Now any of you that read my blog on a regular basis will know that I am not the biggest fan of the Times & Transcript. I believe they continue to use their medium to advance very narrow ideas that are many times detremental to the public good (i.e. the toll highway fiasco). Don’t get me wrong, any newspaper should be free to tell the news and to have a certain editorial bias but when they start running the same story with slightly different angles for days and weeks in a row that becomes propaganda – and in some cases, I believe, borders on journalistic misconduct.
However, on this obsession the T&T has with the cardiac catheterization lab for Moncton, I believe that I stepped into the twilight zone this weekend.
I picked up a recent edition of the Daily Gleaner and flipped through it to find a scathing rebuke of ‘Moncton’ for pushing the issue of a Cath lab. The editorial talked about a few doctors and others and their inappropriate pushing for this lab. It was very critical. Nowhere, however; did the Daily Gleaner mention the fact that it is really only their sister newspaper the Times & Transcript that is pushing this. And, yes, now that they have ran the story (with slightly different angles usually mentioning all the deaths that could have been avoided) every day for three weeks, a few others have gotten into the fray. The Gleaner’s editorial demonized Moncton for being greedy on this issue.
Now, this is really strange. Do the editors of the DG and the T&T think this is some kind of sick joke? Do they get together on their weekly conference calls and think up ways to decieve and mock the people of New Brunswick? Or are we supposed to believe that these papers act in full independence of each other? If that was the case, why didn’t the DG place the blame for this Cath Lab issue right at the feet of the T&T where it belongs?
The sad thing about it is that the T&T stirs up fodder for the DG to write critically about Monton and continues to cast a negative image about Moncton to the readership of the DG.
One thing for sure. This sells more papers.
Maybe that’s the point.
Shame on them.