Two charities may have to cancel Christmas dinners; plus a Lesson in Journalism

JUNE 24 2019 ADDED NOTE: 
ALL POSTS PRIOR TO THIS DATE ARE ARCHIVED FROM 2011 AND EARLIER - AND WILL NOT HAVE WORKING LINKS TO THE PODCASTS 


Essential listening to understand what's going on in Winnipeg? You betcha.

Start with contrasting the state of the subjects on Winnipeg radio to our hyperlocal, relevant, informed content and style; how you'll be able to get involved with TGCTS thru our new website; then we enumerate our latest dozen followers (@TGCTS, it's booming!) on Twitter including United Way Winnipeg, Ottawa radio show The Album Drop, Cash Mob Winnipeg and Pulitzer Prize nominee, sportswriter Dave Kindred.

It's fascinating to watch the scope of awareness about our work spread across the continent, which sets up...

A Lesson in Journalism.

We examine the Twitterchat about the Jets licence plates, the Metro News story about Osborne House and their wish list and the issue of donor fatigue. How it relates to the CTV Late night news is part two.

Perhaps suffering from compartmentalization they missed a key point in their TV stories - with the Salvation Army and Indian Metis Friendship Centre being a combined $35,000 off the required donation pace for annual Christmas meals and gifts for the less fortunate, this issue of donor fatigue is now the elephant in the room in our city after the pet projects of millionaires sucked obscene amounts of dollars out of our community. (Remember, your favorite Museum is still panhandling for another $20 million. )

Also we reveal that Osborne House CEO Barb Judt is marching down to city hall later this week with a few messages for the Mayor and council.

In the crime report, we make a brief mention of the Grant Avenue Speed trap, the work of Colin Craig of the CTF and Tom Brodbeck of the Sun, as a Facebook member tries to find the good side of the fiasco; and a blogger discovers the city will issue an order on a derelict building, they just won't ENFORCE the order.

How Seinfeldian. Bizzaro Manitoba. Send this episode to everyone you know, here's the link:
http://tgctspod.podbean.com/2011/12/13/two-charities-may-have-to-cancel-christmas-dinners-plus-a-lesson-in-journalism/

Shots ring out all weekend long in Murderpeg as Crimestat under fire

If anyone complains to you, that CTV is a US style 'crime/violence/fear' TV newscast, well you can tell them the station doesn't do a very good job of it.

For instance at 6 PM Sunday, the anchor said Winnipeg had our 34th homicide tying the record, but didn't point out we have 2 months to go.

And the victim number 33, whose family declined to speak to CTV but who did talk to Richard Cloutier on CJOB radio, seems to have been a straight-laced Asian young adult of 20 who was in the passenger seat - the passenger seat mind you - of a car after going out Friday night, presumably to an Exchange District bar, for -- Halloween.

And the news script concluded, that police explained, "it's hard to predict who may have firearms and when they might be used".

How comforting, for parents whose kid go out trick or treating or to community parties, let alone their older kids who go to bars and socials. Just in time for the cops to admit, they have lost control of the streets of this city. Lovely.

It is notable how many of the killings and stabbings this year have been open-air, rather than inside dingy apartments or 1 star hotel rooms on Main Street.

CTV also, on this quite violent weekend after last years' pre-Halloween shooting and killing spree- split the crime reports up on the newscast. It separated the Lincoln Hotel shooting - which wasn't identified by either CTV or the Free Press as the second north end shooting location in 12 hours - from a stabbing at Aura nightclub on Portage Avenue one block from the University of Winnipeg (and showed the blood on the sidewalk).

Instead CTV did a 180, following the Exchange District murder with a glowing upbeat cheerleader piece about the opening of the new airport, mentioning that "problems with the underground pipes" led to a one year delay , but not connecting the delay to any increase in cost -- although the cost had been mentioned too.

Getting back to the crime aspect, the police department has to completely rethink the way it deals with the press and public. This week former deputy chief Menno Zacharias carved the sanctimonious piety of Crimestat upholders into little bits, stemming from Stefano Grande's recent comments and opinions on Twitter, blogs and, well, maybe some radio but not radio where the questions to the Downtown Biz director would be guaranteed in the Zacharias realm --- challenging Grande's fantasy that downtown is safe.

Zacharias showed that only the most serious of crimes- such as, oh, people being shot - made the daily press releases.

"In September 2011 the Winnipeg Police Service issued 26 News Releases. In those 26 news releases, however, the Service made reference to only 10 of the 787 offences reported on Crimestat during September... During the month of September, 59 of the 111 muggings reported city-wide were committed in District 1, which encompasses the downtown area. "

http://mennozacharias.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/crimes-committed-vs-crimes-reported/

North end blogger Rae Butcher, who has fought tooth and nail for accountability and proper information about her own street, noted how important measures of public safety such as stabbings are under-reported as robberies on Crimestat and arsons are not calculated into Crimestat at all.

"What is the actual purpose of the CrimeStat map on the WPS website? Is it to arm citizens with valuable information on crimes being committed throughout Winnipeg? Or is it designed to create illusions of Winnipeg as City Hall sees fit?"

http://adayinthehood.blogspot.com/2011/10/crime-stat-vrs-police-releases.html

She also enumerated recent PR and non-emergency bulletins issued by police email last Friday which the number of which dwarfed the real news. (Not to mention what Tom Brodbeck of the Sun has to say about the real news downtown and Mayor Katz.)

The time has come for the revival of placing someone the press and public can trust to meaningful compile press releases and reports with some basic comprehension that the idea is to report on crimes, not to promote Chief McCaskill's social work agenda and manipulative style (like when drinking parties turn bad, and the official lingo is " they were socializing".)

