Northern Insights / Perceptivity

Ignore this if you don't believe in science

2012-01-27T23:11:00.000-08:00

From Forbes, by Dr. Peter H. Gleick, co-founder and President of the Pacific Institute in Oakland, California. He is an internationally recognized climate and water expert with M.S. and Ph.D. from the Energy and Resources Group of the University of California, Berkeley. He is the recipient of numerous awards for his work, among them the prestigious MacArthur “genius” Fellowship in 2003. He was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2006.

"The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board has long been understood to be not only antagonistic to the facts of climate science, but hostile. But in a remarkable example of their unabashed bias, on Friday they published an opinion piece that not only repeats many of the flawed and misleading arguments about climate science, but purports to be of special significance because it was signed by 16 “scientists.

"Serious doubt has been cast on the actual expertise on climate science of the signers and on the accuracy of the content, here and elsewhere, and the strawman arguments and technical flaws of their opinion piece are evident to anyone actually versed in the scientific debate. For example, their op-ed has fundamental errors about recent actual temperatures, they use false/strawman arguments that climate scientists are saying climate change “will destroy civilization,” they launch ad hominem attack on particular climate scientists using out-of-context quotes, and so on. Formal responses are in the works, and will be available from a variety of groups in the next day or so. [Just as an example, as pointed out here previously, and at the Union of Concerned Scientists: the authors claim there has been a “lack of warming” for 10 years. The reality? 2011 was the 35th year in a row in which global temperatures were above the historical average and 2010 and 2005 were the warmest years on record.]

"But the most amazing and telling evidence of the bias of the Wall Street Journal in this field is the fact that 255 members of the United States National Academy of Sciences wrote a comparable (but scientifically accurate) essay on the realities of climate change and on the need for improved and serious public debate around the issue, offered it to the Wall Street Journal, and were turned down. The National Academy of Sciences is the nation’s pre-eminent independent scientific organizations. Its members are among the most respected in the world in their fields. Yet the Journal wouldn’t publish this letter, from more than 15 times as many top scientists. Instead they chose to publish an error-filled and misleading piece on climate because some so-called experts aligned with their bias signed it. This may be good politics for them, but it is bad science and it is bad for the nation.

"Science magazine – perhaps the nation’s most important journal on scientific issues – published the letter from the NAS members after the Journal turned it down.

"Do you have an open mind? Read both, side by side. And understand that every national academy of sciences on the planet agrees with the reality and seriousness of human caused climate change.

The letter signed by 255 National Academy of Sciences members, from Science magazine.

The letter signed by 16 “scientists” in the Wall Street Journal.

The press and the pipeline

2012-01-27T11:01:00.000-08:00

Have you noticed a lack of fairness and balance in reporting on Northern Gateway by corporate media? It is not accidental. A similar project in the USA has been examined in detail.

Media Matters' environmental team analyzed news coverage of the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline between August 1 and December 31, 2011, and compiled some troubling findings about the media's mishandling of this issue.

For starters, the media disproportionately slanted the debate in favor of those advocating for this pipeline, as this graph illustrates:

Read the full report here.

Eminent veterans of journalism on CBC dilemma

2012-01-26T22:34:00.000-08:00

With the CBC's stubborn refusal to deal with or disclose the conflict of interest faced by its BC Legislative Bureau Chief, Alex Tsakumis and I took the issue to our readers. We did the task that should have been handled long before by Stephen Smart's press gallery colleagues or, failing that, by the rest of the corporate media.

Our reporting led to formal complaints filed with the CBC Ombudsman. Kirk LaPointe proceeded with Merv Adey's well argued presentation, one that dealt fairly with principles and avoided arguments based on tastes or personalities. This was a smart choice since citizen Adey has no axe to grind, no publication to promote or scores to settle.

The CBC Ombudsman, a man with irrefutable qualifications and long media experience predictably agreed that Stephen Smart's situation was untenable. The public broadcaster's local management refused to admit mistake and, defying the Ombudsman, they stood on crumbling ground. Still do. What followed has been a scandalous display of obtuse reasoning and commentary from Good, Leslie, Palmer, Baldrey, Mickleburgh and other Steven Smart colleagues. From the rest, media lights like Gary Mason, Justine Hunter, Michael Smyth, Les Leyne and Rob Shaw, there has been only the silence of cowards.

This week, two of British Columbia's most eminent veterans of journalism, Mike Cleaver and Harvey Oberfeld, weighed in on the issue. Read Harvey's The CBC’s Dumb Saga of Mr. Smart. Mike Cleaver provides the first reader comment.

Another illustrious media expert commented on the CBC situation this week. Recipient of the Bruce Hutchison Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007, Jim Harrison speaks with unusual expertise. This is from the Jack Webster Foundation:

"An extraordinary BC broadcaster is the 2007 recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation's Bruce Hutchison Lifetime Achievement Award.

"Jim Harrison has defined news radio in Kamloops for more than three decades, where he has been CHNL's News Director since 1975. And his reporting has in turn helped to define Kamloops itself to people all across Canada.

"...George Garrett, retired CKNW reporter and himself a Bruce Hutchison recipient, says Harrison's great strength is the "credibility he's earned with every newsmaker he's covered, from politicians to labour leaders and community activists. He earns people's trust, and that's why he's got their home phone numbers."

Keep in mind Jim Harrison's qualifications and listen to this:

You can hear the full editorial and others at Radio NL.

Soon, Stephen Smart will be shifted to other duties because the CBC cannot survive by offending fundamental rules of news presentation. Hundreds of journalists are tainted by this regional anomaly; it cannot continue. However, British Columbians will be left with this sad group of practitioners, especially the Corus/Global/Shaw and Postmedia wretches, who are so focused on serving their pals, they care little about the interests of news consumers.

ADDENDUM:
While searching the web, looking for comments by hallowed members of the Victoria Press Gallery about the CBC conflict, I came across an item from June, 2011: The Media Are The Messengers. I must admit, since I read everything by blogger RossK, he must have planted the seed in my mind those many months ago. I'm not sure exactly when AGT got on the subject but I'm going to cede a greater share of credit to The Gazetteer for exposing the broadcaster's folly.

Economic development whatever the cost!

