The Black Rod

And while we're on the topic of scandals, last week The Black Rod discovered a missing piece of the puzzle in the scandal known as O'Learygate. You'll remember this involves the Seven Oaks School Division's disastrous participation in the Swinford Park real estate development, and the repeated assurances of Superintendent Brian O'Leary that it was all on the up and up, nothing amiss, stop asking, go away. The school division funded the construction of the housing development in a gamble to raise money. It was also a scheme to jump the queue and get a new school built in the expanding suburb, even though the School Board hadn't asked for funding and weren't on the list for a replacement high school. When caught, they claimed their foray into land development would turn a tidy profit. The Education Minister, Peter Bjornson, even repeated the claim in the House, explaining why he had told a concerned taxpayer who wrote to him, that his questions were unfounded....

With the new year still fresh, it's time to turn to that which everyone wants to know --- the future.And we don't know of a better prognosticator than the Babe Ruth of psychics, Canadian Nikki Pezaro, Psychic to the Stars . Babe Ruth is known for holding the record for home runs in single season, but how many people know he also had the record for strikeouts. We do, and that's why we don't focus on what Nikki got wrong, but what she got right. Nikki's claim to fame is that she forecast the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. She is one of three or four people in the English speaking world whose predictions were documented.She did it on the Toronto radio station The Edge months before Sept. 11. Like you, Sharon Dunn of the National Post had her doubts. So she decided "that perhaps this is one prediction I should check out for myself, and I make a call to Jeff Domet, who worked at the station at the time and who is now the producer of The Humble & Fred Show on Mojo ...

The police were still collecting evidence at the scene of Winnipeg's latest murder, when Manitoba's Liberal Party candidates held a news conference to pitch their election platform. Public safety? The crack cocaine epidemic? Gun control? Naww. The Liberal Party's priority was more money to the Aspers for their stalled Tower of Human Rights Babble (\/) at the Forks. That plus money to expand the national microbiology laboratory in Winnipeg, and more money for research at the province's three universities. Oh, and money for farmers, and immigration, and aerospace, and wellness centres. And, an east-west power grid, and another overpass somewhere, and rainbows on your birthday. In Manitoba, it was patronage politics as usual. When shootings occur in ridings where the party gave up up before the election was even called, those voters don't count. Just keep ducking. Halfway across the country, in Surrey, B.C., NDP leader Jack Layton had a news conference of his own and h...

We can only hope you join us as we cry: Stop the Insanity! Oh, we're not talking about the random shootings in major cities, not yet, anyhow; we'll get to that at a later time.We're talking about....well....insanity. In the past couple of days we've watched prominent Liberals and far-left columnists like Frances Russell turn into raving loons from the mania that's overcome them now that some polls have the Conservatives leading. On Tuesday, Paul Martin came to town to start Stage Two of his election campaign. After a speech to the Canadian Club, he ran like a jack rabbit from the reporters waiting to ask him questions. In his place stood his Manitoba lieutenant, Reg Alcock. But what a stand-in. Alcock's eyes were shiny and bulging from their sockets. He had such a wide phony smile screwed on his face he looked like The Joker. He spit answers at the press like a junkie freshly fixed on meth. If there had been a sofa in the room, we swear he would have jumped on i...

As tradition has it, the year-end is the time to proclaim our Newsmaker of the Year and Story of the Year. The Black Rod's editorial board was unanimous this year in choosing Manitoba Auditor General Jon Singleton, and his report into the Crocus Investment Fund. No story had as much impact on Manitobans as the collapse of the Crocus Fund, a house of cards that toppled as soon as Singleton's report unveilled the unvarnished facts. And how the mighty have fallen. From a day when a visit from Crocus representatives could intimidate legislators and still criticism in the press to receivership, a class action lawsuit, and an RCMP investigation. * Tens of thousands of Crocus investors watched the value of their retirement savings evaporate. * The credibility of the NDP government was shredded. * The leader of the Opposition admitted he backed down under Crocus pressure, and before year's end, he quit. * Waves from the collapse extended to the Workers Compensation Board where some...

