Month: October 2010

Sudbury Star’s failure with the 2010 municipal election and what it means

/ andyveilleux / 35 Comments

To say I am disappointed with The Sudbury Star’s unapologetic stance regarding their “City misled public…” article would be an understatement. The article was released on the Saturday before the election, which took place this Monday, and may have affected the results of the election. This is more than a case of poor timing.

The article begins: “One of the first things this council did four years ago was to authorize senior city managers to mislead the public about the circumstances surrounding the dismissal of a former employee, a Sudbury Star investigation reveals.”

By “Sudbury Star investigation,” they mean brown envelope that mysteriously showed up in their office at the beginning of the week, containing information only employees in City Hall knew.

Marianne Matichuk worked  for the city for 17 years. The Star supported Matichuk in an editorial on Friday, even using her buzz-word in their headline (“Change;” her website is realchangenow.ca, and she’s campaigning on the idea of change in council).

The article has NO sources in it that are current, and did not allow any balance whatsoever. I have a serious issue with their “attempts” to contact John Rodriguez, and any other relevant sources for the article:

“Calls to Stephen and Mieto were not returned. E-mails asking for response sent to Mayor John Rodriguez and all city councillors were not returned.

CAO Doug Nadorozny did respond, asking for more time in order to contact Stephen.”

So you can’t pick up the phone and call John Rodriguez, the man whose campaign you just torpedoed? Don’t give me that. No journalist or paper, with integrity, would launch a story like that at a candidate, and then not even make a decent effort to contact them.

Brian MacLeod, The Star’s Managing Editor, was on CBC’s Points North with Jason Turnbull earlier today, and his interview failed to seriously respond to any of these issues. He defended the article’s timing by revealing how the brown envelope showed up in their office at the beginning of the week.

I don’t know why it would take an entire week to write a story, which did not use any sources, or how in one week’s time a city council reporter as seasoned as Mike Whitehouse could not contact John Rodriguez. Whitehouse is a better reporter than that.

MacLeod also defended the paper’s editorial, stating that they always backed a candidate. I understand their practice of backing a candidate in an election, although I personally don’t believe journalists should publicly back any candidate. I will agree to disagree with that issue.

I am not willing to let their other irresponsible behaviour in this election go, however. When you support a candidate on Friday, and then torpedo her main competition on Saturday, without letting the competition respond, that is inexcusable.

Rodriguez responded to the article, after he was defeated in the election, claiming it was something one would typically see in the southern United States. He is right. It was gutless, and to shrug off his comments as the emotional response of a defeated politician is irresponsible, and childish, but that was the Star’s response anyways.

I was pleased to see Turnbull ask some hard questions about the issue, but it’s not enough to have one interview about it and then let it disappear. As journalists, we must police ourselves when it comes to ethics and responsibility. Most importantly, we must watch for bias.

I agree with Hunter S. Thomson that objectivity is impossible, but that does not mean we can absolve ourselves from the pursuit of it. We must be vigilant to watch our biases do not interfere with our coverage of the news, and be sure not to negatively affect matters we should merely observe and report on.

The Sudbury Star has failed the public, and tried to absolve themselves of responsibility for doing so. It will likely be shrugged off by the masses, but I hope people will take notice of how important a failing like this is to democracy. Their poor judgement may have affected the results of a democratic election, and that is a more powerful failure than any ordinary slander.

Maybe shoddy reporting like this has something to do with the public’s distrust of journalists? (the three links included here are from the UK, USA, and Canada, respectively).

a beast and a gentleman

/ andyveilleux / 2 Comments

I haven't even managed,

to hit my full stride,

yet.

I'm already your favourite beast,

and maybe,

favourite gentleman.

 

The image is broken.

 

The thoughts of me,

and my best moments,

fell from your ears and shattered;

a mountain ridge of memories,

piled on the cold floor,

passive,

on cracked, dry concrete.

 

You're broken,

and I know,

because,

I broke you;

you never had a chance,

or a shot in hell.

 

Don't worry,

dry your comatose eyes,

you're finished but there are,

certainly worse things in life;

not death.

 

I stole your core,

the package of life,

that represents you,

keeps you breathing,

and I ate it gladly with,

my smiling hero jaw.

 

I didn't leave a loiterer,

I fought for my territory,

but you were too strong,

too well-armed for my weak,

shameful,

display of force;

I grapple with inner demons,

that have worn me down for years;

NOW IS YOUR TIME.

 

A train clangs along,

the tracks of your hatred,

a rock on the rails,

shifts the weight,

and the train tips,

ever so slightly,

but not finally.