2012-01-26T16:06:00.000-08:00

For me, whatever might be worthwhile in Stephen Harper's speech is degraded by his choice of location for delivering it. The Prime Minister of Canada flew to Switzerland to join the world's rich and powerful to articulate his vision for our country, a vision that, instead of being an end-of-day addendum to a disinterested audience — which it was — should have been boldly stated and debated in the Canadian Parliament.

In Davos, Harper said to a lecture hall emptying for the dinner break,

"Our number-one priority as a government is prosperity."

Mind you, the statement does not surprise. It fits with the Conservative strategy of deeming any who hesitate to support unfettered industrial and commercial expansion to be enemies of Canada. The Harper Government regularly displays contempt for Parliament and contempt for the people of this country.

This week, Minister of Natural Resources Joe Oliver jetted into town to speak with prosperous plutocrats at Vancouver's Terminal City Club. His message was familiar: Canada's government has a responsibility to make sure that business can take advantage of Alberta's tar sands and any who gets in the way of Enbridge are "radicals" to be ignored.

Despite having loaded the National Energy Board with industry insiders, Oliver worries the results of their regulatory hearings are "unpredictable." Accordingly, he plans to streamline the process so that approvals are granted without delay. The Harper Government wants rubber stamp providers not regulatory agencies.

That's the same philosophy that served Oliver so well when he was CEO of the Investment Dealers Association of Canada.

"Protect small investors from chicanery of fraudulent predators? Hell no, that would slow market activities in unpredictable ways.'

A couple of weeks ago, BC Finance Minister Kevin Falcon gave a speech that reviewed the state of the 2011 provincial economy and the outlook for 2012. Where did he give that speech? Again, to a gathering of plutocrats at the Board of Trade.

I'm reminded of the first major political speech I ever attended. Prime Minister Lester Pearson spoke to thousands of students at U.B.C.'s War Memorial Gym. He took applause along with derisive hoots and hollers and gave lowly frosh like me a sense of respect and attachment to the leader of Canada's government. Quite a change today when government ministers fly on private jets to luxurious enclaves where a chance encounter with a citizen is impossible.

Links regarding oily pipeline politics

2012-01-25T21:41:00.000-08:00

One of our readers supplied links to articles published by DesmogBlog and I moved the links into this separate item. These articles complement and expand on the message I intended in Regulators throwing loaded dice.

DeSmogBlog covers the Northern Gateway pipeline proposal and how NEB hearings are designed to block comprehensive examination of this massive project and avoid review of Canadian energy policy in general. Here is an example of what you'll find if you click on through:

"According to Barry Robinson, the EcoJustice lawyer representing the three environmental groups [Raincoast Conservation Foundation, the Living Oceans Society and Forest Ethics], the hearing is strategically biased. "We generally see this as an unbalanced approach," he told DeSmogBlog, "to consider the economic benefits but not the environmental impacts."

"And if you're going to include the one you should, as a matter principle, be open to including the other. "Since Enbridge is relying on the economic benefits of the oil sands and its one of the reasons to approve this then you must equally consider the environmental impacts of the oil sands," he continued."

and:

"If the pipeline giant Enbridge Inc. is content to cower behind a 20-something blog manager rather than acknowledge its role in the recent attack on the patriotism of Canadian environmentalists, what hope have we that the company would ever stand accountable for the accidents that will occur – inevitably – if Northern Gateway ever gets built?"

Carol Linnitt, January 25, 2012:

Built to Fail: National Energy Board Muzzles Environmental Scientists In Enbridge Northern Gateway Hearing

Emma Pullman, January 20, 2012

Friends with Benefits: The Harper Government, EthicalOil.org and Sun Media Connection

Jim Hoggan, January 18, 2012

Unaccountable Oil: Is Enbridge Already Polluting the Canadian (Political) Environment?

Emma Pullman, January 13, 2012

Cozy Ties: Astroturf 'Ethical Oil' and Conservative Alliance to Promote Tar Sands Expansion

Amazing

2012-01-25T20:10:00.000-08:00

Yosemite Time-Lapse Video, from Earthjustice.org

Yosemite HD from Project Yosemite on Vimeo.

"Everyone knows that Yosemite National Park is one of America’s most beautiful places. Half Dome, El Capitan, Yosemite Falls, and a host of other natural wonders make Yosemite an iconic symbol of the American West. And while many of us have hiked in Yosemite or camped in the picturesque valley, a new video reveals a deeper layer of beauty and awe.

"Videographers Sheldon Neill and Colin Delehanty have collaborated to create a stunning time-lapse, high-definition look at Yosemite. The video, titled Project Yosemite, captures sunrises and sunsets, stars swirling about the night sky, and trees trembling in high mountain winds."

Reconsidering Harper's vision for Canada

2012-01-25T14:27:00.000-08:00

THE CAGING OF AMERICA, Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, January 2012

"...In the past two decades, the money that states spend on prisons has risen at six times the rate of spending on higher education. Ours is, bottom to top, a “carceral state,” in the flat verdict of Conrad Black, the former conservative press lord and newly minted reformer, who right now finds himself imprisoned in Florida, thereby adding a new twist to an old joke: A conservative is a liberal who’s been mugged; a liberal is a conservative who’s been indicted; and a passionate prison reformer is a conservative who’s in one.

"...accused criminals get laboriously articulated protection against procedural errors and no protection at all against outrageous and obvious violations of simple justice...

"...The obsession with due process and the cult of brutal prisons, the argument goes, share an essential impersonality. The more professionalized and procedural a system is, the more insulated we become from its real effects on real people...

"...And, in a virtuous cycle, the decreased prevalence of crime fuels a decrease in the prevalence of crime... [Franklin E.] Zimring [a criminologist at Berkeley Law] said, in a recent interview, “Remember, nobody ever made a living mugging. There’s no minimum wage in violent crime.” In a sense, he argues, it’s recreational, part of a life style: “Crime is a routine behavior; it’s a thing people do when they get used to doing it.” And therein lies its essential fragility.

