Regular readers know my complaints about corporate media found-ins taking payments from parties affected by media coverage. People taking the cash don’t feel need to explain or excuse and indulgent colleagues seldom raise the conflict issue. Vancouver Sun political pundit Vaughn Palmer might believe the practice does not influence reporting,
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In-Sights: Enablers of misconduct, "if it is done here"
The current FIFA scandal illustrates a human behaviour that allows criminal behaviour to succeed. By nature, people tend to ignore the misconduct of others if preventing or revealing it extracts a higher price than ignoring it. Undoubtedly, insiders and observers were aware of high-level corruption at the international football organization.
Continue readingNorthern Insight / Perceptivity: Distracting, dissembling, deflecting – lest you forget
Are you unhappy with rapidly increasing electricity rates and the general state of BC Hydro finances? Are you looking for the party responsible? Well, the Vancouver Sun has the answer. It’s a person named Clark, but not the one presently in the Premier’s office. Vaughn Palmer thinks readers should be
Continue readingNorthern Insight / Perceptivity: Careless or captured?
When you read or listen to resource industry advocates, especially ones masquerading as objective political pundits, compare their concerns in 2009 about burning natural gas to generate peak-demand electricity to their current support for burning natural gas to liquefy natural gas. The following was first published at Northern Insight on
Continue readingNorthern Insight / Perceptivity: All the spin that’s fit to print
This week, British Columbia saw evidence that corporate media does not report adverse details about public finance unless the material is dropped on desks in digested form, complete with defensive spin from government or industry. The issue of BC taxpayer subsidies to the oil and gas industry is not new.
Continue readingNorthern Insight / Perceptivity: Repeaters, not reporters
Ever notice that corporate media seems to speak with one voice? On balance – or rather, on lack-of-balance – they do. It is the voice of big business. Vaughn Palmer, with American shale gas boom a major threat to B.C. exports, is the latest columnist lobbing fat pitches into the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Ezra Klein discusses how a corporate focus on buybacks and dividends rather than actually investing capital leads to less opportunities for workers. Nora Loreto offers her take on precarious work in Canada. And Lynne Fernandez and Kirsten Bernas make the case for
Continue readingNorthern Insight: This week’s Liberal direction: lower LNG expectations
Friday, The Common Sense Canadian — a site that usually provides worthwhile journalism — posted an article written by Keith Baldrey for Glacier Media, publisher of numerous community recyclables. Not surprisingly, anyone reading the Global News reporter’s account needs the rest of the story. Here is part of Baldrey’s item,
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Patronage and private privilege – BC Liberal P3
By numerous measures — lower job and GDP creation, fewer public services and rapid expansion of public debt — BC Liberals are colossal failures. Most BC residents are unaware because the major accomplishment of this government is its mastery of disinformation as political strategy. With a breathtakingly large crew of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Robert Reich proposes that the best way to address corporate criminality is to make sure that those responsible go to jail – rather than simply being able to pay a fine out of corporate coffers and pretend nothing ever happened. – And
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Good questions
Not a nincompoop blogger, RossK at The Gazetteer mentioned difficulties faced by Bob Mackin, the province’s preeminent investigative journalist, when Bob digs, and pays, for information the government does not want us to know. This Day In Snookland…Maybe Mr. Mackin Should Take Out A Membership In comments, reader Lew wonders
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Shill, sham and flimflam
Perhaps Vaughn Palmer has a Red Telephone, a hotline for when BC Liberals want news initiated, altered or decried. The record is public and to evaluate, readers need simply ask, “Who and what is served by Palmer’s work?” The pundit often has no intention of giving a whole story, with
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Assume the position, please
Reader who goes by the name of Hawgwash left this comment at the earlier article, Subsidies for some, higher fees for others, “I see Vaughn Palmer is actually touching this topic and even with the slightest hint of skepticism. I do though think he left the heavy lifting to you
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Flimflam sham
When conducting hearings on Northern Gateway, the National Energy Board Joint Review Panel denied participation to many and held sessions behind closed doors to limit opposition voices. Its decision favoured multinational industry over affected Canadian citizens and ran contrary to the bulk of testimony heard, including expert claims that “world-leading”
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Without fairness for all
Successful societies are based on equitable treatment of every citizen. That is not to say that individuals must be dealt with equally, rather that fairness is always evident. Does that precept matter anymore to economic and political leaders of British Columbia and Canada? I conclude it does not. This week
Continue readingNorthern Insight: No free lunches… ever
Update April 9: I heard that CKNW’s Bill Good responded on his April 5 morning show to selected critics, people he declined to identify other than through reference to hated bloggers. For a number of days, I tried to listen to the station’s audio vault but the file for 8am
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – There’s plenty of reason for concern about the departure of some of the few independent officers who have successfully held the Cons to account at times – with departing environment commissioner Scott Vaughan serving as only the latest example. – But the
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Deception and financial fakery for friends
A few days ago, I wrote Cronies, henchmen and the future and noted the loss of revenue government derives from natural resources, even though prices have risen dramatically in the past decade. BC Government revenue from natural resources, taken from annual public accounts, were these: 2001 = $3,975,000,000 2012 = $2,699,000,000
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Taxpayers on hook for Liberal "campain" funding
BC Liberals and friends had better start worrying because Vaughn Palmer may be taking off gloves and blindfold. The pundit who has all the tools, and a toolbox, laid implements aside frequently during recent years but he now seems ready for action. Gov…
Continue readingNorthern Insight: No spectacle of division, not a whit
Vaughn Palmer is pleased with the BC Liberals. His weekend column in the Sun offered this: “…the Whistler convention struck me as a relatively happy affair. “The public sessions — on the convention floor, in workshops, and receptions — were models of respectful discussion and, in several instances, energized. The
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