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Friday, August 8, 2014

On the recent coverage of Justin Trudeau's "terror mosque" visit

The controversy over Justin Trudeau's 2011 visit to a Wahhabi mosque in Montreal associated with al Qaida recruiting is dying down as ongoing events in the world take precedence in the news. But there are a few final points worth noting about the media kerfuffle over the matter.

Correspondents for Sun News and Postmedia are taking pot shots at each other about the coverage, with Jon Kay of the National Post essentially accusing the Sun of "Islamophobia," for running the story, and Sun correspondents Ezra Levant and Brian Lilley suggesting the Post and other mainstream media are running interference for the inept Liberal Party leader.

As someone who has been published in the National Post and as a frequent guest on Sun News, I have an affinity for both organizations. I think they both do good work,  both make crucial contributions to Canada's information landscape, and more importantly still, both as rivals and competitors, their differing views are needed to keep each other honest.

Sure, sometimes Sun News goes overboard and chomps down on a narrow issue like a rottweiler on a steak bone. But Canadians really do have a mostly 'consensus media,' with an almost uniform outlook, where many reporters are pathetically uninformed about the issues the report on and impose their biases while pretending to be impartial. Given that, Sun News' different perspective and willingness to ask questions other news outlets won't is absolutely essential. Many times, important issues have come to light only because Sun News covered them and shamed the mainstream media into following suit.

On the other side, most of the National Post's reporters and editorialists are anything but uninformed. Jon Kay is an exceptionally knowledgeable journalist as well as being a tremendously gifted writer, and along with Andrew Coyne, George Jonas and many others, they probably have the best editorial staff of any newspaper in Canada. They often bring a reasoned, rational, balanced, fact-based perspective that is too often lacking in the rest of Canada's dailies.

Getting back to the Trudeau mosque visit, I have to lean towards Sun News on this one.

There are some who have pointed out that Trudeau's mosque visit is just what politicians do. If what Trudeau did was so terrible, then why not the same outrage from Sun News over a visit by Conservative cabinet minister Jason Kenney to the Jaffari Centre, which had been implicated in a radical, anti-Semitic education curriculum and has links to the Iranian dictatorship?

As it happened the National Post did report on Kenney's visit to the Jaffari Centre, with a very different sort of headline, "Jason Kenney visited Toronto-area Islamic centre tied to organization that disseminated anti-Semitic literature, " than the Trudeau mosque visit evoked in the Post.

Trudeau and his spokespeople have been shifting their excuses for the mosque visit, sometimes claiming it was to promote pluralism and others saying that he was ignorant of the mosque being a centre of extremism. The latter was in essence the same excuse used by Jason Kenney.

But there are compelling reasons why Kenney's excuse rings more true than Justin Trudeau's. Kenney has proven his bones about radicalism and extremism, having directly taken on the terror-supporting radicals of  Palestine House, The Canadian Islamic Congress, and The Canadian Arab Federation, with the Cabinet Minister even successfully fighting a law suit by the latter after he pulled their federal funding.

The Liberal leader's history and behaviour are very different.

Trudeau's visit to the radical mosque was and is part of a pattern of moral relativism and the coddling of extremists that the media other than Sun News has been all too happy to overlook. It was a terrible decision on the part of the Liberal Party leader to go to a mosque which promoted material advocating the killing of apostates, made worse by Trudeau's subsequent boasting about the visit, long after he knew or should have known about its extremism and links to terrorism.

Trudeau's brother and senior political advisor Alexandre partnered with Iran's state-controlled PRESS TV to make what was basically a propaganda film for Iran's nuclear program and Omar Alghabra, another of his senior advisers who is also a federal Liberal candidate, has been active in attacking Israel for defending itself from the terror group Hamas.

It would seem obvious that calling out such behavior by Trudeau, considering he could potentially be the next Prime Minister of Canada, is the responsibility of journalists. Maybe attacking Sun News for doing that is indicative of a heated journalistic rivalry, but it does nothing to inform Canadians about the policies and practices of someone who is trying to attain the top position in government, nor does it serve Canadians particularly well.






9 comments:

truepeers said...

Sorry, when it comes to claims of ignorance, no one beats Justin.

Richard K said...

I'll grant you, claims of ignorance are more convincing from Justin Trudeau than from any other Canadian federal politician.

Chris B said...

