Dewey, Gore and Trudeau’s candidate all turned out to be losers who spared no media blushes
Canadian Press plastered the country with Liberal imagery but there were plenty of red faces within the punditry when the walls of the Liberals’ Toronto fortress came tumbling down
W. Eugene Smith / LIFE Picture Collection
It’s been a week now since the St. Jean Baptiste Day massacre in Toronto St. Paul’s, so I thought it might be fun to take a look at some of the media hijinks that surrounded the federal byelection there and the late reversal in the count that gave victory to the Conservative candidate.
First of all, a confession. Your Rewrite author was at the helm in the Calgary Herald newsroom on November 8, 2000. That was the day when Americans were electing a president to succeed Bill Clinton, whose vice president, Al Gore, was contesting on behalf of the Democrats against Republican candidate George Bush. This was back when both candidates for the title of Leader of the Free World were cognitively aware and morally competent.
The election was tight. Very tight. But we had a paper to put out and the uncertainty dragged on late, late, late. The internet was a thing, but not the thing it is today. The boys in the pressroom were impatient. Big overtime bills were threatening. Trucks were waiting. The publisher was on the phone. Terrified of becoming as legendary as the Chicago Daily Tribune and its 1948 Dewey Defeats Truman first edition (photo, above) we fudged it with some sort of first edition headline that I can’t recall exactly but was along the lines of Gore Almost Maybe Wins Something Something. The first edition of the Calgary Herald, back then, went to subscribers and stores beyond the city’s boundaries. The eventual city edition headline was along the lines of “too close to call” which was pretty much the equivalent of putting out a paper that said “if you want to know what’s going on, turn on the TV.” That was really an acknowledgement that technology and time had caught up with us. In the end, Bush won Florida by 537 votes and had 271 electoral college votes, one over what was necessary for victory. Litigation ensued and the US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Bush’s favour. Still, for days we were mocked (it would have been merciless in the age of social media) for getting it wrong even though I still maintain we got it as right as we could. Sure we did. Honest. We did.
Which brings us to Toronto St. Paul’s and June 24, aka St. Jean Baptiste Day/Fete National in Quebec. Located in the heart of the party’s Toronto fortress, folks there had elected Liberals since 1993.
Canadian Press is increasingly powerful due to the manner in which its stories get auto-inserted - unedited and complete with headline and photos - onto platforms across the country. Remarkably oblivious to the public’s preference for unbiased journalism, its visual showed only Liberal candidate Leslie Church and her leader, Justin Trudeau. Conservative activist Stephen Taylor posted an excellent collage which you can view by clicking here.
Given that Canadians are increasingly suspicious of government-funded journalism, you’d think Canadian Press would be more careful.
Come the evening, 7.5 million people were watching the Edmonton Oilers lose the Stanley Cup. Another 32.5 million were otherwise occupied, including political geeks following the vote where Church was hoping to secure what many assumed would be a job for life.
The vote count was, as with Bush v Gore, late, but Church never trailed and seemed to be on her way to victory when this intrepid correspondent grabbed his teddy and tucked in.
Lo and behold, once 10,000 advance poll votes were counted, the winner was Don Stewart of the Conservatives. A tough night for Church and Trudeau but also rough for journos and pundits who prematurely declared her the victor. Renowned columnist and Substacker Paul Wells even blasted a piece that assumed her victory and for which he was called out the next morning by Blacklock’s Reporter, which rarely takes prisoners.
Warren Kinsella epitomized the mood when he posted on X that: “I deleted a tweet saying those who insisted the Tories would win needed to find a new hobby. Meanwhile, I have taken up stamp collecting.”
A special bouquet should go to Tonda MacCharles at the Toronto Star for holding her fire until the deal on that vote was sealed.
Speaking of The Star, both it and National Post continue to express what Sean Speer of The Hub has labelled manufactured outrage concerning Google’s decision not to put legacy media in charge of the $100 million they squeezed out of the tech giant through the Online News Act.
And there’s some evidence to suggest both are keen to revise history in order to give credit to the government for executing what has been a disastrous piece of legislation.
Just check out this phrase in the Postmedia story:
“In a victory for the Liberals, who became one of the first governments to implement a law other jurisdictions around the world hope to adopt, Google complied . . . .”
And how much it has in common with this one posted by The Star:
“All told, it was a partial victory for the Trudeau Liberals, which became one of the first governments to implement a law other jurisdictions around the world hope to adopt.”
Alrighty then.
The Online News Act, as neutral observers have established, has been an abject disaster which caused Meta to block news links, cease its funding of news and Google to end its commercial deals. The net loss to the industry is estimated at around $130 million. There is no government anywhere in the world looking to replicate those kind of outcomes.
A couple of months ago, the UK’s Cass Review on the treatment of transgendered youth was causing governments in Europe to put the brakes on puberty blockers and surgeries.
Canadian media didn’t completely ignore the story but didn’t really want to know and behaved as if they wished it all would just go away. Paediatrician J. Edward Les took a look at how media has opted for allyship over truth-seeking in this post. It’s worth a read.
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Peter Menzies is a senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, past vice-chair and AB-NWT Commissioner at the CRTC, former editor-in-chief and publisher of the Calgary Herald and a National Newspaper Award winner. He also worked as executive director of the Royal Saskatchewan Museum.
Apologies for first edition!
Thanks for the link to Dr Les. It is refreshing to see some common sense which I am sure exists throughout the Canadian medical community!