The Black Rod

Manitoba's shiny new office to investigate police shootings has failed its first major test. When 24-year-old Mark DiCesare was surrounded by a veritable army of gun-toting police officers and blasted to eternity in an empty field in River Heights, the public wanted an answer to one, and only one, question. One. Count 'em. One. Did he have a gun? That's it. That's what everybody who heard the shocking news wanted to know. Did he have a gun? Once people knew the answer to that simple question, they could debate the need to shoot but at the same time would let the investigation take its course. "A police source" told the Winnipeg Free Press on Friday, Nov. 6, the day DiCesare was killed by Winnipeg police, that he did have a gun. And CJOB reported that "Brendan", who goes by one name like Madonna, also saw DiCesare with a gun, a "large" one. Yet, since the day police unloaded their deadly weapons, they've been strangely...

It's hard to say who should be more embarrassed by the latest mayoral election poll --- the pollsters, the press, or the funders?   The first crowd-sourced election poll in Canada turned out to be such a bust that the pollsters had to invent something new to give its funders to justify taking their money. Winnipeg's Probe Research Inc. issued a poll grading the support of the candidates for mayor, but with a 29 percent undecided response, the poll was less reliable than your daily horoscope. Ten percent undecided would be large.  Twenty percent would be huge.  But almost 30 percent is a joke, a bad joke that invalidates the alleged results. In a desperate move to keep some credibility, Probe Research invented a momentum index, claiming to measure which candidates are moving up in public opinion and which down.  When was the last time you heard of something like this?  Hint: NEVER. But they had to deliver something to the pri...

Even as month-old information is passed off as "news" by the Winnipeg Free Press, the biggest crime story in Winnipeg languishes untouched by the city's "professional" journalists. Crime reporters have been trying to put the latest outbreak of shootings and home invasions into context. CTV on Friday blamed it on a clash between two street gangs---MOB and Indian Posse. Trying to advance the story in Saturday's paper, FP reporter Mike McIntyre breathlessly wrote that "police and justice sources tell the Free Press the M.O.B. is no longer a united front and has broken into two factions..." http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/mob-breakup-is-bad-news---edited-166628926.html Uh, yeah. That's what the Winnipeg Sun reported ONE MONTH AGO after the details were revealed in open court. http://www.winnipegsun.com/2012/07/17/street-gang-splinters-into-two "A mysterious rift among members of a notorious Winnipe...

They say animals can detect natural disasters before they happen. Well, we, too, can detect disaster in the making and we say "head for the hills, there's some bad s...t coming." The latest clue is David Asper's op-ed in the Winnipeg Sun telling people to stop picking on his baby sister, Gail, for the debacle known as the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. http://www.winnipegsun.com/2012/04/11/gail-not-demon-of-cmhr-asper David A. devoted so much space to rewriting the history of the CMHR that it set off alarms that only dogs can hear. It's obvious that there's some very, very bad news about the museum on the horizon and the Aspers want to put as much space between themselves and doomsday as possible. We first spotted this tactic in December when the Winnipeg Free Press, the propaganda arm of the CMHR, published an editorial writing the Aspers out of the museum narrative and replacing them with P.M. Stephen Harper. That's right...

For a brief, shining moment two years ago a cheap two-bit car thief was a hero in Winnipeg media circles. His achievement? He was, declared the news media in the city, the victim of a police beating which had been CAUGHT ON TAPE. The media mob was unanimous. There was no doubt. Hadn't the Crown attorney dropped a raft of charges against poor Cody Bousquet because of the savage beating? Hadn't the judge convicted the police in the court of public opinion by declaring in open court that he had seen the beating with his own eyes? There, there, you could see the video for yourself posted as a public service on the news websites. Uh, oh. Along came Easter, 2012. Instead of hefty servings of turkey and stuffing, the reporters, columnists, pundits and sundry found themselves eating crow, bitter crow, sour crow and more crow with Matzah. A formal RCMP investigation that was universally expected to lead to criminal charges against the Winnipeg City poli...

Groan. Get this. A story based on information that's already two months old gets printed in a Toronto newspaper and the Winnipeg news media goes giddy chasing it. In the process, they missed the real news. Does Winnipeg have the worst journalists in the country or does it only seem that way? Winnipeg reporters went gaga over a story in the Globe and Mail that the Friends of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights have to raise almost $50 million more than they intended because of cost overruns. Duh. That was reported in Winnipeg in January when the CMHR revealed that construction costs had climbed by $41 million. So what's new? Apparently, the spin. Gail Asper, head fundraiser for the Friends, is now painting the group as the heroes of the story, riding to the rescue of the beleagured museum that's been abandoned by the heartless government. (Gag.) They will have to raise almost $200 million from private and corporate sources (sob) instead of the $1...

Ten days into the Manitoba election campaign, neither party can claim to have momentum. But Conservative Party leader Hugh McFadyen has drawn first blood. Or, more accurately, Winnipeg Sun columnist Tom Brodbeck drew first blood and McFadyen is riding piggyback on Brodbeck's work. Still, when even NDP apologist Dan Lett has to admit, grudgingly and reluctantly, in the Winnipeg Free Press that he was wrong, and Brodbeck and McFadyen were right, it's time to call in the cut man. http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/columnists/muddying-the-waters-on-budgets-129865583.html It's too early to say if this is the game changer, but the NDP's phony deficit figures could turn into just the integrity issue that tips the election. Unelected Premier Greg Selinger thought he was being clever when he delayed officially calling the provincial election until after his government released the final accounting of the 2010-11 budget on Friday, Sept. 2. The public ac...