Re-Examining Garth’s Ethics

In a recent story, Julie van Dusen referred to Garth Turner as “a millionaire, beholden to no one.” But how did Garth get to be so fabulously wealthy?

Van Dusen could have asked Wendy Mesley. It turns out that Garth and his production company, Millenium Media Television, were featured in a forgotten CBC Disclosure investigative report in 2002. The summary:

This story is an inside look into how some TV business shows are charging companies to appear on their programs. It’s called “pay for play” and often it allows companies to have editorial input during the filming and scripting process. Good coverage can then raise the company’s stock price. It’s a win-win situation for everyone - except the viewers, who are not in on the deals.

Was Millenium in the pay for play business? John Schram:

John Schram, CEO of a healthcare company called We Care Health Services Inc., says “a charming lady” approached him. She “wanted to know if I’d be interested in having our company profiled on her show.”

She told Schram that she was associated with the Board of Trade show and “Garth Turner would be doing a lead in and voice over” for the profile.

“When I’m seeing someone interviewed on a TV program I would expect that it’s done more with a journalistic motive in mind, and it’s done without any payment.”

The woman told Schram she would come by his company and shoot “a short video of me and the company. I guess it was shortly after that, she mentioned a fee attached to this. And that’s when my antenna went up.”

Schram says the fee was in the $6,300 - $6,500 range, and he “didn’t like the aspect that I was going to pay for it.

Fascinating reading on the man who now has the temerity to lecture the rest of us on all things moral and ethical.

Alberta PC Party Leadership Candidate Results Broken Down By Riding

With the results of Saturday’s leadership election still filtering through the media, expect the long winded columnists to inject their own analysis of the results. There is however something to be said about seeing the results represented visually. An old friend of ThePolitic.com sent in the first ballot results projected on to a riding map of Alberta:

Recognition of an oppressed minority in Quebec

Hmmm. I go away for awhile and a constitutional fracas erupts. I don’t really have much to add to the passionate defences at Andrew Coyne’s website or Paul Wells or Warren Kinsella .

I do have one question, though. If the word NATION has sacramental significance to those in the Eastern Media, why is the same sacramental significance not accorded to MARRIAGE?

Just asking.

Garth Turner: A Tough Choice

Via BBS:

Calgary Sun’s Rick Bell: Humourless, Unrepentant Lefty

Over the years, many of us around Calgary have been treated to Rick Bell’s sense of humor. We have seen him loose some hair and many pounds, but not his wit. Sadly, last night some of us saw him lost his head.

I was talking to a group of friends last night at the Roundup Centre, waiting for results of the Alberta Tory leadership race to come in. The place was not quite packed yet, but there were lots of folks around. I noticed that we were standing within earshot distance from Rick Bell from the Calgary Sun, who was pontificating to some of his journalist colleagues from CBC.

If Ted Morton wins, he said, “it will not be the neo-cons in power, it will be the paleo-cons.” Our ears perked up, and when Bell realized that we were listening, he took a couple of steps back away from us, and with a smirk on his face he said he was an “unrepentant lefty.” We all laughed at the quickness with which he was backpedaling under the guise of humor.

I wanted probe the depths of Bell’s humor. I pulled my I-pod from my pocket and asked Bell point blank to go on record:

Civitatensis: I’m going to try to see if he [Rick Bell] would go on record as an unrepentant lefty? Rick,… would you go on record as an unrepentant lefty?

Bell: [long pause]

Civ: No?

Bell: That was called a joke.

Civ: Oh, okay

At that point, Bell walked away from us, somewhat rattled. I thought it was over, and I turned the pod off, but I was mistaken. Bell turned around and came back toward us, visibly agitated. He was ranting about being threatened. No threats were uttered, of course. It seemed more like the reaction of a man who had been caught doing something that he is not supposed to be doing.

Bell: [unintelligible] …team on more than one occasion. Why don’t you put that on the record?

Civ: I am not threatening you. I’m just saying, would you go on record saying what you said before?

Bell: It was a joke! [pause] Have a sense of humor!

Civ: The one who is getting agitated, without a sense of humor is you, Rick!

Bell: Because you don’t know the difference between a joke and a non-joke.

Civ: But why…

Bell: [unintelligible] …authorities the Morton people say that they’ll deal with people like me when Ted’s premier.

Civ: But why are you getting agitated, Rick?

Bell: Because I don’t like being threatened.

Civ: Who’s threatening you, Rick?

At this point, Bell walked away once again, he moved toward his media friends who asked him what was going on. One can still hear him say “No, don’t talk, they’re taping now!” I turned the pod off, and I put it away. Curious people had begun to gather to see what the commotion was about. Concerned bystanders were asking us who the ranting man was.