"Crime ends as a result of “cyclical forces operating on situational and contingent things rather than from finding deeply motivated essential linkages.” Conservatives don’t like this view because it shows that being tough doesn’t help; liberals don’t like it because apparently being nice doesn’t help, either. Curbing crime does not depend on reversing social pathologies or alleviating social grievances; it depends on erecting small, annoying barriers to entry...

"...One fact stands out. While the rest of the country, over the same twenty-year period, saw the growth in incarceration that led to our current astonishing numbers, New York, despite the Rockefeller drug laws, saw a marked decrease in its number of inmates. “New York City, in the midst of a dramatic reduction in crime, is locking up a much smaller number of people, and particularly of young people, than it was at the height of the crime wave,”

"Zimring observes. Whatever happened to make street crime fall, it had nothing to do with putting more men in prison. The logic is self-evident if we just transfer it to the realm of white-collar crime: we easily accept that there is no net sum of white-collar crime waiting to happen, no inscrutable generation of super-predators produced by Dewar’s-guzzling dads and scaly M.B.A. profs; if you stop an embezzlement scheme here on Third Avenue, another doesn’t naturally start in the next office building. White-collar crime happens through an intersection of pathology and opportunity; getting the S.E.C. busy ending the opportunity is a good way to limit the range of the pathology..."

In reading the New Yorker article, Canadians should substitute "poor black men" with "poor First Nations men."

Tories' crime bill off the mark: Vancouver researchers, Tara Carman, Vancouver Sun, October 24, 2011

"...Back in Canada, studies suggest that prisons are already overcrowded, the number of times guards are using force against prisoners are on the rise and inmates have limited access to correctional programs, the researchers pointed out, adding that an increased prison population will only exacerbate these conditions.

"Particularly vulnerable are first nations and the mentally ill, who are both over-represented in the prison system already. First nations make up four per cent of Canada's population, but 20 per cent of inmates. One study suggested that the proportion of Canadian inmates with mental illness is three times higher than in the general population. Mandatory minimum sentences will therefore disproportionately affect these groups, the researchers said..."

On CBC from outside the local milieu

2012-01-25T07:40:00.000-08:00

National Post, January 25, 2012

"... For everyone’s sake, the CBC should offer Mr. Smart a better assignment."

Sun buries reader critics

2012-01-25T00:35:00.000-08:00

Craig McInnes is a member of the Editorial Board of The Vancouver Sun so I assume his column speaks with authority of the newspaper's editors. Tuesday, he applauded the CBC's refusal to correct the conflict of interest involved in Legislative Bureau Chief Stephen Smart reporting on the Premier while his wife is the Premier's Deputy Press Secretary.

McInnes should be embarrassed by the weakness of his defence but I'll leave detailed criticism to another blogger at Exiled.

I noticed an interesting element of the Sun's online presentation of McInnes' opinions. When the paper first posted the article, comments were allowed and very quickly, two readers effectively refuted the arguments.

The Sun's response? They republished the article without reader comments and de-linked the original page. A reader starting at the Sun homepage and clicking through the OPINION header accesses this:

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Keeping+professional+secrets+part+modern+marriage/6041986/story.html

If one knows where to look, the original page can be found with its two apparently unwelcome comments:

http://www.vancouversun.com/opinion/op-ed/Opinion%20Keeping%20professional%20secrets%20part%20modern%20marriage/6040334/story.html

In case the page with comments disappears from the Sun's website entirely, here is the content of the reader comments that the newspaper is hiding:

anon719448009
3:15 PM on 1/24/2012

Mr. McInnes handily omits this important paragraph from Mr. LaPointe's report:

"But just because there is no impropriety does not mean there is no conflict. Whether a
real or perceived conflict of interest, no amount of managing it can do more than
mitigate the impact on an impartial fulfillment of duties."

and a bit further down...

"Smart can report with integrity, and CBC's protocol can combine disclosure and recusal,
but the pervasive appearance of a conflict of interest will continually challenge their 5
reputations. It is hard to see how an arrangement with the potential to diminish the
effectiveness of CBC's journalism and public standing serves an interest worthy of a
policy exception."

Certainly adds context to McInnes' above piece.

NTERACTBIZ
12:24 PM on 1/24/2012

MicInnes offers on behalf of Postmedia self-serving twaddle that redefines the accepted definition of "conflict of interest."

This is not the attitude of real newspapers such as the New York Times The Guardian or FAZ, etc.

Then again, if the Vancouver Sun had a strong policy on conflict of interest, its editors would not have a cozy relationship with the Fraser Institute. Nor would its star political pundit charge speaker's fees for appearing before industry groups about whose interests he writes. (eg: BC Chambers of Commerce and HST).

Nor would another columnist have been hired to guide Independent Power Producers Association of BC to gain better media access.

The Sun allows egregious conduct, without disclosure. How many of its journalists or their immediate families rely on business groups for regular earnings. Or is this an old fashioned questioned to pose?

http://northerninsights.blogspot.com/2011/12/can-someone-report-news-while-making.html

Drowsy Canadians take note

2012-01-24T21:47:00.000-08:00

Federal government has no business micromanaging RCMP commissioner, Toronto Star, January 22 2012

"Where does Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government get off trying to micromanage the Royal Canadian Mounted Police commissioner’s day-timer?

"Newly-installed Commissioner Bob Paulson has just been told that he can’t meet with Members of Parliament or senators without getting a green light from Public Safety Minister Vic Toews’ office. In their hubris, the Tories have decided that they alone will book the chief’s get-togethers with parliamentarians.

"This follows hard on Harper’s demand that the Mounties check with Toews’ office before making any public statements that might “garner national media attention,” as the Star reported last year. To some, that looked like a gag option..."

Muzzling of RCMP commissioner shows that control is out of control, Sen. Colin Kenny, Montreal Gazette:

"...All governments, however, are at times tempted to circumvent democratic principles when those principles threaten their own grip on power. The Harper government, as many have noted before me, has succumbed to such temptation with unprecedented passion.

"The result is that control is out of control, as it were. Ministers are scripted; committees are neutered; debate is cut off; public servants are muzzled; laws and court edicts are ignored; official watchdogs are fired; bills are adulterated with agendafilling provisions unconnected to their rationale; opposition amendments are dismissed out of hand; provincial premiers are avoided; and the prime minister's communications-control team grows at a steroidal pace in an era of fiscal restraint.

