The War Room

MCGUINTY AD POSES AS OP-ED: PUBLISH OR PERISH, INDEED

When is a blatant, one sided political advertisement worthy of publishing as an editorial?

Here is a political ad by Dalton McGuinty to be the 'education premier' being published as an 'op-ed'.

Just more of the same blatant, hamfisted sloganeering that we have become used to from any politician running for election. He bashes the conservatives, uses rhetoric and makes a lot of generalizations that are so generic that they can not be proven true or false.

And all of that would be fine if it were a paid political ad. But it is not. It is being run as an editorial. Now, I know that John Tory will get his chance too and any paper would print these, but it just seems a bit off.

Why should any newspaper be printng an ad for any politician seeking re-election and publishing it as an editorial?

Is this free speech or does it actually hamper it?

It certainly devalues the newspaper that publishes it and I am not just saying this because it was written by Dalton McGuinty.

And does anyone actually think McGuinty wrote this? Or does it make more sense that one of his paid lackeys did and he gave it final approval? I have never thought McGuinty to be the brightest politico out there, but this is pretty trite.

It reads completely like a generic, re-used campaign slogan. All bland statements that ultimately mean nothing. I won't even compromise the integrity of my blog by re-printing a portion of it.

But I ask, when something this facile, this shoddy and poorly written can be published as 'editorial' by a major newspaper, what is the state of our media?

posted by Nicol DuMoulin @ 7:20 AM