As a disclaimer up front so nobody who reads on will think otherwise, I fully admit that writing anything about Twitter is a fool's errand. That includes the content found therein, the personalities that populate it, and the billionaire who bought it.
And now, this: Kathleen Parker, True North/Canada Proud, and the CBC.
In the span of three consecutive tweets on my feed this morning, I read Parker's opinion piece from the @washingtonpost about how we should abandon Twitter like a sinking ship being steered by a billionaire manchild who just recently learned how to unlock doors, followed by the right-wing Canada Proud account retweeting a 'news article' from True North (more on them shortly) about how some British MP went on record giving it to Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau for 'depriving civil liberties during the pandemic', and then I got to the CBC's Power & Politics account which was providing coverage of the looming work stoppage for Ontario's educators.
Where do I begin?
Setting aside the irony of the Post tweeting out an opinion piece about leaving Twitter behind in the digital dust, Parker did make a case to consider. After all, new Twitter head honcho Elon Musk is making lots of changes already with his new toy and none of them have been terribly encouraging. And while I won't get into the whole piece, Parker's overriding point is one to consider: if the man now in charge of the vehicle doesn't care what it hits while he's at the wheel, do we really want to be around for the fallout? Some might say it would be irresponsible to just give up and let the 'other side' win (a point one respondent made to the Post's tweet), but isn't supporting Twitter as it enters its 'dark phase' something we're all a little responsible for now? This goes back to my plea that people need to educate themselves on an issue before blithely spouting off about it from the safe anonymity of the Blue Bird (or anywhere else, for that matter).
Not for nothing, but the best response came from @DialedBack2022 when they posted 'I'll abandon it when the press does'.
Moving on, I'll skip to the third tweet before circling back. While I'm not in favour of trying to settle important matters like education in the press, I will say that mudfights just have to be decided the best way the parties know how. The CBC's Power & Politics tweet that featured CUPE's Ontario School Boards Council of Unions President Laura Walton talking about how education workers are going to respond to the Ford-led Conservative's use of the notwithstanding clause to make any strike action illegal. To me, this is the ideal use for Twitter: send out a short clip about an important news story so people can begin to get informed.
After a little digging on the account (okay, so it took one click to find this stuff), I saw that the previous two tweets were also about this story: one showing a clip of Interim Ontario Liberal Leader John Fraser talking about how the Conservatives went for the 'nuclear option', while the one before that was a clip of Ontario Education Minister Stephen Lecce being interviewed by the CBC on his party's decision to proceed in this manner.
That is what I would call responsible journalism; both sides presenting their case, giving the public an opportunity to learn more about each of those sides. I'm even willing to set aside the rhetoric (nuclear option seems a bit extreme in today's climate, wouldn't you say?) because as a journalist I know how hard it is to get politicians to answer anything in a straight and succinct way.
In this instance, Twitter served a good purpose -- well, the user used the platform in the best way possible. Let's leave it at that.
And now, True North. Yes, I just sighed when I typed that.
I am not going to waste my time typing a rant about right-wing politics (or left-wing politics, for that matter). The Internet is a (mostly) free place where you're welcome to espouse any ideas you want. You know what I mean, right #KyrieIrving? So it's no surprise that the Canada Proud Twitter account tweeted out the True North 'news' story about British MP Danny Kruger lighting up Justin Trudeau for his handling of civil liberties during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. Without getting bogged down in that argument, I'm going to turn my attention to True North.
In a FaceBook rant I posted in the not-so-distant past, I went off on True North's use of the term news organization when they were referring to themselves. If you take the time and go to their website, scroll down to the bottom of the home page where their footer can be found. To quote them directly: True North is a Canadian digital media platform that seeks to provide Canadians with fair, accurate, truthful and fact-based news reports, analysis, investigative reports, podcasts, interviews and documentaries.
Okay, so they got 'digital media platform' right. But the part about fair, accurate, truthful and such? Let's take their post about NDP MP Peter Julian as one example. Julian apparently had some colourful remarks about Twitter, Musk and FOX News following Musk's tweet about the Paul Pelosi attack and how Musk hinted there 'might be more to the story' in a somewhat unsavoury way.
The story starts out as fair comment on the words of a public figure who was talking about Bill C-18. As his conversation went on, Julian evidently had praise for the CBC - a company True North referred to as 'a state-owned entity'. The Orwellian theme continues after the quote by Julian ends with an embedded True North YouTube video called 'How will Trudeau's Censorship Bills Impact True North?' The post ends with a request for readers to donate to True North to aid in their quest to bring that fact-based, independent journalism to the public.
Am I sifting through True North's posts too finely just to prove my point? Okay, let's look at the post 'Taxpayers billed $411M on travel mandate COVID-19 testing' then. I selected it randomly from the home page because it had a relatively benign headline, so I figured I was safe to have a look. It starts off well enough, talking about how Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner requested information on the cost of the Liberal Government's billing for the travel mandate and all the COVID-19 testing that was involved with that.
Rempel Garner was quoted a few times as the story went along, and then another embedded video came up, this one called 'Fighting Trudeau's Mandates'. I could be wrong here, but wouldn't this fall into the 'juicing up an already juiced-up audience' category? Anyone other than myself who's on True North's site and reading these posts is likely a believer of their cause, so why toss another log on to that particular fire if you're trying to 'be fair, accurate, truthful' ... you get the point. They then add another embed from 'COVID zealots'; I didn't waste my time clicking that one.
I don't pretend to be a believer in what True North is peddling to the masses, but it's their right to do so if they see a market for it. But if you're going to call yourself a news platform that believes in fairness, where are the stories promoting the good things that the Liberals, NDP and other political parties have done? What about promoting opinions that aren't just ones held by Conservatives? If you're going to be fair, you're going to need balance.
Perhaps True North should just call themselves what they really are: a propaganda machine for one side of the political spectrum. At least then they could call themselves honest.
That's my Twitter Take for this week -- see you in seven days.
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