"...The commissioner of the RCMP has always been a very powerful position, held at arm's length from government. The reasons are obvious. If a member of a government is alleged to have broken the law, the Mounties are the people called in to investigate. Although funded by the government, the RC-MP cannot become the instrument of government..."

Proud to be "Enemy of the Government of Canada"

2012-01-24T14:09:00.000-08:00

"Tides Canada CEO, Ross McMillan,was informed by the Prime Minister’s Office, that ForestEthics is considered an “Enemy of the Government of Canada,” and an “Enemy of the people of Canada.”

"This language was apparently part of a threat by the Prime Minister’s Office to challenge the charitable status of Tides Canada if it did not agree to stop funding ForestEthics,specifically its work opposing oilsands expansion and construction of oilsands tanker/pipeline routes in Canada."

Whistleblower's Open Letter to Canadians

Still Waiting

2012-01-24T12:21:00.000-08:00

Accountable to no one, part 1, from February 20, 2011

Before today, I sent out a few messages asking questions related to alleged journalists being paid to attend events sponsored by those associated with groups the journalist, or their colleagues, may cover.

For example, on February 17, I sent this to Gillian Shaw, columnist with the Vancouver Sun:

"At the blog Northern Insights, I have written about real and potential conflicts affecting journalists if they contract with industries that might be covered by their publication. I note that you have had appearances scheduled by the Independent Power Producers Association of BC. Certainly you are not alone among your colleagues but does this trouble you at all?

"This is a general allegation I raised here:

" 'Additionally, and perhaps most insidious, the independence of media personalities is compromised by inducements and incentives paid by industries that desire favorable coverage.' "

Gillian Shaw did not bother to reply.

Accountable to no one, part 2, from February, 2011
This is a question I directed in the last week to P. Kariya, Executive Director of the Independent Power Producers Association of BC, AKA Clean Energy BC.

"Does your organization have a policy that allows or prohibits payment of fees, honoraria or expenses to journalists who work for broadcasters or publishers but do consulting or make appearances at events of the IPPBC? If yes, do you see that as a potential conflict of interest?"

Strangely, the group prefers not to answer such questions.

Can someone report news while making news?

2012-01-23T01:05:00.000-08:00

Response to the CBC Ombudsman faulting Stephen Smart's position as Legislative Bureau Chief is muted in the local corporate media except for the Good, the bad and the other on Friday morning. CKNW's triplets typically dance together in favour of the status quo and conflict of interest is a subject that makes these guys uncomfortable. For good reason, too.

Charlie Smith at the Georgia Straight discusses the wider and more important issue in B.C. legislature press gallery should come clean on all conflicts of interest:

"So why will this ruling make other members in the press gallery squirm? It's because Smart isn't the only one with a family member who has collected cheques from the B.C. government for providing communications advice.

"In the past, I've written about press-gallery members receiving speaking fees from business organizations that seek legislative changes from the B.C. government.

"There's never any public disclosure about the amounts of money changing hands between these lobby groups and the scribes.

"I believe that the time has come for the press gallery to create a transparent ethics policy with a disciplinary process for those who violate it."

Blogger RossK at The Gazetteer exposes part of the silliness offered by the Three Amigos. I hope they are better reporters than they seemed Friday because of the reliance on misinformation and misdirection. For example, they suggested that Stephen Smart's wife was like any other government employee, as if being the Premier's Deputy Press Secretary is akin to making tea or trimming lawns at the Legislature.

Of course, these guys — operating on suspect motives themselves — assume critics of a news agency that ignores its own guidelines act as partisans for the opposition. In fact, they know that most MLA's and party activists purposely avoid raising complaints about media coverage, no matter how aggrieved the politicians feel. It is a no-win situation. So, if people denouncing the conflicted CBC situation were taking direction from party managers, the issue would not have been raised.

In early December, I wrote the article that follows. It connects to Charlie Smith's earlier work on conflicts and I think is worth examination again.

* * * * * * * * * *

It is appropriate to ask if political writers can report objectively after they become paid participants in the public forum, earning appearance fees and other remuneration from businesses with interests in their coverage. In 2009, Charlie Smith at The Georgia Straight wrote this:

"There are members of the press gallery who've accepted speaking fees from business groups that lobby the provincial government regarding pieces of legislation.

"I think the members of the press gallery should disclose these payments through an on-line registry, which would be available for the public to see...

"However, as long as the members of the press gallery are so busy patting each other on the back, they're not going to bother covering something like this.

"They'll go blue in the face telling the public how Ken Dobell or Patrick Kinsella were unregistered lobbyists, but they don't apply the same standards to themselves when it comes to disclosing their own potential conflicts of interest.

"I'm not saying that these payments influence the way they cover stories. Not at all. I am saying, however, that these speaking fees should be disclosed so readers, viewers, and listeners will know if members of the press gallery have recently been on the payroll of an organization that they're covering. It's called transparency."

A short while later, Smith touched on the subject again,

"I may have left the impression in recent blog postings that Vancouver Sun provincial-affairs columnist Vaughn Palmer only speaks to business organizations like the Council of Forest Industries, British Columbians for Private Forests, the B.C. Chamber of Commerce, the B.C. Roadbuilders and Heavy Construction Association, the B.C. Human Resources Management Association, the Council of Tourism Associations of B.C., and others.

"Palmer has also spoken to government associations as well as to civic and labour groups. They include the Professional Employees Association, the Bellingham City Club, and the Canadian Association of Members of Public Utility Tribunals.

"Next month, Palmer will speak to the Lower Mainland Local Government Association.

in April last year, Smith offered a particular example. He thought Vaughn Palmer:

"...could be caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to the HST.

"As I've reported before on this site, Palmer has a public-speaking career in addition to his work as a paid columnist.

"In the past, he has appeared at events sponsored by such groups as the B.C. Chamber of Commerce, the Council of Forest Industries, and the B.C. Roadbuilders and Heavy Construction Association.

"National Speakers Bureau, which has arranged Palmer's speaking engagements, used to advertise on its Web site that he could be booked for $3,000 to $5,000 per appearance. I don't know how much, if anything, he charged to speak to these particular groups..."

