On pots calling kettles black

Here’s an interesting twist for those few still concerned about the downward spiral of the traditional press in credibility and readership. Eighteen months ago, The Globe and Mail, the snootiest of Canada’s snooty traditional press, published an article by Vancouver free-lancer Shannon Rupp purporting to illustrate the shortcomings in credibility of non-traditional media like the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Wikipedia this week announced new measures to try to combat the ever-present threat of intentionally misleading information showing up in its entries because till now it has been an “open source” encyclopedia, meaning anyone can edit, remove or add to entries (those that are not locked down, that is).

I happen to know quite a bit about this Globe and Mail article because I was the subject of it. The author wrote that I was an illustration of the hazards of Wikipedia because she alleged I had fabricated publishing credits in order to fluff up my public record ahead of a local election I was involved in. As part of my electioneering, I created a brief entry about myself for inclusion on Wikipedia that included mention, among other things, of a 750-word essay in the form of a letter to the editor published in The Atlantic Monthly many years previously.

“Now for a fact check,” Rupp wrote. “The Atlantic could find no record of Mr Potvin . . . the magazine does not archive letters.” She goes on to add, “According to new-media thinking, however, Mr Potvin’s entry isn’t incorrect, it’s simply irrelevant because no one credible has bothered to edit it.” Rupp includes quotes from traditional journalism school instructors who speak of “liars,” “nonsense,” “shame,” “shysters,” “fabulists,” “vandals,” “misinformation,” and “deviant or dangerous people” who, like me, pop up on Wikipedia making it such a terrible place to go, as opposed to traditional media, “in which a professional has checked the information.”

But at the Atlantic Monthly web site, one can easily find the essay of mine the magazine published, available in pdf. It appears they do archive letters. A little research by the author, or perhaps a little checking of information by a professional at the Globe and Mail, might have avoided this embarrassing gaff. Or perhaps it might have avoided publishing the article at all, since the article hung the whole credibility of Wikipedia entirely on the entry about me, about which nothing at all was fabricated.

What makes this so interesting is, here we have traditional media drawing into question the credibility of non-traditional online media by deploying a fabrication of its own to do so. In its eagerness to put down its competitor, traditional media committed the very crime it accuses its competitor of committing.

Asked to reply to this point, the original author, Rupp shot back, “You’ve had your fifteen minutes of fame,” and she spoke of threats. The Wikipedia entry about me continues to make reference to Rupp’s Globe and Mail article that accuses me of fabricating my entry on myself at Wikipedia, and her unfounded accusation that I lied on Wikipedia were repeated in media reports about me appearing across the country during my ill-fated run for federal election in Vancouver-Kingsway last spring.

It deserves dumping, but . . .

Speaking of traditional media, The Vancouver Sun, ever the champion of small business, has recently been dumping stacks of free copies of “that smudgy rag” at laundromats and cafes around the city. They don’t ask the staff at the laundromats or cafes before doing so. Then the owners of these places have to dump the garbage at the cost charged by private recycling collection companies. And meanwhile, the small businesses that sell the Vancouver Sun, which can be right next door, make no sales on those days. Not that sales of The Vancouver Sun are a significant part of anyone’s business, but still.

Why would the Vancouver Sun do this? The copies they dump on the market, costing small businesses in disposal fees and lost sales, are counted by the Sun as circulation copies thereby bumping up the fees they can charge advertisers.

Readers of daily papers have noticed that The Province has lately been the superior paper. The editorials are punchier and the news article selection is more relevant. The sports section, really the only good reason to look at any of the daily papers anymore, has always been better in The Province. And The Province doesn’t dump on small business.

Compare and contrast lesson for today

On the one hand, one minor road construction company with about ten or so workers were kept from their work far from the city for one day by an unarguably principled protestor defending a universally acknowledged cause. The corporate press screamed indignantly, the provincial government enacted emergency legislation, the judiciary convened an emergency court to issue legal injunctions, the national police were rapidly deployed in force, arrests were made, charges were laid, and severe jail time was imposed.

On the other hand, tens of thousands of citizens are locked out of their own community centres, thousands of kids are thrown out of community swimming pools in the summertime, tens of thousands of citizens are prevented from using their libraries, thousands of students are locked out of their school libraries two months into the school year, city garbage for hundreds of thousands of residents goes uncollected for months bringing on health hazards, intolerable odours and an epidemic of rats, thousands of small companies are trapped by the closing of permits and inspections offices, youth soccer and hockey players by the thousands are kept off the fields and out of the rinks, the business of government in the city comes to a halt, and thousands of workers are kept from their work and their paycheques for months.

The corporate press, in the person of Vancouver Sun chief editor Daphne Braham, says, happily, she hasn’t really been affected, so there really isn’t an issue for her with the civic strike. The provincial government has no comment. Several City Councilors took the opportunity to go on vacation. There is no talk of legislation, judges, injunctions, police, arrests, charges, or jail. The mediator, if we can call him that, was quoted saying the strike may go into the spring of 2008.

One remote project not even taking place on an existing road, stopped for one day: the full weight of the media and the state is brought to bear. The entire city shut down for months: nary a peep from either media or state.

What’s the difference? The road is a new four-lane blacktop to the Whistler resort desired by the 10% in the top-class elite of the city who keep chalets up there, while city buildings, pools, and services are used by the 90% in the lower-classes of the citizenry. So the road building project gets inordinate and rapid attention, and the entirety of City services gets none.

Betty Krawcuk, the lone principled protestor who tried to block road construction equipment from ripping out the sensitive and prized Eagleridge Bluffs to make way for the richie’s road to Whistler, got out of jail this past week, just in time to announce her Work Less Party candidacy for Mayor of Vancouver. Now wouldn’t her election just bring everything together in a tidy package, huh?