Journamalism

This story in the London Free Press could easily leave readers confused.

Rivals blast Liberals over riding cash scandal

The disappearance of Liberal money in the federal riding of Elgin-Middlesex-London has prompted their rivals to make political hay.

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion is being called on to suspend a senior party official immediately for his bid to cover up the loss. The attempt shows the party hasn't learned its lessons from the Quebec sponsorship scandal, say the New Democrats, who have called for the suspension.

At this point the reader could probably gather in that there has been something of a cash scandal inside the Liberal Party riding association and that someone tried to hide it. That would be a story and the reader can be excused for believing there will be some investigation by a reporter and fact-checking by an editor.

A Conservative party blogger has suggested the same official tried to cover up the disappearance of nearly $15,000 from local coffers rather than involve police, thereby "trying to fend off another Liberal party scandal."

Say, what?! A blogger is making this suggestion and the reporter deems this significant to the article?

So, the reporter trolls blogs, finds opinion pieces and regurgitates them as credible information... or at least that's how it looks.

The political partisans have targeted David Pretlove, now director of finance and administration for the Ontario wing of the Liberal Party of Canada. In January, he was interim director of the Ontario wing when he sent a message to the local riding association offering to cut cheques to cover the loss of money that had just been discovered.

In his letter, Pretlove offered to pay the amount missing in exchange for an assurance in writing "that there will be no further action taken and the matter be considered closed."

Local officials opted instead to go to police about the missing money. Riding association president Norm Feaver later labelled Pretlove's offer "ill-advised."

Former treasurer of the association, Suzan Pawlak, 49, has been charged as a result of that investigation. She faces 42 counts of fraud and uttering forged documents and is to appear in St. Thomas court July 24. Her charges relate to $13,047.

The Free Press has learned that at the time of Pretlove's letter, Pawlak had moved to Toronto and was working alongside him as "manager, political operations" for the party in the southwest and golden horseshoe regions.

OK. That seems to be the story, and it deserves some serious attention. But then it starts to go sideways. (Emphasis mine)

Conservative blogger Steve Janke said it appears Pretlove tried to protect his co-worker from prosecution by offering "to use funds which he controlled to bury the incident."

"I'd hate to think that David Pretlove knew about a crime and didn't report it," Janke wrote.

The Conservative advocate concluded: "If there is potential for scandal, it is in trying to entice someone not to pursue a criminal investigation."

Wow! If you go to Janke's blog you won't see the quoted words, which begs the question: Where did they come from?

Further, the article is a clear attempt to tell one story while camouflaging it under a misleading headline. I'm sure if you asked LFP editor, Larry Cornies why he is quoting Steve Janke as a credible source of information, he would tell you the story is about the political traction Pretlove's opponents are gaining because of his actions. But the average reader, speeding through the article before heading off to work, might easily miss that and assume Janke is being quoted as a credible, researched source.

Except that in Janke's posts on the subject he doesn't cite so much as one source. Not one. When he does provide a link, it's back to his original post which cites no source whatsoever.

That's fine, if that's how he wants to proceed on a subject, but that simply reduces the credibility of his position. It certainly isn't a credible source of evidence which a reporter can use to support a story.

But, the LFP will tell you the story is about all the political hay being made by Liberal Party opponents. Not about the actual supposed scandal.

Yeah, right.

Janke has been involved like this before when a Globe and Mail reporter, too lazy to check beyond the scribblings of a computer engineer transformed into a full-time blogmaster, wrote stories based on charges by Janke that Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatiaff had plagiarized scientific papers and used the words in policy documents. The problem was, the reporter never checked the facts and Janke's charges were completely unfounded. The supposed victims of the plagiarism were more than happy to see their words put into public use and had, in fact, granted permission to the users.

Another occurrence was Janke's attack on Andrew Stronach, brother of Belinda Stronach, and his business dealings in an offshore internet sports betting site. Janke went off half-cocked and suggested Andrew Stronach, who is not involved in politics at all, was somehow breaking the law. That turned out to be completely erroneous and nothing more than attempt to smear an individual because of a familial relationship with a politician Janke didn't like. (He clearly doesn't like Liberals.)

It's not like Janke doesn't have an axe to grind. He's stepped over the line more than once and eventually attracted the attention of Earnscliffe Consulting senior partner, David Herle, whom he accused of corruption in dealing with then Minister of Finance, Paul Martin. To make a long story short, Herle sued Janke for libel.

The London Free Press is playing a dangerous game. Janke's product, when unsupported by sources, is strictly opinion and hardly something which can be deemed a credible reference unless he is discussing an event with which he was personally involved. To quote him, in that article in that way, was more than a little deceiving.

While the LFP could hold out the argument that that article was actually about the political opponents, most readers would see the story as focusing on the issue of a financial cover-up quoting a rabid-right-wing blogger as a source of credible information.

It's camouflaged spin.

Most blogs aren't good sources of news. Some are, but they are established as such and do the same research one would expect of any news reporting journal. No, blogs are much closer to the skin than they are the bone. They are opinion journals, highly biased and politically bent. They rarely provide first-hand information. They do provide analysis of the news from the perspective they are written with the information available. Often a blog can piece together information which news outlets miss and present the same story with a different flavour.

That's it.

I, and some of the co-bloggers here, have been approached by national news outlets regarding some of the topics which were covered on The Galloping Beaver. Those reporters left somewhat disappointed. We aren't a source, but if one of our sources agrees to it, the news outlet can go to there for first-hand information. As much as people would like to call blogs "The New Media", that should be viewed properly and the limits need to be recognized. We rely on the traditional media for our feedstock and search engines for our supporting data. There is a long way to go before that changes.

The London Free Press and Sun Media, and many other news systems employing those rare reporters too lazy to dig out the facts and comprehensively cover a topic, need to learn that. Quoting a blogger is quoting "opinion". Providing credence to a blogger which cites no sources and whose background carries no more expertise on the subject than any Jill or Joe on the street, without identifying that lack of background, is playing loose with the truth.

It is, in a very similar way, how we ended up with a theatre critic morphing into a mindless conservative political pundit.

In conclusion, for the benefit of readers, this is not about Steve Janke. It's about the London Free Press and that journal's use of unqualified sources. Just so you don't get confused.

The title was stolen from POGGE, who stole it from Atrios. And yes, we expect a blogger ethics panel to be convened any minute now.

Canadian Cynic has a great idea. Popcorn and beer.