This past week, Winnipeggers proved that our ongoing "Lessons in Journalism" have had an empowering effect.
The Winnipeg Free Press finds itself facing a crisis of public trust because of the lessons on how-the-mainstream-media-manipulates-news, learned by listeners of the Great Canadian Talk Show.
On Thursday we took note of a column by Gordon Sinclair Jr. about a woman who could not pay her rent. The tale-of-woe wound through the typical Sinclairian path - a brave 26 year old aboriginal single mother born of poverty, struggling to raise a child almost half her age in subsidized housing, felled by the delay between paycheques of term jobs, reduced to using food banks and pawning possessions, expecting to be evicted Friday, "on the brink of homelessness."
But this time something was different. This time, instead of reaching for their hankies, our listeners joined in asking sharp questions about the obvious holes in the story. The Winnipeg Free Press was about to feel the power of citizen journalism -- Rule 1: everybody knows something.
* How can a woman going from a federal government job in September to a job at the city of Winnipeg in mid-October, not have saved or borrowed for her October rent, when it was ONLY $195.00 ?
* If her "Employment Insurance didn't kick in for a month", why did she not go to Social Assistance, to get temporary help?
* If all she owed her landlord was $390.00, why didn't Sinclair, a $90k per-year unionized typist, who had just walked the picket line to win a $2000/year raise, not lend her the money on the spot and wait for her EI to kick in to get his money back? How did this debt warrant a column?
Most of all, people smelled a set-up. Watch, they said, for Sinclair's traditional 1950's style "so-and-so saves the day" follow-up piece, that would surely run on Saturday and (as Spirited Kenny suggested) be nominated for another "journalism" award.
Sure enough, on Friday, the emailed "Free Press Editor's Bulletin" that previews the next day's contents, breathlessly trumpeted:
Heartwarming news
Generous Winnipeggers have stepped up to help a young single mom who was facing eviction from her west end home. Gordon Sinclair Jr. has the story."
One of our callers, though, raised even more serious doubts about the column.
For this woman to be evicted, she would have had to be served a formal notice. Where was it? Had Gordo seen it?
And she can't be tossed out on the spot the way Sinclair's column implied, the caller went on, because there is a right to a Residential Tenancies Branch appeal hearing, and these things take time. Had RTB already held the appeal, decided the matter and taken the landlords side?
And lastly, "perhaps Gordon Sinclair has to go back to journalism school", she said.
But TGCTS was not alone in thinking there was more here than met the eye. Citizen journalists emailed us with new twists they uncovered to the story.
Then, a blogger recognized the single mother.
This spring she had preceded him in making a speech to the Manitoba legislature http://www.gov.mb.ca/legislature/hansard/2nd-39th/la_04/la_04.html
about Bill 38, the NDP's repeal of balanced budget legislation.
Among the gems in her lecture to Gary Doer:
"why doesn't a woman go into office and clear up this budget because a woman can budget every single day for everything?"
By sheer coincidence, that very Friday night the blogger spotted her at a downtown pool hall enjoying some liquid libation.
"Guess that's more important than paying rent", he wrote late that night, not realizing what was to happen less than 24 hours later.
In his column, Sinclair lamely claimed "I didn't have to ask anyone to help, and I didn't. But offers of help began plugging my e-mail and voice mail anyway."
Regarding the thousands of dollars of charity given to this woman -- $600 cash by her co-workers who took her to pay the rent; plus a cheque for the full rent from Gordo's suburban neighbour ("Watch Gord Sinclair's follow up in the Saturday paper how some rich south ender came to the rescue" was predicted by the blogger); and even more pledged by others -- the blogger made the obvious connection:
"... I guess the money she got would explain my blog post in the wee hours of last night as well...The people that gave money were willing victims, and it was their choice to fall for it ...And today, Gordy made the story sound even more depressing. Her "new job" is only a term position and ends just before Christmas."
Well, the blogosphere discovered that Christmas came early.
Right after reading about the woman's windfall...
"I am walking thru the mall when guess who I see coming out of the Gap with her daughter and another friend ?
YOU GUESSED IT.
Their hands were FULL of shopping bags, from high end stores."
This Woman is the biggest con job I have ever seen in my life."
And everyone, including the blogger, spotted the slight but significant change in the story of rent arrears.
The impression left by Sinclair's first column was that they were getting turfed onto the street the very next day.
Sinclair counted on readers to jump to that conclusion, because otherwise, there's no story, no public outpouring, and no follow-up for Saturday's paper.
But as it turns out, "If Chantel didn't have the $390 by Friday, she was afraid she and Caley would be evicted", wrote Sinclair.
We'll leave aside the questions of why this woman takes term government jobs, instead of looking for steady employment. It appears that she is padding her resume with jobs suited to pursuing her goal of studying aboriginal governance at the U of W, as reported by Sinclair.
Maybe some working journalist will report on the full-time job openings for graduates of that fluff course, as compared for the demand in real occupations like nursing, engineering, and trades, that other single mothers and role models are pursuing at Red River College and elsewhere.
For now, the focus is on the crisis in credibility enveloping the Winnipeg Free Press.
In just the past two months, whose reporters got scooped by the alternative media on the Lesley Hughes election campaign scandal? What reporters changed their story five times about where the frozen minced pork FP picketers took home came from? Who is ignoring the warnings from city health officials about giving that pork to the poor in Christmas hampers as planned ?
Imagine how bitter it must be for Free Press editor Margo Goodhand to realize that the public knows that her newsroom employees, celebrating raises on their $70 - $90,000 a year salaries, contributed not one dime to this cause, even after reading how this poor mother had to rely on food banks---just as the poor underpaid Free Press employees had to only weeks ago.
How sour the taste that from now on, good-hearted readers have reason to question every single sob story and column that is published on her watch.
Who can blame editor Goodhand for being bitter that the general public is on to the fact that the level of editorial oversight and commitment to news at her newspaper is so alarmingly low, with self-promotion and promoting personal agendas at an all-time high.
Who? Everybody who expects a quality newspaper.
Another lesson in journalism.
