Canadian journalism's shallow gene pool

Yesterday we had Margaret Wente of the Mail and Globe (hey, I can get things totally backwards too), writing about the John Edwards matter in an article entitled “Sex Lies and the National Enquirer”. That title scored about a 6 on the creative writing scale.

I can’t comment on the article itself as I never read it. I haven’t read a Margaret Wente article since she weighed in on the income trust matter in an article dated November 9, 2006. Just think. Margaret Wente with no business background whatsoever thought she had the whole income trust matter figured out in nine short days. I guess that’s what makes her a complete short as a writer. Ignorance trumps facts.

Today we have none other than L. Ian MacDonald sharing his peculiar brand of thoughts on the John Edwards matter, in an article entitled.....guess what.....Sex Lies Videotape! In the normal course that title would rank a score of 2 on the creative scale. However coming as it does the day after Margaret’s thingy, it ranks a complete zero.

Here’s a novel thought to consider. Rather than falling all over each other in an attempt to cover the John Edwards scandal, which is more a scandal about the media than it is about John Edwards, perhaps these sharp minds should turn their more productive selves to uncovering the scandal called manufactured tax leakage numbers. Perhaps they can find out why Flaherty demanded that the 18 pages of blacked out documents released under the Access to Information Act were demanded to be returned. I sent mine back by fax. I hope I haven’t confused any journalists yet?

There’s a $35 billion prize for the journalist who comes up with the correct answer first. Canadians would be most grateful. As it stands, they are anything but.