Friday, January 30, 2009

Canadian Media Regret Their Errors

Canadian Media Regret Their Errors

January 30, 2009

By: Mike Fegelman

Dear HonestReporting Canada subscriber:                                                        

Serge Schmemann, former deputy foreign editor of the New York Times, once wrote:

"There is nothing a journalist fears more than having a correction printed about his story."

A media outlet's willingness to issue a correction and to rectify its error is a fair indicator of a news organization's commitment to media accountability and to its overall integrity.

In January alone, HonestReporting Canada and our members obtained an abundance of corrections and retractions by Canadian news organizations as the conflict between Israel and Hamas carried on. Here is a short list detailing our continued efforts and the latest media developments.

CBC.CA ISSUES CORRECTION AFTER HRC INTERVENTION

After CBC.ca falsely reported on January 22 that Israel had not opened border crossings to the Gaza Strip since the January 18 ceasefire, HonestReporting Canada notified CBC editors that Israel had in fact re-opened key Gaza border crossings (Kerem Shalom, Karni and Nahal Oz terminals) three times to allow for the transfer of humanitarian aid, cooking gas, and diesel fuel into the Gaza Strip.

On January 23, CBC.ca issued the following correction to remedy their error:

CBC "THE NATIONAL" ISSUES ON-AIR CORRECTION

CBC "The National" issued the following on-air correction on January 13 after the network wrongly implied that then president-elect Barack Obama had only expressed concern about the loss of civilian lives in the Gaza Strip, whereas in fact, he had also expressed vocal concern for the loss of civilian life in Israel as well.

To view the original error and the on-air correction online click on the images below.
 

Original Error

 

 On-Air Correction

  • Peter Mansbridge: "We want to set something straight for the record, last week following a story on civilian deaths in the Gaza, we said Barack Obama was concerned about the loss of civilian lives there. He also said that he was concerned about the loss of civilian life in Israel and that should have been mentioned in the story as well."

MONTREAL GAZETTE CORRECTS "OCCUPIED TERRITORY" REFERENCE

In a January 11 report about pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Montreal, a Gazette reporter erroneously described the Gaza Strip as an "occupied territory" a claim which is baseless and without merit given Israel's unilateral withdrawal of its soldiers and 8,500 settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

After bringing our concerns to the attention of Gazette editors, the following correction was issued on January 13:

HRC PROMPTS CANWEST TO ISSUE CORRECTION

The international and Canadian media were quick to castigate Israel after the UN claimed that Israeli tank shells had struck a UN aid vehicle, killing its workers.

Canwest News correspondent Matthew Fisher reported on January 10 that: "Humanitarian aid deliveries had been suspended on Thursday after two truck drivers were killed by what the UN said was an Israeli tank attack."

Contrary to this statement and as this Toronto Star correction confirms, only one UN driver was killed. More importantly, this report failed to indicate that the Israel Defense Forces had denied any responsibility for the death of the aid worker. As the Jerusalem Post reported also on January 10:

"The IDF was not responsible for the death of a Palestinian aid worker contracted to the UN and the wounding of two others on Thursday, the IDF Spokesman said Saturday.
 
An IDF investigation has found that it was not the army who fired on a UN truck at the Erez crossing," the IDF Spokesman's Office said….  in all probability, the aid workers were hit by Hamas gunfire.
 
The foreign press reports were based on UN sources, who later admitted to the Post that they were not sure in which direction the truck was headed when it was hit, and could also not say with certainty that tank shells were responsible."

Given the aforementioned error and serious omission, we asked Canwest News to rectify the false misconception that "two truck drivers were killed" and to update their readers about the new evidence which seems to exonerate any Israeli culpability in the aid worker's death or to at least cast some doubt into the UN's version of events.

