be rabid Chretien supporters might suggest just how "liberal" old Jean really wasn't.

We hear less about such Canwest persecutions of writers lately, because by now they've successful purged or chilled into submission those who wouldn't toe the line. I too say boycott these media fascists into bankruptcy!
Happy to report:Canwest papers do keep bleeding cash. Bleed away!

... Tourism is down in Victoria and across Canada for one major and simple reason: The Loony keeps rising and is now worth close to 90 cents U.S. (it was in the mid 60 cents area just a few years back). Canada's just not cheap for foreign tourists anymore! That $54CAD high tea would have cost American tourists around $35US during parts of '03, although that still sounds bloody expensive to me!

"We just didn't know about it," Kelly said, explaining why the corporation waited three weeks to intervene. "It was a local issue -- on blogs. "
Proof that Canwest media doesn't work. If firing a journalist, putting fear into others isn't news what is?
Why wouldn't one of the other journalists at the TC at least have leaked this to another paper?
Journalism has become a pillar of society: an immobile monolith that supports law, government and the status quo.
Journalism which is alive (engaging, challenging, worthy of the occasional libel suit)is no pillar. It's a cleansing, sometimes destructive force that speaks to power, calls the status quo into question and is willing to confront those in public life.
None of you need to hear this of course, you are here. But you should now that my wife and I started a print newspaper in Valemount, BC (find us online) in a rented shack with a thrown out computer.
Seize the press! I did. And I am cleaning up the scuzzy, oppressive, shit stained halls of power one factual story after another.
For all you journalists out there, grow a goddamn spine, mortgage the house, use your computer for good, not evil.
Help this Beers character give the Sun, and the Province a run for their money. In print!

Holman proves himself again as the star to watch among the sorry lot that passes for our press corps today. Even after he revealed the scoop on Ms. Smith's ouster, with all it implied about their own journalistic integrity, only two of her colleages had the guts to protest.

I was a rookie Globe reporter way back in Geffrey Stevens' day and the contrast couldn't be more startling. We were encouraged to do investigative work and got all the time, scope and resources we needed to unearth the difficult stories that no one even bothers with any more. Offended advertisers and cabinet ministers rang up all the time, pleading with the editors to spike a damning story. When that failed they'd fire off phony libel actions to threaten us into submission. It never worked -- being served was almost a badge of honour for some, cocky in the knowledge that our own lawyers had already proofed the story thoroughly before going to press, and that the paper would take care of it.

The newsroom back then was a gallery of weird & wonderful characters. It was a tremendously exciting place for a young, earnest rookie and it all made for a tremendous, exciting paper. (OK, maybe a bit dry & long-winded at times. But having such a venerable, powerful daily that was willing to stand up and "speak truth to power" and tell it like it is was really something.)

With the dreary, formulaic, utterly spineless pap that passes for most of the daily news these days, it's a wonder anyone bothers to read the papers anymore. And with dwindling readerships, they've got to sell ever more of their souls to keep the advertisers in bed. That's the sad, vicious spiral that's trapped our corporate media conglomerates and it will eventually drag them under if they don't start competing again.

The irony of course is that if you visit the Tourism Victoria website, the tourism industry has had increasing revenues every year and right up until June when the TC ran editorial on how great a year it was. It wasn't until the article by Vivian that the industry was "struggling".

What I find most outlandish is the attitude of Ms. Partridge [EDITED, UNVERIFIED ASSERTION] I hope that the first order of business that Butchart undertook in damage control was to fire her sorry butt. Some PR director she is.

I have been to the BC Experience and of course Butchart Gardens and the comments made by Vivian were dead on.

I would expect to see a resignation at the TC shortly. Although Bob did the right thing in re-instating Vivian, he has now lost all of his credibility. If he has any sense of self dignity he will do the right thing.

Re: "Why wouldn't one of the other journalists at the TC at least have leaked this to another paper? "

Hey man, how do you think the online publications got most of their info? From journalists at the TC, that's who. As for other papers, do you think the Sun and/or the Province are going to report on this, as they are CanWest papers also?

