Thursday, March 18, 2010

Mike Duffy Unmasked. Put it Back on Duffy!

What happened to Mike Duffy? I never watched his show on CTV, but don't remember anyone saying that he was nuts, in the certifiable sense.

Boy when they fall, they fall hard.

Senator Mike Duffy has attacked the University of King’s College and other Canadian journalism schools for exposing students to Noam Chomsky and critical thinking.

In a speech Saturday to Conservative party members in Amherst, Duffy reportedly slammed journalism programs for churning out leftist graduates.“When I went to the school of hard knocks, we were told to be fair and balanced,”
Duffy was quoted from his speech in yesterday’s issue of the Amherst Daily News.

“That school doesn’t exist any more. Kids who go to King’s, or the other schools across the country, are taught from two main texts.”

This sounds eerily like the speech Reformer Steven Flethcer gave to University of Manitoba students, where he referred to their newspaper as a 'socialist rag'.

Kim Kierans, head of the King’s School of Journalism clarified that the school does not teach from Chomsky, but does encourage critical thinking. Obviously they are preparing these future journalists to work for international papers, because Canada's media no longer engage in much thought of any kind.

But if Duffy learned his skills from the "school of hard knocks" he was obviously knocked in the head a few too many times, because he's absolutely ridiculous.

Besides, how can he preach respectable journalism to anyone? He was charged with etchics violations for his alleged complicity in engineering Harper's 2008 election victory.

Even Don Martin remarked on this:

...Now, Duffy calling someone a faker equals pot calling the kettle black. This is the same Duffy who, as host of his own politics show, presented himself for decades as journalistically neutral, then accepted Harper's $130,000 appointment ten months ago and now devotes his energies to shamelessly shilling for the Conservatives.

That's the definition of fakery for you, particularly given he was appointed after airing that infamous CTV interview with then-Liberal leader Stephane Dion, a bumbling performance credited by some as the turning point of the 2008 election campaign for Stephen Harper.

Yet journalism students are living on the fringe? Yep, that's it Mike. That 'fringe' is getting pretty crowded though.

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