On January 13, Canwest News issued the following correction (as seen below in the Montreal Gazette) over its wire service:

TORONTO STAR ISSUES CORRECTION AFTER HRC INTERVENTION

When publishing a letter to the editor, newspapers are responsible for fact checking a letter writer's claim before putting it to print. On January 4, a Toronto Star letter writer shockingly alleged that 950 West Bank Palestinians had been killed by Israeli settlers since 2000. As this allegation was patently false and as the Star and their letter writer could not provide any evidence to support this accusation, we demanded that a formal correction be issued.

On January 9, the Toronto Star did just that:

TORONTO SUN WRONG ON "ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS"

After the Toronto Sun's Peter Worthington had incorrectly described Hamas rocket attacks as being directed at Israeli "settlements," the following letter was submitted by HonestReporting Canada and printed in the January 16 edition to remedy this error:

HonestReporting Canada congratulates its members whose involvement and support have been crucial in keeping the media honest. By sending letters of complaint, you ensured that news organizations acknowledged and corrected their mistakes, and became sensitive to the facts of the Middle East.

 
HonestReporting.ca

To support our continued efforts to hold the Canadian news media accountable for their reporting on Israel, please donate here today. Through your donations, you can help ensure that Canadian journalists are held to the highest standards of "Honest Reporting."

Or send a cheque to:

HonestReporting Canada

P.O. Box 6, Station Q, Toronto, Ontario M4T 2L7

(416) 915-9157

Thank you for your ongoing commitment to fair and accurate
media coverage of Israel and the Middle East

 


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Evolution / Intelligent Design

Legitimate Questions Should Be Discussed

I am reminded of how established "science" has been wrong many times before such as in the case of Piltdown man. So could it be wrong now? Or has it been perfected? Should not reasonable arguments be considered?

We have become a nation of beggars

Terence Corcoran reports in the National Post on Friday, January 16, 2009 that the STIMULUS everyone is yelling for may only work over a short period and may actually MAKE THE ECONOMY WORSE over longer periods.

[Read the article below for the researchers who studied this phenomenon.]

POINTS

- "What if, as a wide and growing school of economists now suspect, the government spending and stimulus theory is a crock that is shovel-ready to be heaved out into the barnyard of economic waste?"

- Even disciples of Keynes, such as Harvard's Greg Mankiw, recently highlighted economic studies that show government spending binges -- shocks, they are sometimes called -- don't seem to help the economy grow. They might even make it worse.

-One of the studies cited by Mr. Mankiw was by two European economists (Andrew Mountford and Harald Uhlig), titled "What are the Effects of Fiscal Shocks?" It looked at big deficit-financed spending increases and found that they stimulate the economy for the first year, but "only weakly" compared with a deficit financed tax cut. The overriding problem is that the deficits crowd out private investment and, over the long run, may make the economy worse. "The resulting higher debt burdens may have long-term consequences which are far worse than the short-term increase in GDP."

-A paper by two economists, including the current chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, Olivier Blanchard, concluded that increased taxes and "increases in government spending have a strong negative effect on private investment spending."

-Roberto Perotti, an Italian economist with links to Columbia University, in "Estimating the Effects of Fiscal Policy in OECD Countries," found nothing but bad news for Keynesians. Economic growth is little changed after big increases in government spending, but there are signs of weakening private investment.

- What we all might logically intuit to be true -- spend government money, especially borrowed money, and you stimulate growth -- has long been thought to be a fallacy by some economists. That thought is now spreading. British economist William Buiter said the massive Obama fiscal stimulus proposals "are afflicted by the Keynesian fallacy on steroids."

The whole article by Terrance Corcoran follows:

Are you "shovel-ready," poised to hit the ground running, or merely desperate for cheap cash to get through the recession? If so, here's your last chance to apply to Ottawa for a piece of the massive government spending-bailout-infrastructure-stimulus operation now being prepared for Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's Jan. 27 budget extravaganza.

To get you going, the National Post has created an all-purpose Stimulus Canada application document. Simply make sure your company/institution fills out the form here to get in on the action.

We're just kidding, of course, or at least we were until our satirical Stimulus Canada General Application Form was mugged by reality, which is rapidly turning out to be funnier than the fanciful idea of a government department called Stimulus Canada. To all intents and purposes, Stimulus Canada already exists.

