What an interesting day yesterday was
Yesterday's post, that asked the question - "Where is the local media" on the Corcoran vs the Bishop of Peterborough, certainly educated me as the day went on. Firstly the post was up and then an email from one of the media defending itself came in, then the radio station posted a paragraph of rewrite from the "Catholic Register", with nothing new in it, and then an email exchange took place about the ethics of the situation.
As explained to me no responsible journalist can just rewrite a story stick their name on it and then print it - that violates original copyright. The story was broken by Patrick B Craine on 7th July, on a website LifeSiteNews.com. He wrote an extensive story here that included a copy of the complaint sent to the tribunal here. The Catholic Register wrote about the story here on the 9th July and quoted Mr Corcoran some more, thereby avoiding copyright rewrite problems.
So back to the local absence on this story. An editor from one of the local MSM, in an email exchange, told me that he couldn't rewrite the story "that would be plagiarism." Unfortunately for him Mr Corcoran and the complainants have gone to ground and have clammed up giving no new material to the reporter assigned to it. But an enterprising editor might have seized on that silence as a new angle to the story and run with "All in Human Rights complaints case clam up!" and then get into the story using the two previous articles as background.
More about the Brighton railroad issue. Councillor Craig Kerr certainly isn't afraid to take on the lions. He is challenging the way that the County has interjected itself into the "grade separation" debate as a threat to the Town, “What he is saying is it doesn’t matter if Brighton votes on this or not, the county will do what it wants anyway,” Coun. Kerr said. “That’s highly improper. He basically threatened our council with consequences if we didn’t make a decision, and it prejudiced the decision of people.” (source NorthumberlandNews July 15 2009)
Claiming that the County will take over the process and that is a threat to the autonomy of the Town. As an observer of the issue the question to me is the behaviour of the Mayor, either with the complicit understanding of the Council (obviously not Mr Kerr) or on her own she has figured out a way to get the County to pay for a Municipal expense, a very expensive one to boot.
As explained to me no responsible journalist can just rewrite a story stick their name on it and then print it - that violates original copyright. The story was broken by Patrick B Craine on 7th July, on a website LifeSiteNews.com. He wrote an extensive story here that included a copy of the complaint sent to the tribunal here. The Catholic Register wrote about the story here on the 9th July and quoted Mr Corcoran some more, thereby avoiding copyright rewrite problems.
So back to the local absence on this story. An editor from one of the local MSM, in an email exchange, told me that he couldn't rewrite the story "that would be plagiarism." Unfortunately for him Mr Corcoran and the complainants have gone to ground and have clammed up giving no new material to the reporter assigned to it. But an enterprising editor might have seized on that silence as a new angle to the story and run with "All in Human Rights complaints case clam up!" and then get into the story using the two previous articles as background.
More about the Brighton railroad issue. Councillor Craig Kerr certainly isn't afraid to take on the lions. He is challenging the way that the County has interjected itself into the "grade separation" debate as a threat to the Town, “What he is saying is it doesn’t matter if Brighton votes on this or not, the county will do what it wants anyway,” Coun. Kerr said. “That’s highly improper. He basically threatened our council with consequences if we didn’t make a decision, and it prejudiced the decision of people.” (source NorthumberlandNews July 15 2009)
Claiming that the County will take over the process and that is a threat to the autonomy of the Town. As an observer of the issue the question to me is the behaviour of the Mayor, either with the complicit understanding of the Council (obviously not Mr Kerr) or on her own she has figured out a way to get the County to pay for a Municipal expense, a very expensive one to boot.
3 comments:
Sheeesh Ben, you got that MSM issue nailed.
Northumberland Today and Northumberland News are professional organizations with professional reporters. They are paid money by the community (advertising and subscription) to tell stories of the community to the community.
They had plenty of lead time -- but they sat on their ass. It might be worth noting that their writing staff are not Cobourg born and bred people and because of that fact they don't have the depth of community connections by which they could ferret out the story, let alone give it any depth.
That locals don't totally trust outsiders is a fact of life in every community. I have known some of the parishioners since I was a young un.
I have no objection to a local newspaper hiring 'outsiders" but it seems irresponsible for a news paper to put itself into a position where it has no locally bred talent on its roster, someone who has the community depth to tell the stories of that same community.
No one is asking the local MSM to cut and copy the stories of those who actually did get up off their ass to report it, and who had the depth of community to know what the hell was going on in the first place.
Northumberland News and Northumberland Today were lazy and incompetent, and defending themselves with plagarism is just a transparent fig leaf which doesn't hide the fact that they are poorly endowed.
The MSM are quick to boast that they are watchdogs for the community, but highly resent it when elements of the community examine their performance in the public domain.
Concerning this story, Northumberland News and Northumberland Today failed to inform the community in a timely manner of a major event that occurred within the community they profess to serve.
Who said everyone clammed up?
You still can't use other people's articles as background, unless their information is part of public record (like the official human rights commission complaint, which is fair game to one and all). If we did use something from another organization's story – say a quote – we'd have to say "Mr. Corcoran told the Catholic Register." Without the publication's approval it would still be borderlining on plagiarism and even with their approval, it would still be in bad taste, unless we're part of the same ownership group.
But again, I'm not worried about anyone clamming up.
The following is a 'comment' posted by Jim Corcoran on the SoCon blog last July 11 that can be read HERE
"I’m afraid you’re missing the point. The Bishop of Peterborough is being bullied by a small group of parishioners over his decision to appoint Father Hood as Pastor of this parish. The complaint about who he could appoint or not appoint to serve on the altar was only one in a long list of complaints designed to undermine the authority of the Priest and ultimately of the Bishop. The group of parishioners tried to threaten the Bishop with a public scandal on this issue, knowing that a public scandal around this issue was most likely to get a reaction from the Bishop, which it did. Unfortunalely, instead of placating this group, they were emboldened and continued their campaign against Father Hood, causing further division in the parish and within the Catholic community, driving others away. If you really care about the survival of Catholicism in Canada, take the time to fully research the issues before you jump to a hasty conclusion. This is a good Bishop, a good priest, and a good acolyte who are being attacted. We need to stand up for all of them, just as Christ would have."
It would appear that there is a power struggle going on between two groups of Catholics, and Mr Corcoran found the "perfect storm" by which his group of Catholics can defeat the other group of Catholics.
The pity is that the Ontario Human Rights Commission has been dragged in to act as the pit bull for one Cathlic group to impose its set of beliefs on the other group.
Why should the vast majority of non-Catholics in this province spend an enormous sum of money investigating and adjudicating on an intercine quarrel over a stupid and useless ceremonial rite?
With national media attention, this pathetic spat amongst religious idiots, has some knee-jerkistas calling for more power to the enforcement bureaucrazy, to others calling for the Ontario Human Rights Commission to simply toss the complaint into the garbage with the admonishment: "Children, children, children, grow up and stop the pathetic whining of your uber-sensitive feelings."
What a sad abuse of the Ontario Human Rights Commission.
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