 

A rusted train penetrates,

a midnight sky of lost hope,

there is nothing else.

as long as you breathe my ghost

/ andyveilleux / 2 Comments

My willpower slaps you,

with all my bad intentions,

tearing down your resistance,

in one fell swoop.

 

You'll never forget me;

I broke you apart,

to make you whole.

 

You're better than ever,

better than you ever were,

now that you're without me.

 

Only one line was true;

my ghost will be your curse,

for as long as you breathe.

love me for this

/ andyveilleux / 2 Comments

Don't love me for my character,

my charm,

or my wit;

time will rob me of them,

or distort them so badly,

you won't recognize me.

 

Love me for this,

these words,

they live forever,

and are as much of me,

as my wit, charm, or character,

and maybe they are even more.

Starving ideas

/ andyveilleux / 4 Comments

I cut pages,

to watch them bleed,

hipster, broken symbolism,

and what a worn-out image.

 

used, worn-out,

broken,

like all of us,

but is that all we can say?

 

Where is the lyricism,

not of Milton, Donne,

but of harsh reality,

Bukowski, Hemingway?

 

Where have we scurried,

and how far removed,

are we from greatness?

 

We are nowhere.

 

We float in endless space,

choking on too much time,

ideas dying every second,

like all of the starving poor.

 

Ideas are starving,

and I'm only one writer.

representation of the Damned

/ andyveilleux / 2 Comments

Stability is a relative term,

when speaking of madness.

 

Those days left me long ago,

I remember it feeling like home,

and it's still such a tempting offer.

 

A history of my madness,

can be traced on onion-skin,

paper,

even by the poorest artists.

 

You'll find father figures,

lovers,

friends,

and those of greatness.

 

We all end up face down,

sucking on the dirt with our,

dead faces, flesh rots to bone,

we massage the dirt with cheek bones,

protruding from our skulls with their worn,

enamel.

 

There is no shell for the hearts,

and each abandonment kills a,

piece of heart,

that will never return,

but will never leave either;

a representation of the Damned.

 

Be certain,

we are all the Damned.

we're missing the point

/ andyveilleux / Leave a comment

It's time to quiet down,

you're getting too loud,

and more importantly,

you're getting too real.

 

Don't talk about those things,

don't ever mention them again,

they don't want to hear about them;

they're sad things,

real,

but sad things.

 

And sad things have a way about them,

of highlighting the bad parts of life and the,

way it's starting to fall apart because we can't,

seem to even manage the simple things about,

our daily lives, let alone the issues that haunt us,

as a species that inhabits a doomed planet and,

is unable to love one another as we hurl through a,

rock in the middle of endless space that could crash.

 

We don't get the big concept,

we haven't started learning about,

the smaller things yet,

and how they were supposed to fit,

together like Lego blocks,

which we played with as a kid,

until they marched over our creativity.

 

We're missing the point;

Humanity is failure.

Good conversations and the eternal sadness of being human

/ andyveilleux / Leave a comment

I've been having a lot of conversations lately, with a bunch of people with differing opinions. I've talked about purpose in life, Hemingway, Jung, Bukowski, the ADHD generation I am coming up in, intellectual boredom and stagnation, the difference between academic and public writing, and most important, the overall sadness that invades daily life.

There's a certain sadness to the daily events of life. Not specifically, because it's nothing you can put you finger on, but generally. It's not an overwhelming sadness.

It doesn't team up with the other negative emotions to push you down. It waits in the background most of the time. Occasionally, you can let it out of its cage, and play with it until you're both satisfied. It then will return to its cage and wait your next moment of weakness. In this way, it is like that ex-girlfriend, or friend-you-slept-with-and-sort-of-regretted-who-won't-go-away.

A lot of conversation has centred around what causes this sadness, and whether it will ever go away. I don't think it ever really goes away. The dull pain is probably always going to be there behind my ears. Maybe that's what got to Hemingway and Hunter S. Thomson.

Maybe it comes down to knowing that eventually we're all going to die. Our bodies can only continue for so long, and then the show's over. Good-bye Andy consciousness, you'll be gone for good one day. Hell, the whole species is doomed for that matter.

That's the eternal sadness of being human. It may be the only part of us that survives.

There is an emotion that teams up with that overall sadness well; loneliness. The feeling, or even thought, of being alone. To quote Bukowski, "there is a loneliness in this world so great that you can see it in the slow movement of the hands of a clock." The clocks have gone digital, the loneliness has to.

Now we sit around on MSN, Facebook, Twitter, just waiting for that message to lead us to salvation, away from loneliness. Sometimes it comes, sometimes it doesn't; but it never lasts. 

It's quicker than ever to get in touch with someone, but it's harder than ever to hold their attention and time. How much spectacle is acceptable in one's life to keep on entertaining, without becoming the jester?

Some nights are harder than others.