As for the old coot who was a rookie reporter on the Globe back when journalism was so glorious, that's just the usual back-porch rambling that each older generation does.

Dear someguy,
Great, someone leaked the report to the venerable publiceye! Ohmygod! The PUBLICEYE has got a hold of it! It's read in everyflipping household in every town, everyone will know!
Leaking it to the public eye is more like a coverup then a leak! Then to hear it discussed at the Canadian Association of Journalists listserv and then at the Canadian Journalists Blog, it should have been in print in every newspaper across the country big and small.
This matters people.
Then to hear that Canwest did the right thing! What planet are you people on? Where's the dignity? the integrity? The self respect?
If this doesn't matter to Canadian journalists, what does? Baby deer caught in a fence by the Super-A foods.

Since when does basic journalistic integrity get an award?
We live in a free count

continued..
We live in a free country.
Let's remember that Vivian Smith wasn't fired not executed.
Maybe the problem with journalism isn't corporate ownership. Maybe the problem is journalists.
I just can't explain why more major market journalists didn't pick up on that story.
Why doesn't a canwest employee pitch this story to an editorial board meeting today, I'd love to hear what happens.
Andru McCracken
OHMYGOD! I'm posting with my real name!

"We live in a free country."

Should be re-written as "Ww OUGHT to live in a free country."

anarcho prove to me that you do not live in a free country.
It's frightening, but most of us do.
I own, run, and deliver a weekly newspaper. At start up back in 2002, a friend asked me, 'is there some sort of board you have to apply to to do this?'
There is not.
It's anarchy.
Anyone who can cobble together the advertisers (as a rule these guys aren't hard to fool) and subscribers (this takes some work) can run a newspaper.
You and I are free to sew the seeds of chaos or order as we see fit. Can we be more free?
I don't need to explain how powerful a tool a newspaper is.
Anarcho, this is a free country.
Depending on your perspective, it's a problem, because it requires individuals to stand up for the common good.
Canada is not in chains, canada is too goddamn comfortable.
We OUGHT to live in a world where 'someguy' leaks his news to a large market newspaper and where Sean Holman's public eye is the first of many publications to highlight the TC's treachery.
I'm not giving canwest a free pass, but surely to god a group of freethinking freedom loving journalists can sneak a story about the TC in somehow.

Grumpy:

For me, it all sort of started with the development of Whistler. The real estate high-rollers got their Aspen-like Mecca, but what about the families. Where can you find a Provincial campground near Whistler (at least one of a size large enough to accommodate the numbers of families who might enjoy hiking, biking, kayaking and swimming in the Whistler area)? Whistler is an exemplar of the thinking in this province.

One group -- German tourists -- seems to "get it". They don't give a fig about Whistler, tea at the Empress, or wax museums. They've figured out that our potential lies on our wilderness. They'll happily take Bella Coola over Miniature World, or Long Beach over cruise ships. Where do we get the impression that tourists want the kind of crap they can get anywhere else in the world?

In looking at why the Smith/TC story wasn't picked up by mainstream media, there's no one answer. Or as my astute colleague Charles Campbell phrases it: Never assume a conspiracy when incompetence could explain it.

It's quite possible some outlets just missed it. It's summer. If you're working, you're slammed. Otherwise, you're out of town.

In some cases, it could be human frailty. I know of at least one reporter who has a personal hate-on for Holman because the young muckraker is better read -- and more celebrated among other reporters -- than the tired, old hack. Of course, said hack would never admit to jealousy, but that's how several of us see it.

Some reporters just hate writing about other reporters, plain and simple, in the same way some doctors hate having other doctors as patients.

Some media have a policy of not writing about other media on the belief that those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

Incidentally, CanWest isn't the source of all evil in Canadian journalism. There's plenty of bad behaviour to go around, often at the outlets that are the most self-righteous and inclined to take swipes at CanWest.