Government money to flow, the taps are opening, deficits are no problem. The spending, as Stephen Harper said after a meeting with the premiers on Friday, will be "very significant" and there will be "very significant deficits." That could mean new spending of $20-billion and deficits of $40-billion.

Industry groups, corporate opportunists, charities, municipal politicians, arts groups, provincial premiers, tech firms, mining companies, forestry operators, banks, money lenders -- in fact, just about everybody has come forward to get in on Canada's portion of what is turning out to be a mad global government stimulus pandemic.

Each claims to have a plan or an idea that they say would produce jobs, spending, investment and activity that would get Canada through the recession and stimulate the economy.

At some point, though, the clamour of claims and calls becomes absurd, and that point looks to have been crossed the other day in the United States when porn merchant Larry Flint said the U.S. sex industry was falling on hard times, business was down 25%, and it needed a $5-billion slice of the $1.2-billion U.S. stimulus program.

And why not?

Mr. Flint has a point. It is not totally illogical for anyone to think that way. If you spend a dollar somewhere -- whether building a bridge or operating a forest company or buying a car -- it generates activity. And, after all, it's a grand old economic theory, created by John Maynard Keynes, that spending, especially government spending, rolls through the economy on a giant multiplier, piling jobs on jobs, growth on growth.

Except for one problem: What if it's not true? What if, as a wide and growing school of economists now suspect, the government spending and stimulus theory is a crock that is shovel-ready to be heaved out into the barnyard of economic waste?

The Prime Minister, in his comments on Friday, seemed to be riding right into the barnyard. He said the government would be simply "borrowing money that is not being used" and "that business is afraid to invest." By borrowing that money, and turning it over to all the groups and interests looking for part of the stimulus spending, he would be jump-starting activity while the private sector got its legs back.

Even disciples of Keynes, such as Harvard's Greg Mankiw, recently highlighted economic studies that show government spending binges -- shocks, they are sometimes called -- don't seem to help the economy grow. They might even make it worse.

One of the studies cited by Mr. Mankiw was by two European economists (Andrew Mountford and Harald Uhlig), titled "What are the Effects of Fiscal Shocks?" It looked at big deficit-financed spending increases and found that they stimulate the economy for the first year, but "only weakly" compared with a deficit financed tax cut. The overriding problem is that the deficits crowd out private investment and, over the long run, may make the economy worse. "The resulting higher debt burdens may have long-term consequences which are far worse than the short-term increase in GDP."

Two other studies point in the same direction. A paper by two economists, including the current chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, Olivier Blanchard, concluded that increased taxes and "increases in government spending have a strong negative effect on private investment spending."

Roberto Perotti, an Italian economist with links to Columbia University, in "Estimating the Effects of Fiscal Policy in OECD Countries," found nothing but bad news for Keynesians. Economic growth is little changed after big increases in government spending, but there are signs of weakening private investment.

What we all might logically intuit to be true -- spend government money, especially borrowed money, and you stimulate growth -- has long been thought to be a fallacy by some economists. That thought is now spreading. British economist William Buiter said the massive Obama fiscal stimulus proposals "are afflicted by the Keynesian fallacy on steroids."

Over at Stimulus Canada, Mr. Harper's plan looks somewhat more modest and Canada is not in the same fiscal fix as the United States. But Ottawa and the provinces are clearly ready to borrow big wads of money from the future to stimulate the economy today. It's money that is supposedly sitting out there in the timid hands of investors who will be repaid with tax dollars later.

But if that stimulus spending does not generate much fresh economic growth, and the borrowing chews up money that private investors could invest in the future, the shovel-ready brigades who get the cash today will produce only short term gains at the expense of the long term health of the economy.

Educational Purposes Only

All articles quoted here are for educational purposes only. Canada-For-Truth encourages you to read the original articles on their respective sites.
We do not necessarily agree with all links posted here but we include them to bring balance to an unbalanced media.