The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2024, released this week, identifies the biggest short-term risk to the planet is from misinformation and disinformation, even above extreme weather events. The risk is highest during the next two years when “more than 3 billion people due to head to the polls
Continue readingTag: credibility
Scripturient: Should Candidates and Officials Disclose Criminal Records?
Some questions about openness and truth to consider as we start a year in which we have both a provincial and municipal election coming… Should a candidate for office disclose their criminal records when they campaign? Should they disclose it only if they were convicted of an offence or should
Continue readingScripturient: Enough B.S. (Brian Saunderson)
Yet another week has gone by and our mayor, Brian Saunderson, stubbornly refuses to do the right thing for the people of the town of Collingwood, and resign. He continues to pursue his personal political ambitions at the expense of both our taxpayers and the credibility of the office. Not
Continue readingScripturient: The Hermeneutics of Suspicion
The title is a phrase I encountered while reading Mark Thompson’s excellent book on political rhetoric, Enough Said: What’s Wrong With the Language of Politics? Thompson’s book is both about the current and historic use of political rhetoric (from Aristotle forward), but also about the role of journalists in covering
Continue readingScripturient: The slow death of media credibility
A story in the recent issue of New Republic opens: “A decade of turmoil has left a weakened press vulnerable to political attacks, forced into ethical compromises, and increasingly outstripped by new forms of digital media.” This points to the continuing erosion of public confidence in traditional media. While this
Continue readingTHE FIFTH COLUMN: On the Justice System, Presumption of Innocence & the Me Too Movement
Me Too Movement The Me Too movement (or #MeToo movement), with many local and international alternatives, is a movement against sexual harassment and sexual assault.[1][2][3] #MeToo spread virally in October 2017 as a hashtag used on social media in an attempt to demonstrate the widespread prevalence of sexual assault and
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Premier Davis and the Dead Children #nlpoli
Paul Davis will get a lift down to Government House this afternoon and swear the oath of office so Tom Marshall can finally get out of politics. It’s been about two weeks since Davis won the Conservative Party leadership and that’s a fairly typical period of time between election and
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Legitimacy and Credibility #nlpoli
In the crude, modern way of putting things, shit got real for Premier-in-waiting Frank Coleman on Friday. The Telegram’s James McLeod tweeted Coleman’s response to a question about whether Coleman planned to do this year what he normally does on Good Friday and participate in the anti-abortion march in Corner
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: There is only do #nlpoli
Truly effective communication is often more about what you do than what you say. That’s a notion that screws up lots of people. They get fixated on the mechanics of things. They think if you say the right thing over the right medium, then they’ve aced it. Job done. But
Continue readingImpolitical: Harper’s latest F-35 big 180
Harper yesterday: While the government isn’t giving any guarantees Canada will buy the F-35, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the country will remain involved in the stealth fighter project to ensure Canadian companies can continue participating. “We have received literally hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts for the Canadian
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