Of course the obvious point was that Palmer was receiving fees for appearing before organizations that were fervent admirers of Gordon Campbell and the Premier's plans for HST. During that time, Palmer was an impartial commentator, appearing in print and on radio and cable TV to report frequently on Gordon Campbell and HST.

Charlie Smith put this issue up for debate during both 2009 and 2010, about Palmer but also Palmer's press gallery colleagues. Smith gained little traction, none in the corporate media. Yet, today the issue remains vital. Canada is trailing on a dangerous trail blazed by self-interest brigades in the USA.

With falling advertising and circulation revenues, newsrooms everywhere are cutting staff and budgets. Strict economies are eased by turning to outsiders offering free content that of course serves objectives of the providers. Star reporters supplement sagging salaries through freelancing and paid public appearances.

In the U.S., wealthy think tanks and brigades of right wing agents circulate free media-ready copy that is happily received and published uncritically. One example is the the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity. According to PR Watch,

"The group has 43 state news websites, with writers in over 40 states. Its reporters have been given state house press credentials and its news articles are starting to appear in mainstream print newspapers in each state.

"Who funds Franklin and what is its agenda? The Funding Trail Leads to Bradley, Koch, and Other Right-Wing Groups."

Canada is not immune from similar pressures and responses. As strong regional journalism disappears, space is quickly filled with syndicated copy or material from agenda driven sources such as industry groups and political think tanks.

The intermediate step for propagandists seeking to influence public opinion is to promote the loyalty of media people through direct and indirect inducements. Ethical journalists exercise caution but, unfortunately, ethical does not equate with influential.

Bob Mackin poses a good question

2012-01-22T20:53:00.000-08:00

B.C. Place's field of fire, 2010 Gold Rush, NEWS AND VIEWS ON VANCOUVER 2010 (AND BEYOND) FROM BOB MACKIN.

"What is the final cost of the stadium for taxpayers? How much is it over the $563 million figure that PavCo has mysteriously stopped quoting?

Will it require the auditor general to investigate? "

No foreign interests allowed

2012-01-22T20:23:00.000-08:00

H/T Creekside

Enbridge’s pipeline of distortions, by Harsha Walia, a Vancouver-based activist and writer trained in law, Vancouver Sun, January 2012.

"...Delightful commentaries over the past few days have taken Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Natural Resource Minister Joe Oliver to task for their desperate theories about radical foreign environmentalists and socialist billionaires hijacking the Enbridge Joint Review Panel hearings.

"These attacks are largely laughable because their hypocrisy is so obvious. The oil industry is a multi-billion transnational industry backed by a Tory government that peddles the tarsands to any foreign buyer who will bite – from Canadian diplomats in Washington hustling the Keystone XL pipeline, to another upcoming visit to China by Harper and his corporate entourage. At the Enbridge Joint Review Panel hearings, 10 out of the 16 intervening oil companies have foreign-based headquarters, for example America’s Exxon Mobil, Britain’s BP, France’s Total E&P, and Japan Canada Oil Sands Ltd.

"On the other hand, Environmental Defence reports that all of the intervening environmental organizations are based in Canada, and 79 per cent of those registered to speak are B.C. residents. Given colonial governance over indigenous peoples, Nadleh Whut’en Chief Larry Nooski’s quip is most apt “We’re not foreign – these are our lands...”

Terry Glavin: China has our forests, now we’re sending our oilfields too

"Here’s what you’ve been missing.

"Ostensibly, it’s about the Enbridge project, a plan to pump condensate eastward from the coast to Alberta so that Alberta bitumen can be made fluid enough to be pumped back to the coast at Kitimat, to be put into oil tankers to be sent down Douglas Channel and out into the roaring North Pacific through a tangle of islands you will find on the charts strewn with names like Terror Point and Calamity Bay and Grief Point. A digression: It is not for nothing that such comforting placenames show up along the proposed tanker route, so don’t start with me about how I should now find comfort in knowing that the oil spill cleanup contingency plans consist of rushing out with skimmers and booms that work only in low breezes and a light chop. I’ve fished halibut in those waters, and believe me, there is a reason why heading out there in boats is known as Walking With The King. Nevermind what the “radical environmentalists” say, whoever they are.

"As recently as last fall, John Bruk, the founding president of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada and as fervent a booster of trade with China as you’ll meet, was cheering Stephen Harper and wishing him all the best with his trade engagements in the Forbidden City. But Bruk’s good wishes came with a caution: “Are we going to sell the ownership of our natural resources to pay for consumer goods we can ill afford and thereby speed up the indebtedness of Canada as export revenue from those resources would be lost?” Turns out that’s exactly what we’re doing."

Bill Moyers returns

2012-01-22T14:09:00.000-08:00

Moyers & Company Show 102: On Crony Capitalism from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

David Stockman, former Reagan Budget Director,

"If they're too big too fail, they're too big to exist."

Stockman, quoted by Tim Dickinson in How the GOP Became the Party of the Rich, Rolling Stone, November 9, 2011:

"The Republican Party has totally abdicated its job in our democracy, which is to act as the guardian of fiscal discipline and responsibility," says David Stockman, who served as budget director under Reagan. "They're on an anti-tax jihad – one that benefits the prosperous classes."

Gretchen Morgenson on Industry Influence from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

Robert Reich in the New York Times, writing on "Reckless Endangerment" by Gretchen Morgensen:

It’s hardly news that the near meltdown of America’s financial system enriched a few at the expense of the rest of us. Who’s responsible? The recent report of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission blamed all the usual suspects — Wall Street banks, financial regulators, the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and subprime lenders — which is tantamount to blaming no one. “Reckless Endangerment” concentrates on particular individuals who played key roles.

Notable case regarding aboriginal rights

2012-01-21T00:18:00.000-08:00

From Lexology.com

The Wahgoshig First Nation (“WFN”) in Northern Ontario has obtained an injunction to temporarily stop Solid Gold Resources Corp. (“Solid Gold”), a junior mining company, from drilling on their First Nation Treaty lands. In a decision released last week (2011 ONSC 7708 (CanLII)), Justice Brown of the Ontario Superior Court halted all exploration activities for at least 120 days after finding that Solid Gold had repeatedly failed to respond to consultation requests from both WFN and the Ontario Government.