You've hit on an important point Shannon. Journalists don't like writing about the media as a rule, especially their own, besides, everyone it on vacation.
Covering media mergers acquisitions, misdeeds is becoming increasingly important... not just to journalists, to everyone.
So should we leave it there? Should we leave it in Sean Holman's capable hands? or is there something we should do about this as the media, increasingly, becomes the news?
An example:
I'll tell you that no one in my community knew who David Black was before we did a story on him. Nothing has ever been done by his own papers, by his own admission.
I dubbed him the invisible giant, because he wields a tremendous amount of power (whether or not he chooses to use it) and nobody knows who he is.
I won't make the argument how troubling this could become.
There's no need to get all 1984 about this thing, as Shannon suggests, but we should be discussing it.
My suggestion is that journalists collectively draw a clear line about advertiser involvement in editorial copy, and other influence peddling. When the line is crossed, it becomes a story that all newspapers are encouraged to pick up on. This protocol could take a little bit of the discomfort out of doing stories about the competition, or the sister paper.

It is no longer critical that mainstream news media report on mainstream news media, but just the same, I am assembling a short press release to apprise media around the world of the "Vivian Smith" story, especially "The Economist" in the UK.

If you really think this is an important issue, you should all do the same. At least make sure the key news companies in Canada know your views. If you do, make sure you put your real name and phone number on your message.

Also, if you think media manipulation is a problem regarding tourism, think of the more critical implications it is also already having regarding the Olympics?

Local news media "ALL" stand to make a fortune off 2010. Most will do it in an ethical manner, but some will rob the community blind. Don't think for a moment though that any of them will undermine their revenue stream. If you do, you deserve to pay more for your home, plus higher taxes, cost of living, and doing business. Think about this the next time you are inconvenienced by Olympic construction. Olympic frenzy artificially inflates property values, and local news media create the frenzy.

Compare Vivian's story with the recent report on Vancouver in "The Economist" (July 8-14, 2006 issue) and you will have a better idea of where Vancouver fits into the global picture and how the world really views us. It is no longer cool to be westcoast insular. Cool today means having a realistic worldview of oneself.

These recent news events could not have come at a better time because they fully support my position regarding "some" of our local mainstream media news hacks.

BTW, most of the time journalists are doing their jobs in an ethical manner. I am not defending them though because they should have more backbone with their employers, but quite often they are caught in the middle. It is editors and publishers who manage their space. Don't necessarily shoot the messenger, but wing them if you must. When you do the weak and wounded will run for cover. It will send a strong message to their bosses.

Vivian Smith is a hero. Praise her. It takes tremendous courage to stand up for what you know is right.

Maurice Cardinal
Editor - OlyBLOG.com
Author - LeverageOlympicMomentum.com

Someguy: "As for the old coot who was a rookie reporter on the Globe back when journalism was so glorious, that's just the usual back-porch rambling that each older generation does."

Heh, heh, us "old coots" at least understood what "journalism" was about. And no, dear twit, it involves a little more than kissing butt while leaking stories to online media because you're too timid to stand up and tell the story yourself.

But don't take it from an old timer like me -- go ask young Holman to explain it to you.

Dear Name -

If you're such a brave, stand-up journalist, how about starting by identifying yourself. What's your name, "Name."

You may have put in the years (although I suspect you weren't a journalist for long) but you're still naive. What do you think would happen to a journalist at the T-C who stood up to tell the story himself (or herself).

And there's a big difference between a freelance who "quits" (as commendable as that action was) and a full-time journalist who resigns over an ethical issue. Say you resign from the Times Colonist. That means you must find a job in another city. And not a job with another Canwest paper, of course.

Surely such an experienced journalist such as yourself realizes these issues are complex, not black and white.

As for your own cutting edge, investiative journalism experiences with the Globe, it sounds like the paper was backing on that. Imagine if it wasn't. Aren't you comparing apples and oranges - comparing with the Vivian Smith situation?

Is everything in mainstream media today "dreary, formulaic, utterly spineless pap". I think not. Try to think about complex issues in a complex manner, my friend. Writing entire groups of people off is just knee-jerk behavior... the sort of behavior that old coots sitting on their back porches ruminating about the "good old days" like to indulge in.

