25 November 2009
Former Elite Journalists Make The Worst Spinners
You know, there’s something about all these CTV Senators that makes them hard to listen to or believe when they spin.
I first noticed it with Jim Munson when he joined Chretien. No doubt that the PM’s overall communications improved, but whenever Munson himself tried to spin the government’s lines it sounded flat and unbelievable, like he didn’t always believe it himself.
[I was going to move next to Senator Duffy, but I think he's lost touch with reality in a different and more bewildering way than the others, so moving along... ].
I noticed that again this morning on The Current, when Pamela Walin was turning the government line on detainee torture in Afghan prisons. It was more or less the same material that we’ve been hearing from government Ministers… no proof… I don’t know what Colvin’s agenda is… put it in context, this is Afghanistan, not Canada… you know.
I don’t really think that any Canadian should be charged with war crimes in connection with Afghanistan in any event, everyone is doing their best. And while I don’t believe the government’s spin, when it’s delivered by the Defence Minister or a top General, there’s a certain logic that comes across that makes you think.
When Senator Walin delivered the same lines, that wasn’t there. In principal she SHOULD have been able to spin them better, she’d been to Afghanistan with the Manley committee, she has a journalists ability to cut to the key facts, and she’s respected and believable. But she wasn’t convincing, she sounded like she was delivering lines from a spin sheet, and I came away from the interview believing that she didn’t believe in what she was saying.
I can’t see how anyone who listened to that interview this morning would have changed their minds. The government would have been better off not using her.
The whole interview will be available here later today so you can judge for yourself.