While this decision should not come as a surprise to knowledgeable observers, it is important for three reasons:

It confirms that as yet there is no Aboriginal veto over mining exploration activities;

It highlights problems with the Crown’s practice of delegating the consultation to proponents and

It reiterates that the “free entry” mining system in Ontario is limited by Aboriginal consultation.

Companies that are not mindful of Aboriginal concerns will see their business plans delayed or cancelled.

Self-interested blather from Edge of the Ledge

2012-01-20T17:40:00.000-08:00

Wonderful demonstration today of how BC's tight little circle of political reporters is wilfully blind to the real issue at stake in the CBC conflict of interest matter. Of course, I did not expect anything else from this trio on CKNW. I question their own journalistic ethics because of financial relationships they have had with business groups affected by their reporting. I'm wary of reporters who take payments from groups they might report upon and then claim absolute objectivity.

This is part of a comment I added to Alex Tsakumis' fine blog on the article titled: CBC Ombudsman Levels Conflict Deflection by CBC Vancouver of Their Victoria Bureau Chief: Stephen Smart’s Conflict Finally, Officially Outed!

"While I have not commented on Stephen Smart’s capabilities as a reporter, i do strongly condemn the regional management of CBC who chose to defend the indefensible, in effect choosing the private interest of their colleagues over their professional responsibility as news providers.

"This issue has never been about Stephen Smart the man – I for one have never met him – or about his wife. Alex, you and I did not dream up a new definition of ‘conflict of interest’ nor did we ever attack Stephen Smart’s capabilities or achievements. As we pointed out often, the issue is one that should be dealt with separate from personalities."

No doubt Alex and I are the bloggers that Baldrey and Good claim have "axes to grind." Baldrey tries to smear us as NDP partisans. A fatuous argument but, I guess there are no good ones.

From my piece Help for the CBC on conflicts of interest:

Relationships that cross the media-political divide raise ethical questions for the journalists and their employers. Should the potential conflict of interest merely be disclosed to readers or viewers? Or should the journalists be shifted to new assignments to lessen the appearance their motives might be divided?"

[LA Times James] Rainey offered outcomes of ethical reviews, including these:

"Los Angeles Times political reporter Ronald Brownstein recently began a new assignment as a columnist for the newspaper's opinion and editorial pages after his bosses banned him from writing news stories about the presidential race. The Times was seeking to avoid the appearance of a conflict: Brownstein is married to Eileen McMenamin, chief spokeswoman for Sen. John McCain, a candidate for the Republican nomination."

"Nina Easton, Fortune magazine Washington bureau chief and Fox News analyst, said she would not write stories centering on McCain's campaign, because her husband, Russ Schriefer, is plotting media strategy for McCain. When appearing on Fox, she said, she plans at least occasional disclaimers to tell TV viewers she is married to a McCain advisor."

Rainey also quotes Tom Rosenstiel, a former Washington correspondent for Newsweek magazine and The Times. He said that in many cases, disclosure was not enough:

"You have the right to marry anyone you want, but you don't have the right to cover any beat you want," said Rosenstiel, now director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism.
I paraphrase Professor Lee Wilkins, editor of The Journal of Mass Media Ethics:

"Like it or not, the perception is that Stephen Smart is reporting about something in which his wife is a player — and CBC isn't telling the public."

Now for something completely different

2012-01-20T17:18:00.000-08:00

CBC conflict of interest complaints upheld

2012-01-19T14:45:00.000-08:00

The CBC Ombudsman has agreed with me and others who raised the issue of Stephen Smart's conflict of interest. Now, we await the corporation's resolution of this matter. You can read the entire Ombudsman report here but the important section is this:

"...Whether a real or perceived conflict of interest, no amount of managing it can do more than mitigate the impact on an impartial fulfillment of duties.

"In this instance some of Smart’s central political reporting functions that involve dealings with the premier and her opponents are affected or impeded. He also bears an unavoidable conflict of commitment in which professional responsibilities commingle with moral obligations in other legitimate personal roles in his life.

"CBC journalistic policies are designed to be congruent with corporate policies that call for an avoidance of real or perceived conflict of interest, bearing of the greatest scrutiny, and exceptions only when the corporation’s interests are clearly better served.

"Smart can report with integrity, and CBC’s protocol can combine disclosure and recusal, but the pervasive appearance of a conflict of interest will continually challenge their 5 reputations. It is hard to see how an arrangement with the potential to diminish the effectiveness of CBC’s journalism and public standing serves an interest worthy of a policy exception.

"My role isn’t to sort through the challenge of resolving this matter in accordance with labour law or collective agreements. My role is simply to assess the situation against policy in light of the public complaint. As it stands there is a violation of CBC Journalistic Standards and Practices."

Kirk LaPointe
CBC Ombudsman

This issue was brought to wide public notice by bloggers and concerned citizens and that should not have been necessary since professional, full time reporters knew what was going on. A question we should ask is where was the corporate media on this issue. If they are silent on one offence to journalistic standards, we can be sure they will remain silent on others too.

For example, we need to know about reporters receiving speaker's fees from industry groups affected by their coverage; or, "research" contracts and other hospitality from the Fraser Institute, or fees to advise industry and business groups on gaining better press coverage (pay rewards for it?), etc.

Unfortunately, experience suggests people of BC's mainstream media will remain silent when abuses affect their own affairs or the affairs of colleagues.

Another issue to address is that CBC's news management in the Pacific region has exposed their own poor judgment and their stubborn refusal to be accountable to reasonable citizen complaints. The relationship between news consumers and news presenters requires trust. CBC's Vancouver management has damaged that trust.

* * * * *

The text of my December 18 complaint to the CBC Ombudsman along with his initial response is included in the article CBC reporter's conflict of interest.

.

