Who Says The Media Doesn't Have Their Own Agenda?!?

Back in the fall of 2005, when I was running for a spot on Lantzville council on a 'We Are Listening' platform against a very pro-development group primarily of accountants, I was asked by the Nanaimo News Bulletin thrice-weekly free newspaper to provide a profile of myself, which would be published in that paper, owned by the Black Press group, on Nov. 17th, two days before the election. The instructions which I received from them for formatting my piece were quite specific - a 120 word limit (not counting my photo, name, age and career) with any excess over this amount being trimmed from the end of the piece. Well, for some inexplicable reason, it didn't quite work out that way. Even though I was 8 words (1 to 2 lines) under the limit, instead of following their already established and communicated rules, they selectively removed information from the previously inviolate 'career' section.
Information such as the fact that I was a semi-retired chemical engineer (they kept the 'semi-retired' but dropped the 'chemical engineer'), which just might have been important for Lantzville residents in ascertaining my suitability in analyzing and 'overseeing' capital projects within the District. Remember, the 120 word limit was supposed to be in addition to the name, age and career!

Unfortunately, this isn't the first time (and I am sure it will not be the last) that the media appears to have insinuated their own agenda upon us. I had long ago stopped submitting 'Letters to the Editor' to this particular paper because they would invariably strip words (or whole sentences/paragraphs) from my letters, often changing the meaning and intent of what I had written. The final straw was when I told them to not publish a letter I had submitted if they couldn't run it, as written, and guess what happened?

Don't ever kid your self that the media - print, television and even internet don't have an agenda because you will be sorrily disappointed. In the United States, conservatives were so disgusted with the perceived bias of the 'left-wing' media that they came up with a solution - they would create a right-wing media which, of course, would be just as biased as what they had previously railed against. And some people would call that progress!

This Just In!
Since I don't regularly read the Nanaimo News Bulletin (due to its lack of independence and disrespectful treatment of 'Letters to the Editor'), I almost missed this! In the May 3rd edition, Lantzville's Mayor, Colin Haime, who is mentioned numerous times in my "Chutzpah' blog (http://vigilantz.blogspot.com/), offers a letter of congratulations to the News Bulletin on its 20th anniversary for its "breaking news and in-depth features on issues that impact us all... with both accuracy and professionalism reflective of a highly professional publication". Is it just me or does it seem just a little 'over-the-top' for a politician to be congratulating the media?!

B.C. Community Services Minister Chong Takes Strong Action!?!

Here is a 'Letter to the Editor' which I have sent to a selection of Black Group newspapers in response to a 'planted' article, written by their Tom Fletcher and which appeared in those newspapers in the last month or so. As far as I can tell, it only appeared in two of them, one of them being the Nanaimo News Bulletin and heavily edited at that. As it turns out, it is as good a way as any to launch my efforts to have the provincial government bring our municipal election rules into the modern age.

Dear Editor,
I read with great interest the recent article by Tom Fletcher regarding Minister of Community Services, Ida Chong's, mission to tighten B. C. civic election rules. With those elections now only 7 months away, the article was, if nothing else, at least timely.
These changes (the enforcement of which, like the rest of the disclosure requirements, will also be spotty and largely ineffective - for just one example of what I am talking about, consider the Bill King case in Nanaimo where this former councillor was acquitted because he had not been given the required 30 days to correct the 'deficiency' in his financial disclosure statement, involving a $1500 campaign contribution from a local developer) are largely minor and irrelevant and, therefore, simply 'window-dressing'.
If Minister Chong were really serious about tightening up the civic election rules, she could start by requiring an independent body to oversee the elections, much like our provincial and federal elections, instead of typically the senior employees of each municipality. Since many of the same politicians who have appointed the local election officials will be candidates in the election, there is at least the very strong perception of a conflict of interest.
Another area which certainly needs to see significant, real tightening is the use of electronic voting machines for counting our votes. The B.C. government needs to develop and maintain a list of tested and approved voting machines and require that municipalities wanting to use them have minimum standards in place to test and verify their proper operation and security. When machines currently being used in a significant number of municipalities in B. C. have been shown to be hackable by anyone with a card reader, a copy of Microsoft Access and a little know-how (see http://www.blackboxvoting.org/ - look for the Hursti hack reports) and 'standard' verification procedures will not catch any irregularities or tampering, I am sure we are all concerned.
We should demand no less from those charged with protecting our hard-fought and precious democratic rights.