"Jon Kay is an exceptionally knowledgeable journalist as well as being a tremendously gifted writer, and along with Andrew Coyne, George Jonas and many others, they probably have the best editorial staff of any newspaper in Canada"

Holly Molly, I thought I'm on a conservative blog but apparently I was damn wrong, all above journalists are damn LIBERALS, and by liberal I mean SOCIALLY liberals or in Canadian political lingo Red Tory or PROGRESSIVE conservatives same like John Tory for the Toronto Mayoral Race your damn "exceptional" Jonathan Kay has already publicly endorsed, watch the video in this NP article and find out for yourself who he supports in the race:

http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/08/08/john-tory-jumps-into-lead-in-toronto-mayoral-campaign-olivia-chow-falls-to-third-poll/

BTW, is not just being pro-Israel that counts to be a TRUE conservative, Michael Coren might be pro-Israel, same Sue Ann Levy, but they are socially LIBERAL and that's got nothing to do being CONSERVATIVE. Personally I DESPISE both of them.

The only Canadian Conservative journalists are Ezra Levant and Brian Lilley.

BTW, about 75% of American Jews voted for LIBERAL Obama in 2008 and 2012, why? cause they are first and foremost liberals as stated many times by Charles Krauthammer (a TRUE Conservative)on Fox News.

And to end my damn rant here, there are NO conservative media outlets like Fox News, print or TV media, NP is a socially LIBERAL newspaper and for Sun News as long as they allow liberal Michael Coren to still have his show they are no longer a 100% conservative news media as they used to be in 2010.
On Fox News, ALL show HOSTS are fiscally AND socially conservative with the exception of socially liberal Geraldo Rivera, they have 19 liberals as contributors but none is a show host, that's what I call a TRUE conservative news media in an ocean of damn liberal news propaganda.

All the best out there.

PS That's why now-liberal Michael Coren openly supports John Liberal Tory for Mayor:

http://www.torontosun.com/2014/06/27/i-was-wrong

Richard K said...

You probably wouldn't like me much either then. I'm not a social conservative; more of a libertarian when it comes to social issues and am both pro-Gay rights and pro-abortion rights. But I respect the right of people to have different opinions than I.

Chris B said...

Yes, so you're socially liberal (or progressive, if you like more this term) same like Obama, Clintons, Trudeau, Whynne, etc. and pro-Israel.
And like you maybe at least 95% of all Canadian Media, journalists included, I mean 100% progressives and ~75% pro-Israel. That's why it's called Mainstream Media, right?
Honestly, except Ezra Levant and Brian Lilley, plus Charles Adler but he's not on SNN anymore, I don't know of any other TRUE conservative in Canadian Media or social blogs, IF you know of any, please let me know.
And that's why I've been watching Fox News for 11+ years now, cause no TRUE conservative Canadian Media Networks.

Richard K said...

I don't call myself "progressive" in that sense. I do think my views are progressive, but since the word has become a euphemism for "socialist" or "Marxist" in that context it doesn't apply to me at all.

There are some Canadian, socially conservative blogs out there. You could try Life Site News (http://www.lifesitenews.com/), The Interim (http://www.theinterim.com/), and the very good blog, Socialist Studies (http://socialiststudies.blogspot.ca/). And of course the wonderful Kathy Shaidle at Five Feet of Fury (fivefeetoffury.com)

Chris B said...

Hi Richard, thank you very much for the links, I've seen Kathy couple of times on SNN when I used to watch SNN and that was 2010 and 2011 only. For sure I will take a look at her blog plus other conservative blogs as well.

For me, there is no difference btwn a progressive and a liberal, I guess liberal is the traditional word for somebody with leftist views when progressive is the modern world for the same views, same like homosexual (traditional word) vs. gay (the modern word), right?

Also for me being a liberal or progressive refers mostly for social views and issues, when for the economic issues we have communists (born and lived 26 years in RO, Ceausescu, right? until '88 when I defected to West), socialists, Marxists, free market capitalists (me for instance) and of course damn anarchists. But I also hate CRONIC Capitalism aka bailing out car companies, banks and green energy businesses (Solyndra-like)with hard-earned taxpayer money simply b/c they are too big to fail.

Like a damn sucker I used to be a liberal until 1) 9/11, 2) Iraq War, 3) Unelected Ontario Judges decided to ORDER the then Ernie Eves Govt to allow same-sex marriage and then when no national referendum (in a democracy the will of the ppl is paramount) was allowed by damn Jean Chretien and Paul Martin.

That's why I'm now a hardcore anti-liberal, socially, fiscally, militarily, etc.

I wanted to post some links but C/P not allowed in this very comment.

Be safe, have a great weekend and a warm summer.

Richard K said...

You have a great summer too, Chris!

Matthew said...

to Chris B:

Charles Adler is not a social conservative