J-Source

CTV’s ethics

The Toronto Star reports on the political score-keeping over CTV’s airing of an interview with Stéphane Dion. The Star’s front-page link to its daily poll asks readers… The Toronto Star reports on the political score-keeping over CTV’s airing of an interview with Stéphane Dion. The Star’s front-page link to its daily poll asks readers: “CTV…

The Toronto Star reports on the political score-keeping over CTV’s airing of an interview with Stéphane Dion. The Star’s front-page link to its daily poll asks readers…

The Toronto Star reports on the political score-keeping over CTV’s airing of an interview with Stéphane Dion. The Star’s front-page link to its daily poll asks readers: “CTV has released unedited footage of a fumbled interview by Liberal leader Stéphane Dion. Is this fair?” At the time of this J-Source posting, 53 per cent clicked “No,” 44 per cent clicked “Yes,” with a tiny few being  “undecided.” (Why on earth would people bother to vote to record their indecision?)

If, as has been widely reported (here in a story about a CBC Newsworld interview and here by the Globe and Mail, CTV did promise not to air the flubbed interview, and then reneged on its word, I think it crossed a line from journalism to political involvement. I’d also suggest that CTV should not have promised to re-start the interview in the first place. And yes, hindsight is easy.

Watch the false starts and part one of the aired interview here. Watch part two here.

Watch Dion explain what happened here.