5.24.2007

Know Your Role

In the wake of Tuesday's ANTI POVERTY Committee action at B.C. Liberal offices in downtown Vancouver, Premier Gordon Campbell is furious with the media for not doing the job of the Vancouver Police Department. There is nothing wrong with your browser: after over a decade of getting whatever his BC Liberals wanted out of our newspapers, radio stations, and TV networks, Furious Gord is throwing a tantrum because something attached to a microphone and a camera didn't go his way.

I'm sorry Mr. Premier, but not every assignment for a local TV crew is going to play out like that joint BCTV/RCMP raid on Glen Clark's house a few years back, an exercise in police harassment and yellow journalism that you should be more than familiar with. Sometimes reporters in the field forget little details like how much money Canwest/Global donates to the BC Liberals, or that your Finance Minister Carole Taylor is a former CBC President who's kept a lot of connections. Sometimes journalists would rather report the news than make the news, and most journalists I know like to leave telling someone to stop smashing things to the police.

Let's review: Protesters are not criminals, Journalists are not Peace Officers, and Gordon Campbell is not much of a Premier.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Interesting conclusion. When a premier has to complain about the media filming and documenting what is happening and the media has something that could be called evidence and used in the "rule of law", but I digress. It appears from other matters that the premier doesn't comment on cases as it might affect the legal process or is it the premier who has his henchmen do that? But the conclusion is that what apc is doing is working!