Wednesday 3 September 2014

Pierre-Karl Péladeau arrested in Ottawa while driving a rented Porsche.

The link below is from the mobile site for the Toronto Sun.  Sun Media has been tardy in taking it down.

http://m.torontosun.com/2014/09/03/penguins-star-sidney-crosby-arrested-in-ottawa

Here is what it says.  Names have been altered to protect the innocent.

Billionaire monopolist and scion of the Péladeau family fortune, former president and CEO of Quebecor Inc., Quebecor Media Inc. and Sun Media Corporation, and current Parti Québécois MNA Pierre-Karl Péladeau was arrested by Ottawa Police late Tuesday while driving a rented Porsche, sources have told QMI Agency.

Reasons of his arrest were unknown, but appear to be driving related.

Sources say Péladeau was taken to the Ottawa police headquarters on Elgin street for fingerprinting and a mugshot.

It is unknown at this time why the dissolute playboy and champion of deregulation was in Ottawa.

Ottawa Police have been unable to be reached for comment.


Where to begin...

1)  I've harped on how abysmal the journalistic standards are at Le Journal de Montréal, the cash cow on which Pierre Péladeau made a fortune and launched his series of acquisitions and mergers, dumbing down the national discourse in the process.  Idiot son Pierre-Karl inherited the empire and continued the tradition, with a new hint of Fox News-style pandering to right-wing nutjobs.  Sun Media of course follows its "If it bleeds it leads" ethos and shoddy ethics.  So it's not surprising that they raced to be first to the scoop, without doing any fact-checking.

Putting out nearly-slanderous, erroneous titillation as news without bothering to fact-check is irresponsible, and far from the ethical standards that any credible news organization strives for. Sun Media raced to post a ‘scoop’, they tried to be “First!”, at the expense of getting it right.

A belated retraction, even with an apology, doesn’t make it right.

During the “Le Journal de Montréal” strike a few years ago, this is exactly the sort of practice that the reporters decried and were fighting zealot Pierre-Karl Péladeau on. He’s the one who wanted to slash budgets for reporters and editors, he wanted to rely on a network of contracted stringers who get paid by the story. The reporters basically lost their fight, but we see this as one spectacular example of how far journalism has fallen in the Québecor empire, in their scoop-by-Twitter approach.

Remember Louis Jean’s tweet about how Scott Gomez was about to be bought out when Marc Bergevin took over? This is the same deal, no overseers in the staff room, no editorial experience, and crap output by them.

2)  Judging from the last sentence in the article, they employ child labour, and a thirteen-year-old who couldn't forge a note to his principal is in charge over there.  According to the release, it's the sources themselves that have been incapable of making themselves available to Québécor's army of intrepid investigative reporters.  Get that teenager an English course, pronto!

3)  I'll not fail to repeat that this is the clown college of an organization that Gary Bettman sold the NHL rights to, not the relatively dexterous and trustworthy RDS, who have over a couple of decades become a worthy successor to the quality "La Soirée du Hockey" broadcasts on Radio-Canada.  But what's professionalism and experience in the face of another ten million dollars, right Gary?

EDIT: The article linked to above is no longer available.  Here are some others:

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck-daddy/sidney-crosby-arrest-report-refuted-by-ottawa-police-125943699.html

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/sidney-crosby-arrest-report-retracted-by-qmi-1.2754013 )

No comments:

Post a Comment