Don't you hate it when you're interested in a story but there aren't enough details for you to fully understand what happened?We do. And like you, we were transfixed by this week's tragedy in Toronto. We know that shots were fired in downtown Toronto as Boxing Day crowds filled the street, a 15-year-old girl was killed, and six people were wounded. Still, we wanted to know more. So, as an exercise, we trolled for information and tried to put it together a better picture of what transpired on Yonge Street.We know that about 5:19 p.m. shooting broke out in the vicinity of the Footlocker store on the west side of Yonge Street, just south of Elm. Witnesses estimated eight to ten shots were fired. The circumstances of who fired the shots is still murky, so we'll leave that till last.When the firing stopped, one person was dead and six were hurt, two of them critically. * Since the shooting was centred on Footlocker, we'll start there. Jane Creba, 15, had been shot i...

It's a case of the worst of the news media and the best of the blogosphere. Throughout the current election campaign, The Black Rod has been taking the Peter Kent Challenge and monitoring the press, primarily in Winnipeg, for an alleged anti-Conservative bias. But here's a case from a national news service that's so blatant it must be recorded. Last week the Conservatives objected to a Liberal attack ad that used a photo of Tory leader Stephen Harper speaking with BQ leader Gille Duceppe to imply they are colluding against Canada and only the Liberals can save the country. CTV.ca carried a story about the row-a story that included this paragraph. " But Harper stopped short Friday of vowing his party would avoid negative campaigning in its bid to mislead the public in his bid to form a Conservative government. "Anything we will be saying in this campaign will be factual and accurate. I can't promise it will all be pretty." This wasn't ...

Christmas week, and especially Christmas Day, are long known as "slow" news days - that is reporters and their editors coast to their days off with plenty of year-end reviews in the can, the obligatory Santa, weather and shopping mall stories dominating what passes for coverage, and reporters and columnists trolling for stories of human despair and hope, whatever makes the front page or gets on the air. But yesterday may have been the last time we will see the long-standing Christmas truce between Winnipeg newsrooms hold. All-out war is about to break loose in the local TV market in the coming ratings period, because of a shift in the schedule that will see all 4 local newscasts compete in the 6 PM slot for a dwindling viewership. And as we all know, in every war, there are winners, and losers. Last week Global revealed that in March, they will flip-flop their news block, moving their national broadcast with Kevin Newman to the 5.30 PM slot and the local newscast to 6 PM. It ...

Turncoat MP Belinda Stronach features in two election stories that ran in the local dailies Thursday. In the story that appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press, she was the centrepiece. In the story that appeared in the Winnipeg Sun, she was not mentioned. Only readers who knew the entire story from the blogosphere knew of her role in it. Yet these two stories speak volumes to readers about the newspaper election coverage they're getting. The coveted Page One spot above the fold went to Free Press reporter Paul Samyn for his national exclusive about the trouble Belinda Stronach was in. He reported that the Elections Canada is "reviewing" her 2004 campaign for breaking the law on spending limits. For a Liberal cabinet minister responsible for her party's democratic renewal policy, this is more than embarassing, especially during another election campaign. She denies she's being "investigated or probed" (her word, not ours, honest.) Samyn, ...

The last place you would expect to find bias in the media is in a story about bias in the media. You'd think the reporter and editors would be doubly careful about anything that would even hint at a bias. You would be wrong. The Winnipeg Free Press has been stung by The Black Rod's stories citing its reporters and editors in the Peter Kent Challenge. Last week the paper decided to address the issue in a circuitous manner--by printing a story that says the Canadian public believes the news media coverage of the election is fair and honest. So there. The story was headlined "Most Canadians think media giving it straight." Written by Canadian Press reporter Stephen Thorne, it was a story carried across the country. But today, reporter Stephen Thorne and Canadian Press become Exhibit E of The Black Rod's continuing Peter Kent Challenge. Thorne bases his story on an online poll being conducted by Decima Research, with the help of Carleton University School of Journali...