Someguy,
With limited outlets, reporters would seem to be over the barrel. What is the fix?
There is a sinister side to that fat paycheque and the benefits provided by the Black Press and CanWest.
And there is a solution. Mortgage your home, sell your children, kick out your spouse and start a newspaper. While you won't be paid, while the mayor will hate you and your MLA will wince at your pointed questions, you can rip and shred on issues like this.
You've already got a computer and layout software: Talk to David Black about printing. (He'll print for you, because he knows what it's like to be shut out of the printing presses from the Hawaiian days).
Smash corporatism, sieze the press!
Andru McCracken
PS: Apart from the robsonvalleytimes.com, the fitzhugh.ca recently started in Jasper, AB, the Enderby echo is also not that old.

In the last couple of days I've corresponded with the owner of http://www.geoqwestexcursions.com/ , a backcountry 4x4 tour outfit. I'd asked him if his Yalakom tour itinerary (NW of Lillooet) took in the immense and stunning Bridge River Canyon, which rivals Yosemite in majesty, and is equivalent to the Grand Canyon of the Colorado in depth (and is entirely unmarketed and unseen in Canadian tourism literature, despite being on a main road). Here's his reply:

In other words, overhead for innovative tourism ventures kills 'em right out; I had this idea years ago in my efforts to "go straight" in Whistler, but knew that between insurance, usage permits etc it wasn't viable; as his experience has shown.

One upshot of this situation for small tourism start-ups is that tourism growth is prejudiced to the big bucks boys (and girls), and even with big bucks there's all kinds of regulatory and rivalrous issues that come into play; both Powder Mountain and Cayoosh ski resorts were kiboshed partly by negative influence from the WRA and the established mountains, for instance, which didn't want the competition ("the proposed development is too much above tree-line", they'd state, even though obviously a lot of Whistler-Blackcomb's profitability has to do with what's above tree-line...). Ditto with the lobbying from the Bridge River Country to get the Hurley Main paved during the debate after the M Creek disaster to open a "back door" for Whistler; the Duffey Lake was chosen, ostensibly because it was a shorter drive (slightly, time-wise, considerably, length-wise) but also because it's common knowledge that pavement into Gold Bridge, Bralorne, the Gun Lakes and Tyax would open that country up to tourism development; and money that would be focussed on being spent at Whistler might get spent up there instead; especially when it's pissing rain in Whistler, as it so often is....

But it's not just that particular axe I'm grinding here. The message in Steve's letter is a common one from small tourism operators; it takes big bucks and big marketing to survive. And this province's tourism marketing is focussed on the tourism megaprojects and "destinations"; Whistler, Victoria, Vancouver primarily, with Sun Peaks and Tofino and certain other locations lapping at the trough. The megaproject mentality that created power projects and lumber and pulp mills willy-nilly is also built into the government's understanding of tourism; and "branding" us as some sort of sophisticated, glittering urban centre of civilization. Steve's company is also too much the moose-and-muskeg vision of Canada that the marketing branders are trying to undefine us as (the fiasco at Turin notwithstanding...what was VANOC thinking anyway? - that show was reason enough to fire the whole VANOC board, IMO). He observed in a previous letter that a lot of the old ghost towns were demolished in the 1960s as "eyesores", in other words as part of a deliberatem modernization of the province, which didn't want to be seen as a frontier backwater (or to have people remember that boom economies inevitably become busts)....

Lack of vision, concentration of resources on certain resorts/itineraries/companies, and no support for small tourism operators like Steve. That's what's wrong. Yet a trip through Idaho, Colorado, California, Oregon etc show all kinds of small-scale community-level tourism successes. Megaprojects like Whistler and the impending Jumbo are the wrong route; as are expensive Trade and Convention Centres. But between fees, regulations and lack of marketing, or understanding what there is to be marketed, much of what people might really appreciate seeing/discovering in BC is completely unknown.

