Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Runesmith on Ormiston - and Why I Wish I Wasn't

When I attended the Progressive Bloggers BBQ a few weeks ago, a camera crew from CBC was there to film material for an edition of Ormiston Online. Being a Leo, I immediately volunteered to get interviewed despite the fact that I have a face for radio at the best of times, and that day I hadn't even bothered to put on make-up.

The episode aired tonight on The National. You can watch it here (if you must) about 35 minutes in (UPDATE: The segment is now also available on its own). As it turns out, of the 2 or 3 minutes I spent speaking to the second-unit camera crew, the single sound bite they extracted consisted of me blathering about being one of those bloggers who obsessively checks my stats every morning to see how many people have read my blog.

Groan.

I am quite sure I said things that were far more eloquent and insightful than that, but apparently that's not what they were going for. In fact, from what I can tell, Susan Ormiston and Steve "the Jankulator" Janke have some sort of thing going.

Janke. The guy whose idea of 'investigative journalism' is stalking political candidates, following them from their home to the mall and taking pictures of their car. Good call there, Susan.

Sure, she made some effort to profile bloggers with other political affiliations, but apparently the best she could come up with was Cherniak and some Blogging Dipper named Devin. But Janke... well, she was all over him and his nice house and his 4.7 children like white on rice.

Next time someone from Ormiston wants to talk to me, they can just piss off.
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UPDATE: Ok, I take that back. She linked to me. She misspelled my blog title, but that's ok. I forgive her (mmm... traffic....).

6 comments:

  1. Next time someone from Ormiston wants to talk to me, they can just piss off.

    Oohhh. Tell us how you really feel, Jennifer! :)

    I enjoyed seeing you, anyway. Looked like the food was quite tasty, too.

    As for cherniak, though . . . .

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  2. It wasn't so bad...I enjoyed seeing it. See...you have to plan to arrive later so you miss the journalist types...:)

    You stats hound...:)

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  3. bob -

    Vijay's tandoori kicked ass! As for my feelings about Ormiston... well, I'm working with the Garth Turner campaign, so that may be colouring my opinion somewhat.

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  4. I saw that segment last night, and after it my first thought was why did it seem like Janke got more time by far than all the other bloggers? So I don't think you are being too sensitive myself. I noticed that BBQ clip and I wondered why we didn't see more than that in the article while Janke was getting a fulsome family man coverage story and being treated like the blogger best able to discuss blogging, especially given Ormiston's history with him over the Turner affair (which I followed on Turner's blog, I may not be commenting much since my return but I still read quite a lot).

    In many ways it seemed to me more like a way to promote her source with giving just enough to a couple other bloggers so as to make it appear that it was about political blogging and not returning a favour to a source. Whether that was her goal or whether it was supposed to be what she claimed I cannot know, all I can say is that watching it myself it left me the feel of being a Janke promotion video more than a substantive piece on the world of political blogging overall. As to your clip specifically my thought was why is this all we hear from this person, it seemed demeaning. I didn't know it was you until I came here just a few minutes ago so it wasn't because I felt you were slighted. I recognized Cherniak (given his profile and the fact he used to go to one of the local universities when he first started blogging, yes I live in Halifax home of Dal law amongst others) but not the NDP blogger's name, hardly a sense of the environment of Canadian political blogging IMHO.

    I think you were done a disservice, and have every reason to feel a bit annoyed. I've done a couple of interviews in the past on various issues and while I have seen much of the material edited out there was always more than what you got, and at least I was not made to look like a rather shallow person, which I have to say you going by this clip certainly looked, this despite you clearly being far more than that going by the content of your blog. So I think you have more than sufficient reason to feel as you do.

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  5. "despite the fact that I have a face for radio at the best of times"

    Nonsense. You are beautiful.

    "She misspelled my blog title"
    Quick! Change blog title, you stat ho, you.

    Oh look, Janke is being sued - part of what I meant earlier, Jen, about BC Libs.

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  6. I saw the clip and I agree....this was a puff piece on Janke. The other bloggers were thrown in for sound bites. Any reporter (with ethical journalistic standards) would have put on air more footage and interviews from the BBQ instead of going to one lone blogger's house.

    I just feel sorry for his kids.

    BTW, is there any data/links on who is leading the race. In Milton and in Mississauga?

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