NEB serves industry, not the public

2012-01-19T14:27:00.000-08:00

I've long been aware of the National Energy Board but never paid much attention to it. However, for my article Regulators throwing loaded dice, I had a look at backgrounds of the people involved in the NEB. I was immediately reminded of a quote from police psychologist Mike Webster used in June 2009 in the article State Sanctioned Violence. Here is the context and the quote:

One psychologist suggests that police violence is encouraged by expanded inventories of weapons and wider use of body armor and tactical assault training. The act of dressing in body armor and the discomfort of wearing it remind police officers of dangers they might face. They are encouraged to use violence by the anticipation of it. As Dr. Mike Webster said,

"When you think the only tool you have is a hammer, then the whole world begins looking like a nail."

The parallel is direct, I think. The NEB's objective is to promote transport and export of petroleum. For the most part, its members spent their adult lives facilitating the industry they now supervise. They are like armour clad persons carrying only a hammer.

Instead, the review agency should function like a jury, listening to arguments from experts, pro and con, with fairness and impartiality, laying aside all bias and prejudice. Where are the ordinary people, the social scientists, the environmentalists? Maintaining a National Energy Board almost entirely composed of professionals from the energy industry is like prisoners being told to manage the prisons and the parole board. Of course, they would run the system for the benefit of themselves and their associates.

Here is a repeat of the NEB member listing:

Chair Gaétan Caron, a Quebec engineer who has been a career bureaucrat with the NEB;

Vice Chair Sheila Leggett, a Harper appointee to the NEB, who is a graduate of Montreal's McGill University who previously worked as an Alberta consultant;

Roland George, also a McGill graduate, worked throughout most of his career as senior principal of an international energy consulting firm;

Kenneth Bateman is a Calgary based lawyer who was Vice President of a large Canadian energy company;

Georgette Habib is an economist who came from the Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board;

Lyne Mercier is a former executive of Gaz Metro, which distributes natural gas in Quebec and owns a number of financial interests in transmission, storage, gas and other underground systems enterprises;

David Hamilton, a temporary member of the NEB, is a career government bureaucrat whose appointment expires next year;

Bob Vergette, another temporary NEB board member, is a pipeline engineer who has been active on many pipeline industry association initiatives;

Hans Mathews a geologist with more than 25 years experience in resource management industries is another temporary board member.

* * * * *

Please don't miss Andrew Nikiforuk's article at The Tyee. What the Keystone Rejection Really Reveals emphasizes the central point I make here:

"Canada's National Energy Board, a half-hearted regulator at best, rubber-stamped the [Keystone XL] pipeline several years ago. The board expressed no interest in how the pipeline might grow bitumen's ugly mining footprint and carbon liabilities. Nor did it want to know much about the impact of raw bitumen exports on Canadian refining jobs."

If oil industry so wonderful, why the subsidies?

2012-01-18T23:06:00.000-08:00

Pumped Up in Sides 3

Updated Enbridge Profile

Regulators throwing loaded dice

2012-01-18T16:09:00.000-08:00

Propaganda is a tool favoured by leaders who suppose unthinking citizens can't determine the common interest. Noam Chomsky says it is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.

The tar sands extraction industry and parasitical agents like Ethical Oil, along with Stephen Harper's government, are investing heavily in a campaign of duplicity and exaggeration as they use the metaphorical bludgeon on Canadians. Public relations and political arrangements have always been a significant cost of doing business in dirty oil. Even before Syncrude, the first significant Athabasca tar sands operator, began producing bitumen in 1978, they were spending hugely on spin doctoring. My employer in the seventies was one of the beneficiaries.

prop·a·gan·da [prop-uh-gan-duh] noun
Ideas deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc.

In early days, as they do today, big city flacks talked much about economic development and harm-free bitumen production but not of carbon loads and mercury, arsenic, lead or other poisons that would destroy lives of permanent residents, mostly First Nations, in rural Alberta. Decades later, the energy subject illustrates what writer Stephen Hume once called a defective political culture through "deception by omission, misleading half-truths, disingenuous dissimulation and sleazy spin-doctoring."

There is no better example than the Harper Government's approach to energy regulation. The Toronto Star's national affairs columnist wrote,

"It appears [Stephen Harper] is undermining the work of an independent panel that is hearing aboriginal and environmental objections to the $5.5 billion project that would run from Edmonton to the Pacific, from where Alberta’s oil could be shipped across to Asian markets.

"...he appears prepared to do whatever it takes to ensure a Keystone repeat will not be played out in Canada’s west.

"...As the regulatory process stands now, a denial of the project does not go to the federal cabinet for a final decision. But as Harper seeks a way to streamline the hearings process, those who know this file were suggesting he could also change the rules to allow cabinet to overturn a negative finding.

"...And he agreed Canada poured a lot of money into Keystone lobbying... He didn’t make it clear how that was different from American money being used to lobby against the Northern Gateway..."

Before federal government regulatory hearings began, allegedly to objectively examine the pipeline project, Harper's federal government had already declared unbounded support for the project, calling it an exercise in "nation building." The Joint Review Panel for Enbridge Northern Gateway Project is part of the National Energy Board and the Minister responsible for it is Joe Oliver.

Oliver demonstrates not even a pretense of even-handedness, saying that his ministry's review process is "broken." His open letter, released the day before hearings began, claims environmentalists have a radical ideological agenda and aim to prevent trade and stop any major economic project in Canada. Of course, the potential for developing truly significant industrial expansion in Canada is lost when industry chooses to export barely processed bitumen. Multinational oil companies care little about refining in Canada to produce intermediate and end products of petroleum: liquid fuels, lubricants and petrochemicals such as fibres, plastics and pharmaceuticals.

In a truly ironical closing, Joe Oliver's letter says "our fair, independent" regulatory system must "review the evidence dispassionately" and then make an objective determination based on science and the facts. Of course, Toronto based Joe Oliver, a Montreal native who spent his career in corporate securities, is already playing with loaded dice. He is responsible for the National Energy Board, which consists of:

Chair Gaétan Caron, a Quebec engineer who has been a career bureaucrat with the NEB;

Vice Chair Sheila Leggett, a Harper appointee to the NEB, who is a graduate of Montreal's McGill University who previously worked as an Alberta consultant;

Roland George, also a McGill graduate, worked throughout most of his career as senior principal of an international energy consulting firm;

Kenneth Bateman is a Calgary based lawyer who was Vice President of a large Canadian energy company;

Georgette Habib is an economist who came from the Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board;

Lyne Mercier is a former executive of Gaz Metro, which distributes natural gas in Quebec and owns a number of financial interests in transmission, storage, gas and other underground systems enterprises;

David Hamilton, a temporary member of the NEB, is a career government bureaucrat whose appointment expires next year;

Bob Vergette, another temporary NEB board member, is a pipeline engineer who has been active on many pipeline industry association initiatives;

Hans Mathews a geologist with more than 25 years experience in resource management industries is another temporary board member.