Parting shot: the commercial britishcolumbia.com's page on Tulameen, which I found (as well as Geoqwest) while researching that nice little recreation community for a Wikipedia article, seems to have been written by someone with a marketing degree but no actual education: it states, baldly, tha Tulameen is in the Okanagan. Yeah, uh-huh, and Salmon Arm is in the Cariboo, and Nanaimo is in the Fraser Valley. So there's another problem for you; complete twits writing tourism-related marketing/websites, and probably citing their mistakes from badly-written/researched government brochures to boot....

"someguy", I do hope you're writing for the entertainment section!

"...these issues are complex, not black and white....Try to think about complex issues in a complex manner, my friend."

Good advice, tender hack, which you might consider yourself. You and your colleagues had a whole range of options between the abject public silence and resignation that you suggest were your only choices. And as others noted, there's hardly anything complex about your choice of sticking with the fat paycheque, going with the flow and sitting here desperately trying to justify it instead of standing up and/or, if need be, following the other principled journalists who've walked, to be quickly replaced by ever more...shall we say, amenable types. That's exactly what CanWest & BellGlobeMedia & all the rest have counted on to emasculate their newsrooms--it's hardly Machiavellian.

And...
"Writing entire groups of people off is just knee-jerk behavior... the sort of behavior that old coots sitting on their back porches ruminating about the "good old days" like to indulge in."

Did you actually bash that one out without feeling the slightest twinge of irony or self-consciousness? Hmmm, you mean knee-jerk behaviour like writing off a commentator with sweeping presumptions about "old coots" and ad hominem attacks to avoid facing a tough question?

I didn't see Smith's original story, but good for her for telling people about tourism alternatives in Victoria.

I worked at Butchart Gardens for two summers, and consider it a tourist trap. Whenever people ask me if they should visit it, I say that IF they are passionate about gardening and flowers, they will enjoy it. If not (and few kids are passionate about gardening and flowers), then it's not worth it given the cost. At the restaurant where I worked, it was almost $2 for about an 8-oz glass of soft drink, and no free or even discounted refills--try explaining that to customers, especially Americans! And then the former owner (who has sinced passed away) dictated that the fish and chips could not be called that, because (I guess) they were too low-class; instead, we were required to refer to them as "battered cod and fried potatoes". Puh-lease...

Name (what is your name, anyway?):

You're really out of your depth, pal. When's the last time you were in a newsroom, anyway? 1965? Fill us in a little on your background - you seem to be avoiding that.

Reading between the lines of your vitriole, I think you're jealous of journalists trying to earn a living,( i.e. your comment about big fat pay-cheques.) By the way, what do you think we're earning, anyway, Mr. 1965? You might be surprised.

I do think a byline strike on the part of T-C reporters would have been a good move. It's unfortunate that didn't happen.

What's with the anger, Name? Couldn't cut it as a journalist?

I don't mind constructive or intelligent comments, but your reporter-bashing just seems narrow minded and WAY out of touch with reality.

Butchart Gardens,
they have a sign on the corner of Buenivito and West Saanich Rd.
It's been there for about 35 years.
Perhaps you have seen it? Surrounded by flowers and looking absolutely stunning, it is a major pain in the ass for the Butchart group.
It's deteriorating. They can't replace it. The municipalities sign laws wouldn't accept this present sign.
So there's nothing they can do about it.
They also have had trouble from Central Saanich about the placement of bus stops within their private property.
The amount of taxes, and the payroll that Butchart pays, is astronomical. Millions.

Voice of Bc discussed this issue last evening. The question as asked. So why did the mainstream press not comment? Palmer sort of had an answer. the best shot was from Normal Ruff, ex Political science Professor at UVIC. He said he had read the article and noticed the places that had been reported as good places to go for free where the same ones his relatives visiting from the UK were taken to a few weeks ago.
The tourist head honchos here in the "little bit of old England", home of a sort of faded wax museaum, a haunted house, some fish in something called Undersea garden, Bucharts, the list goes on. As a local of about twenty year time, I went to Busharts a couple of times. Their Christmas dinner was very good, and the other time to have lunch but didn't stay as now if you are just dropping in for a snack, you pay the entry fee. Each year the tourist guys tell us about how the tourist trade is way down, give us more money to advertise. Each fall the story changes. Best year so far in tourist trade. The latest bit of a scam is a big map of BC in the old Chrystal gardens, origionally a swimming pool, then a collection of rare birds and stuff who paid for the renovations to the map deal. You guessed it. Some locals used to wear tshirts that said. leave me alone, I live here.