To our surprise, Bell came at us again, and I didn’t have time to pull the pod out in time. He walked right by us moving in the opposite direction from where he was talking to his friends and yelled out: “You have no sense of humor. That’s why you’re gonna lose!” The small crowd that had gathered burst out in a very loud laughter. Bell then paced back to his point of origin under the sneers of those present.

The whole scene was unseemly. We could not believe that the self-proclaimed comedian would not let go. Bell’s judgment was truly off.

I’m not a regular Calgary Sun reader, but I have sometimes read Bell’s writings, and I had a very different impression of him. He comes off as a thoughtful man in most of his columns. But not last night. His training and education surely abandoned him. He kept going away and coming back at us, his voice fluctuating.

Notice how the charge Bell made is that I have no sense of humor, but the one behaving like a sour lemon was he. He teased us but he could not understand that we were teasing him back. I suspect that his raging mood was a product of feeling that he had been “caught.” He had no idea that what I recorded was only what I transcribed here. He probably thought that I had taped his entire conversation with his colleagues, and G-d only knows what he had said before we heard him referring to Morton as a political dinosaur. He was worried, and I suspect that he overreacted because of it.

Let me say very clearly that I didn’t tape Bell without his knowledge. The question I asked was blunt, “would you go on record?” He saw the recording pod in my hand, he had fair warning that he was being taped and he still elected to say what he said and how he said it.

His response was to talk about alleged threats at the same time that he accused us of being humorless. That was peculiar, to say the least. He claimed to be upset because we supposedly don’t know the difference between a joke and what is not a joke. Since he doesn’t know us from Adam, why would he care about our supposed lack of humor?

Bell’s knee-jerk reaction was to get defensive and talk about threats right away. When asked directly who was threatening him, he would not give an answer. More curious still is that he asked this humble blogger to put the alleged threats on record. Does he not have the ability to put the supposed threats on record himself? Bell is not a shrinking flower. He has run for public office and he knows how things work in politics. He is a veteran columnist for a major newspaper in Calgary, and if he has been threatened by someone, he knows to alert the authorities. This is Canada, not Rwanda.

If Bell means that perhaps some of Morton’s supporters have written to him taking him to task for his lack of journalistic objectivity, well, that comes with the territory. The anti-Morton lecture he was giving to his colleagues was probably worse than what he had written in his column, and we were able to laugh about it –and about him.

Unrepentant lefty is one thing. That’s a political choice I can respect. But the attempt at humorlessly painting himself as a victim when Bell was caught verbally victimising a candidate behind the scenes; ranting and raving in a public place as a reaction was unseemly and worthy more of pity than scorn.

crossposted from civitatensis.ca

Reaching out to Rural Alberta

Larry Johnsrude points to two examples of how rural ridings have given Jim Dinning the thumbs down, but in different ways:

Little Bow:
Morton — 1,417
Dinning — 271

Here’s another:
Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville:
Stelmach — 2,461
Dinning — 144

Given the preferential ballot to be used in the run-off vote, it’s obvious that both Dinning and Morton need to be attracting the second votes of Stelmach supporters (in addition to the support of people like Oberg, who will likely go to Morton). Morton can do it if he continues to enhance his rural appeal to a group that now understands that it will have to mark a second ballot for a candidate other than Stelmach.

Dinning cannot win by, as he did last night, attacking the decentralist and socially conservative values that have caused rural Alberta to embrace Morton.

Jim Dinning: Another Paul Martin Moment

*

“There are some 30,000 voters that voted elsewhere and I’m going to try to talk to every single one of them face to face and convince them to vote for Jim Dinning’s version of what the future of Alberta is about.”

Jim Dinning: Lowered Expectations

A bullish Jim Dinning expressed confidence this evening that he would not win on the first ballot:

“We’re very confident that we’re going to move to a second ballot.”

Things seem to have changed from just a few weeks ago when Dinning was anticipating a Paul Martin-esque sweep on the first ballot.

Voter Intimidation Complaint and the Calgary Poll

I’ve received a tip that the Oberg campaign has submitted an official complaint to the Progressive Conservative party officials, alleging voter intimidation by certain Calgary MLAs. Apparently certain Calgary MLAs were openly campaigning inside of the polls and in many cases sitting at the voter registration tables.

MLAs sitting at the voter registration tables seems to be a common occurrence. Commenters at Renewing the One Party State report that MLAs Greg Melchin, Wayne Cao, and Dave Rodney were all sitting at the voter registration table. All three MLAs are outspoken Dinning supporters.

Licia Corbella endorses Morton

In sharp contrast to the wimpy editorial endorsement of Jim Dinning:

I’m Supportin’ Morton. No, I’m not just reportin’ on Ted Morton’s catchy campaign slogan.

People are askin’ so I’m tellin’. When it comes to how this province should be led, I’m with Ted.

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