Comments on: The Wreck of the Calgary Herald

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 11:39:37 +0000

Meanwhile, and not surprisingly, Mathew Ingram’s done a much better job of summarizing the story than I have.

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 08:12:08 +0000

The Toronto Sun splashed the headline “Dead Wrong” across their cover today. So I think they win the prize for saying that Gordon Lightfoot’s fine in the most ominous, attention grabbing way possible.

Personally, I would have preferred “Dead? Wrong!”

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:28:02 +0000

This all happened while I was on my way home from work, so let me respond to both comments in kind.

YSCYF: If the Calgary Herald reporter didn’t confirm the wire service report, then that’s a ball dropped and a job poorly done. And if all Bachman was able to do was confirm a rumour he’d heard, then I’m afraid he was indeed a third party, and a poorly informed one at that.

Finally, I clearly never placed total blame on the Herald for getting the story out there; anyone who bothered to read and grasp the whole post would have gotten that a) I put the initial blame on the rumour mill, and clearly didn’t attempt to identify an initial source because I wasn’t in a position to, and b) I never once insinuated that the whole thing was the Herald’s fault, let alone that they were even the only ones to report the falsehood. I alluded to them in the title of the post, I'll grant you that, but I hardly dismissed anyone and everyone else who played a part in this whole debacle, including myself for linking to the Herald's article as a skeptical party.

So not to be confrontational, but I’m afraid you’re the one who’s totally in the wrong and stands to learn a lesson about journalism and skepticism.

acthomas: It turns out that I agree with everything you said above. We should hang out, dude.

By: acthomas

acthomas — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:10:12 +0000

Matt, did you write that comment deliberately to enhance the satire element of your own post? If not, you couldn’t have done a better job… newspapers are responsible for their content, no matter whether they technically employ the reporter or just subscribe to their service.

By: You should check YOUR facts

You should check YOUR facts — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:16:36 +0000

It’s apparent you have not done your research when writing this blog post. Calgary Herald did not make up the story…it was obtained from their wire service, from a reporter who did not properly confirm what they were told.
It is interesting to note, though, that Ronnie Hawkins did confirm first-person to the reporter that the rumour was true….hence he is not a ‘third-party source,’ as you so put it.

Before you criticize the news media perhaps you should take some time to understand how it works and who individual newspapers take their marching orders from. Yes, the Herald posted the story because that is what papers do when something comes in off their wire service, but they had no part in writing the story or the confirmation of the facts.

If anything this is a case of why media conglomerates can be detrimental to their own objective, but to place the blame on one paper shows just how little you know about the subject.

Next time you blog, take the time to find out what actually happened, instead of relying on Twitter to form you opinions for you.