The time has come for a civilian spokesman who understands what the public needs to and wants to know, and to assign the officers to what we paid to train them to do - be cops and deal with crime and criminals , not with keyboards and microphones.

As of CTV, the segue to the weather was "I don't want to say we dodged a bullet yesterday - but we did"

You'd think on a weekend when 2 men are gunned down and a 14 year old gets dropped in broad daylight on Selkirk Avenue and barely survives, CTV would have thought thru how their "happy-chat" clever-word quotient would be expressed under the circumstances.

And you'd hope someone in the MSM will ask, what role the police chopper played in the response to any of the 3 (known) shootings this weekend. If any.

Happy Halloween.

(Next podcast is on Monday, this was a stand-alone blog piece. )

Bizarro Manitoba: Crocus Fund directors pay no penalty; foreign students and polar bears NDP priority over humans in need

When newsrooms report that the punishment for 8 Crocus Fund directors who admitted selling shares far above their worth, is to bar them from doing it again FOR ONE WHOLE YEAR, and the mainstream media fails to identify who those directors are or question the Securities Commission about the post-election timing, this province is in a serious free-fall of accountability and ethics.

When foreign students getting free health care and multi-million dollar shelter for Polar Bears is more important to local philanthropists and the Selinger government than access to doctors for Manitobans and shelter for victims of domestic violence and the homeless, this province is in a serious free-fall of financial and moral judgement.

When a political party that fell under 10% support thinks people will now pay to join up, this province is in a serious free-fall of critical thinking and common sense.

When mainstream media reports on a poll about Mayor Sam Katz based on at best, 450 responses, and more likely only 300, and the pollster is allowed to claim '1.2% accuracy 95% of the time' without challenge, this province needs a strong alternative media more than ever.

These topics, plus an explanation about the legacy of hug-a-thug sentencing in the Tony Lanzellotti murder, a police chief who cares more about being a social worker than caring for police dogs, and asking why cars crashing on winter streets isn't called an "accident" but the wrongful release of dangerous violent offenders into the community is, rounds out the show. Plus shout-outs and some surprising visitors to our blog today.

Please note that on Friday, we are scheduling a special about the Air Canada memo, the war of words between realists and pollyanna's, and the attitude adjustment needed by the Downtown Biz to truly get a handle on the crime and safety problems downtown.

That episode will feature an exclusive interview with a citizen journalist, who explains why it is indisputable they represent a neglected segment of the community. Wait till you hear what he has to say about the players and the political game, the message he has for Stefano Grande, and how remarkably similar his observations and experiences are, to the positions taken and causes championed by TGCTS for the past 5 years.

Far from being on the wrong track, we were right on the money about the issues and the role of campus radio to raise awareness and create a sense of community, regardless of what Red River College censors like Cathy Rushton and Graham Thomson thought.

To prepare for that special, take a look at photo-blogger Bryan Scott's danger spots in downtown, which we also reviewed today. You'll recognize all the usual suspects instantly.

https://twitter.com/#!/wpglovehate/status/121643407121711104/photo/1

THE WEDNESDAY PODCAST IS HERE:
http://tgctspod.podbean.com/2011/10/26/bizarro-manitoba-crocus-fund-directors-pay-no-penalty-foreign-students-polar-bears-ndp-priority/

Tuesday podcast - Gordo and pals gang up on Air Canada; fail to refute valid downtown safety concerns

With Yom Kippur and Thanksgiving observed, today's podcast is a classic TGCTS stream-of-consciousness tapestry reflecting on the reality of the state of the downtown, that starts and ends with Gordo himself -- all because of this drivel from Saturday:
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/columnists/its-the-kind-of-face-many-fear-131379728.html

Listen to the Tuesday podcast to hear our own Jim Nielson story, and our analysis explaining

- how the distorted Freep headline and "reporting" about downtown crime rates tried to conceal the fact that maybe, just maybe, there is a basis for Air Canada to be concerned for the safety of it's crews on layovers,

- the lecture by Lloyd Axworthy from his U of Winnipeg fiefdom,

- a government lease in the "once-downtrodden North Portage" relies on those evil surface parking lots,

- exactly what Judge Fred Sandhu said about alcoholism fueling social disorder with no solutions from government in sight (H/T James Turner who ran the transcript here),

- how $40 million of provincial tax dollars earmarked for the CMHR could be used to make our community safer instead of pumping up the pet project of millionaires

- why the social do-gooders don't pressure the NDP to deal with it: because Greg Selinger didn't tell them too

- and in the Crime Courts Public Safety Update, election day news about Greg Selinger's favorite rapper and his dealings with Air Canada and Montreal police (here's our previous story about Brooklyn and his pals, he's on the far right, yo);


plus a recap of a violent weekend in the 100 block of Main Street, including a midnight firearm-backed sexual assault and a broad daylight stabbing of a Good Samaritan.

(Off the top of the show we shout-out to our new Twitter followers, we end with our favorite story about a Game 1 Jets fan and a challenge to Gordo, and for those CFL and wrestling fans, here is a link to my book review of Angelo Mosca's biography http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Wrestling/Reviews/2011/09/29/18759781.html )

Tuesday Podcast link:http://tgctspod.podbean.com/2011/10/11/tgcts-oct-1111-gordo-and-pals-gang-up-on-air-canada-fail-to-refute-valid-downtown-safety-concerns/

**********

ON TWITTER: @TGCTS

JOIN THE FACEBOOK GROUP: http://www.facebook.com/groups/2344284529/