Saturday, May 24, 2008

Fun With The Ontario Press Council: Guy Giorno Wields Wicked Complaint!

The Ontario Press Council doesn't get a lot of ink year to year, but the work goes on 32 years after it was launched to monitor the conduct of newspapers across the province.

The highlights from this year's batch of complaints:

1) Harper's new chief of staff Guy Giorno kicked ass against a ragged looking Toronto Star. Here he successfully objects to the claim that his "underlings" named him "Rasputin" when he was with the Mike Harris Tories. Here he successfully argues that the Star's apology for the whole "Rasputin" naming affair should have been labelled a "correction" rather than a "clarification".

Don't screw around with this guy. He's obviously a political killer.

(As an aside, why would anyone object to being nicknamed "Rasputin"? I'm 45 and people still call me "Mikey". His nickname is way better, IMHO!)

9) Steyn adversary Mohamed Elmasry batted .500 in '07, his complaint that

...the Toronto Star used unnecessarily hurtful language in describing the Arab world as a society where “wickedness is bred in the bone”

...being upheld, his complaint that

...a column published in the Toronto Star “lacked accuracy, balance and fairness, to the point of openly conveying anti-Islam bias”

getting tossed. Not bad! Rage against 'em, Mo! (But, Mo, lay off them Israelis--that stuff makes you look crazy and gives the CIC a bad name! In fact, I would strongly suggest stepping down and handing the CIC over to someone less inflammatory! )

And a low-light:

6) Life Canada President Joanne Byfield failed in her only attempt, her complaint:

...that a column published in The Globe and Mail misrepresented LifeCanada and resulted in serious loss of income...

...getting dismissed entirely by the OPC and, presumably, God.

Warning, this one's a bit of a gagger, and I'm frankly glad the BoM cancelled LifeCanada's Mastercard .

PS. Why no complaints against the Natty Post? Well, they are apparently the only major paper in Canada not accountable to any press council. Or so I am told.

PPS. J. Douglas Creighton founded the Toronto Sun. Hate his paper. Like his blog.

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