These people are industry insiders with urban backgrounds. They were selected by political masters to further commercial objectives yet Canadians are told the NEB will conduct a "fair and independent" examination of a project that is essential for achievement of the goals that led China to invest billions in Alberta tar sands production. The Harper government gave tacit approval to that Chinese investment a few years ago and the resulting demand for Canadian dollars pushed the currency exchange rate upward to the detriment of Canadian exporters such as those in British Columbia's forest industries.

Here is a further example of how the review process is fundamentally flawed. Sheila Leggett sits on the three person Joint Review Panel for Enbridge Northern Gateway. In 2008, she described the NEB to an international pipeline conference in Calgary:

"We are a Canadian Federal energy regulator. Our responsibilities include regulating:

"- The construction and operation of pipelines
"- Transportation, tolls and tariffs
"- International trade in oil, gas and electricity as well as some frontier Oil & Gas regulation.

The agency sees itself as a facilitator of pipeline construction and promoter of trade in international energy. Indeed those things are its raison d'etre and Ms. Leggett says the NEB's aim is to promote the energy infrastructure.

In December 2011, Joe Oliver, Minister of Natural Resources and Minister responsible for the Northern Pipeline Agency, announced,

"...designation of Sheila Leggett as Deputy Administrator of the Northern Pipeline Agency (NPA).

"...The NPA was established in 1978 to facilitate the construction of a pipeline by Foothills Pipe Lines Ltd., now owned by TransCanada Pipelines Ltd. The pipeline would carry natural gas from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, and potentially Yukon and northern British Columbia to markets in Canada and the lower 48 states."

Ms. Leggett's assigned role is unambiguous. In this project, her duty is to "facilitate the construction of a pipeline."

Ian Austen writing in the New York Times sees through the current propaganda efforts of one well financed industry shill:

“Foreigners and their foreign hired hands should butt out,” said Kathryn Marshall, a spokeswoman for Ethical Oil.

"While most Canadian environmental groups are charities and must disclose the major sources of their funds, Ethical Oil does not. Ms. Marshall said that the group accepted money from only Canadians and Canadian companies, although she declined to directly say if that included Canadian corporations controlled by foreign entities. Many of the large energy companies active in the oil sands are foreign-owned or -controlled.

“You can look up the definition of a Canadian company,” she said."

In the Enbridge project, the National Energy Board will ultimately offer reassurances about diligent inspections and increased spill response capabilities but environmentalists are mistaken if they see the Joint Review Panel as anything more than window dressing for a project that will proceed. Since it provides certainty of higher oil prices to both domestic and foreign consumers, the multinational energy industry has called the tune. The obedient Harper Government has begun to dance.

Romney pays 15% tax on $200m personal fortune

2012-01-18T16:01:00.000-08:00

Mitt Romney: the gaffes in full, Josh Marshall, The Guardian

"As a fabulously wealthy man running to be the president of a country that prides itself on its middle class identity, Romney is permanently striving for the common touch while somehow keeping it real about just how different his life is from the average Americans'."

"I'm also unemployed" June 16, 2011
"Corporations are people, my friend" August 11, 2011
"I'm running for office for Pete's sake, we can't have illegals" October 18, 2011
"I'll tell you what, ten-thousand bucks? $10,000 bet?" December 10, 2011
"I like being able to fire people" January 9, 2012
"There were a couple of times I wondered whether I was going to get a pink slip" January 8, 2012
"It's for the great middle class – the 80 to 90 percent of us in this country" September 21, 2011
"I've always been a rodent and rabbit hunter. Small varmints, if you will." April 5, 2007
"Don't try and stop the foreclosure process. Let it run its course and hit the bottom." October 17, 2011
"Who let the dogs out? Who, who"

I'd make one change to Josh Marshall's list of ten. That would be

"I pay 15% tax on $200m personal fortune." January 17, 2012

"More reading from the Washington Post: Romney’s tax plan would cut his own taxes by nearly half

"The revelation that Mitt Romney pays a tax rate of around 15 percent opens the door to another question: How much would his own taxes fall under the tax plan he would pass if elected president?

"Here’s the answer, according to a new analysis by Citizens for Tax Justice that was provided to me this morning. Under his plan, Romney in 2013 would see his taxes cut by nearly half of what they would be if you use current law as a baseline.

"Another way to put this: If Romney, whose wealth is estimated at as much as $250 million, is elected president and gets his way on tax policy, he would pay barely more than half as much in taxes than he would if Obama is reelected and gets his way — and the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy expire and an additional Medicare tax as part of the Affordable Care Act kicks in."

From So What About Romney's Offshore Tax Havens? TheAtlantic.com:

"His vast fortune is invested in dozens of funds linked to Bain Capital LLC, the powerhouse private equity firm he co-founded and led for 15 years. Several Bain funds have offshore connections and take advantage of tax breaks used only by the U.S. financial elite.

"His tax returns could shed light on how Romney and Bain use offshore strategies to avoid taxes, said Daniel Berman, a former U.S. Treasury deputy international tax counsel and now director of tax at Boston University's graduate tax program.

"Bain funds in which Romney is invested are scattered from Delaware to the Cayman Islands and Bermuda, Ireland and Hong Kong, according to a Reuters analysis of securities filings.'

Sign of the apocalypse

2012-01-17T20:10:00.000-08:00

Twinkies maker Hostess seeks bankruptcy protection, Associated Press, January 11, 2012

"NEW YORK — Hostess Brands Inc., the maker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread, is seeking bankruptcy protection, blaming its [labour costs] and tough economic conditions.

"The filing on Wednesday comes just two years after a predecessor company emerged from bankruptcy proceedings..."

So it seems, if urban myths are believed, the product has a longer shelf life than its maker.