CTV "unfair and unethical": Canadian Broadcast Standards Council

Lowell Green has to be running head first into his brick wall today.

The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council ruled that CTV was "unfair and unethical" when they aired that now infamous Stephane Dion interview. A Canwest News Service report states that the CBSC claims that "a poorly framed question that Dion didn't understand was confusing and that CTV was wrong to broadcast the outtakes after promising the Liberals not to do so."

I personally don't understand why CTV would have promised not to air the interview. Surely the promise came after some senior aide, knowing it would make the "leader" look like a second rate hack, begged to have the tape burned and tossed out.

The question that caused the former Liberal party leader to blunder so badly is the following: "If you were prime minister now, what would you have done about the economy and this crisis that Mr. Harper has not done?"

Would the CBSC kindly explain what exactly is confusing about this question? Sure, the grammar isn't spot on, but come on... it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand it, does it?
It seems that all opposition parties do these days criticize, bringing little substance to the table. They yell as loud as they can about how bad the other side is... yet do little to show what they would do differently. Given this, how can Mr. Murphy's question be confusing? All he did was ask Dion if he were PM, what would be do that the other guy hasn't. Not once, not twice... you know the rest of it.

The fact that this national party leader was (supposedly) unable to understand the question IS news. I would argue that it was CTV's DUTY to air a story about it.

Anybody with a basic understanding of the English knowledge and with a basic understanding of the job description of an opposition party leader (at the least, the part of the job conducted in front of the media) should have been able to put two and two together and understand the question. "You're so smart, what would you have done?" That's what it boils down to. Some argue he didn't understand the so-called poorly framed question because English is his second language. Isn't it convenient? Accuse the big bad media guy of being anti-French and watch the knee-jerk reactions start.

That's the new Canadian way.

A good lawyer will never ask a question in open court to which he doesn't know the answer. Dion pounded Harper for weeks about how he dealt with the rapidly sinking economy. Was it such a stretch to expect someone to ask what he would do, he who is so critical of the other guy during an election campaign?

Apparently it was. CTV was "unfair". If Dion, the Liberals and small-l liberals in Canada can't take the heat, they shouldn't thrust themselves into the spotlight. Dion proved he couldn't handle it over and over again. Get over it, it's over. Let's see if the new guy is any better.

And let's let broadcasters and journalists do their jobs, shall we?