Ouch! "...haven't been in a newsroom since 1965?...out of my depth...narrow minded and way out of touch with reality...couldn't cut it as a journalist..."

That's some imagination you've got there, "someguy", but you're welcome to fill in the blanks as you need, to allay your obvious discomfort with this topic.

The issue here is not me or you, however. My identity is no more relevant than yours in this context. We're all just folks exchanging personal opinions on the state of the media (or the state of tourism) in an open web forum. (And if you want to discuss the legitimacy of anonymous handles in online chat threads, you're on the wrong thread).

You clearly have no interest in confronting the issues I raised--i.e. the role of journalists' collusion and self-censorship in transforming the daily news into the daily smoothie--since you've tried to divert the discussion to an ad hominem slugfest at least three times now. So bye bye, and good luck.

DPL, I didn't see VOBC. What was Palmer's (or Ruff's) answer to the question of why the mainstream media didn't comment, by the way?

If anyone actually believes Dennis Skulsky when he says readers "deserve impartial reporting of the news", I have some waterfront property in New Orleans they might be interested inbuying. However, if he REALLY means it, I will await some impartial reporting on such issues, e.g.,as Public Private Partnerships and the Basi/ Virk story. For that matter, ANY news on the Basi/ Virk issue would be nice. As for Grub's comment about German tourists having figured out that our tourist potential "lies in our wilderness", they may be able to stay at a luxury hotel if the provincial government has their way. Oh Joy.

Re: "You clearly have no interest in confronting the issues I raised--i.e. the role of journalists' collusion and self-censorship in transforming the daily news into the daily smoothie-"

So what's your question? State it clearly. Surely, as an ex-journalist you must be capable of that.

working man sez

and I'm pleased to say that, for once at least, I completely agree with him.

Just one step more to take, when they phone and offer 12 weeks free - which I've had dangled several times in the last couple of years - say 'no' to that too.

commentor: Name posted: 2 Days AgoDPL, I didn't see VOBC. What was Palmer's (or Ruff's) answer to the question of why the mainstream media .

Sorry about the delay. Ruff basically siad, this was a low point in the T/C's history. he also mentioned we are in a much smaller pod that we thought we were. he did mention his visiting relatives had been to the same freebies she had mentioned in her story.
Spector said the story was heard because of Blogs like Holeman. Big time media can no longer supress the news . he suggested we should all go read the stuff from Holmans blog on the subject.( or words to that effect) Palmer said a couple of mainsteam papers were goign to comment but couldn't find anyone at the t/C available. He then mentioned that journaists weren't that easy on politicians. Palmer finished by reminding everyone that the reporter teaches Journalist at Royal Roasd university and he would love to hear her first lecture in the fall session. The program repeats a couple of times, one was today. I an not quoting any of the guys, just sort of telling you the direction they were going. Hopefully the Victoria Tourist Associations won't come to hang me.

What do you expect from the folks at Canwest? Their continued promotion of any kook that criticizes the science behind global warming is proof that they'll stoop to whatever level is necessary to keep their advertisers in the car and development industries happy. Journalism is anathema to Canwest.

I think Canwest is in trouble. In the past I've gotten regular telemarketing calls to try and get me to subscribe to the TC for almost nothing. Last week, Friday I think, I got a call from a fellow asking whether or not I was interested in subscribing to the National Post (at a huge discount of course) but, when I said I wasn't he went on to say he'd been tasked with asking why not. He took down my responses, or at least he seemed to be doing so.

It's not the first time I've been offered the Nat Post for next to nothing - but certainly the first time there was any interest in my reasons for not subscribing.

I suspect the true circulation numbers (those who pay full-tick and aren't part of some promo) must be pathetic.

Global TV is a joke and the TC is full of cross-promoting ads and copyright stuff from Hollywood pushing readers to watch.
Hopeless.