Media Complicit in Viscous Attack on Lesley Hughes

When the B'Nai Brith and Peter Kent launched their attack on Winnipeg Liberal candidate Lesley Hughes, the media went nuts.

But not in protest as they should have to protect 'freedom of the press', but instead fed like sharks on the carcass of honest journalism.

Hmmm ... journalism ... now that's a stretch.

But they're not all so devoid of fact finding:

Hughes not anti-Semitic
Peter H. Markesteyn
Winnipeg
Media smear campaign

Having known Lesley Hughes professionally and personally for over 25 years, I wish to state that she has not a grain of anti-Semitism in her.

The mainstream media reports on the Stephane Dion firing of Lesley Hughes, the former Liberal candidate in Kildonan-St. Paul, fill all the offensive reporting criteria of which we have become so used to.

For example, instead of addressing the issues, the reporter, Dan Lett, uses name-calling tactics in his Sept. 27 article titled, "Altar of Google ravenous for sacrifices". Lett writes that Hughes has "curious views" and is a 9-11 conspiracy theorist."

Lett doesn't stop there, he takes a swipe also at Barrie Zwicker and those who question the "official 9/11 conspiracy story of record", calling them "infamous". Lett, unlike Hughes and Zwicker, however, never addresses the as yet unanswered questions and unreported and under-reported information surrounding 9/11 which the mainstream media has so far meticulously ignored. For doing her job as a journalist and reporting the news Hughes is now the victim of a smear campaign. The WFP, or any other paper, should not be able to smear journalists reputations just because they report the facts people don’t want to hear.

Sadly, Dan Lett's article wasn't the worst:

National Post Editorial Board: Goodbye to Lesley Hughes
September 27, 2008,
by Kelly McParland

Stéphane Dion was right to jettison Lesley Hughes, the Liberal candidate in the Winnipeg riding of Kildonan-St. Paul. Her poisonous views have no place in a major Canadian party.

Ms. Hughes, a former CBC radio host who until recently edited the socialist magazine Canadian Dimension, is sympathetic to the so-called 9/11 Truth Movement. “Truthers,” as they are known, believe the downing of New York’s World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001 was the result of a vast plot by the Israeli secret service, or the CIA, or both.

In a 2002 column, Ms. Hughes wrote that the shock and sorrow portrayed by “corporate media, privately owned newspapers, television and radio chains” following the 9/11 attacks “was hard to swallow, coming from the same media that … couldn’t wait to send young Canadians into a war on terrorism.”

Without citing specific examples, she insisted the CIA (which she claimed gets its “strategies and directions” from Wall Street, which itself is “heavily dependent on laundered drug money”) had “foreknowledge” of the al-Qaeda attacks. She also insisted the attacks were possible only through “the complicity of highly placed officials in the U.S. government.”

Ms. Hughes then went on to repeat a variation of the Internet canard that legions of Jews avoided death in the Twin Towers because the Mossad knew the attacks were coming and warned them: “Israeli businesses, which had offices in the Towers, vacated the premises a week before the attacks, breaking their lease to do it.”

As recently as last year, Ms. Hughes was still peddling her preposterous views, appearing on a panel in Winnipeg with notorious 9/11 denier Barry Zwicker and others. Good riddance to this woman. Her consolation: Now that she has been bounced from the Liberal campaign, she will have plenty of time to find the “real killers” behind 9/11.There are some who claim Tory Calgary Centre MP Lee Richardson should also be bounced, for saying to a Calgary weekly newspaper that immigrants are behind most of that city’s crime. “Look who’s committing the crimes,” he said. “They’re not the kid who grew up next door.”

Well, in many cases, they are the kids from next door. That, in part, is what Mr. Richardson’s own party’s youth-crime strategy is all about -- putting a little deterrent into the criminal justice system so ordinary kids don’t go astray in such numbers.

But Mr. Richardson was referring specifically to the recent rash of fatal shootings and stabbings in Calgary, most of which, according to Calgary police, are related to gangs with such names as FOB and FOB Killers. (FOB stands for Fresh Off the Boat -- a derogatory reference to immigrants that, like other taboo words, has been appropriated by those it purports to describe.) In August, Calgary police conducted 25 raids on FOB hangouts, netting 14 suspects who face more than 100 charges for drug and gun possession, car theft, robbery and a variety of other crimes.

Which is to say, there was a grain of truth behind Mr. Richardson’s ill-chosen remarks. As such, they were hardly in the same league as Ms. Hughes’ rantings. His indiscretion wasn’t severe enough to merit expulsion. The same can’t be said, however, for Bev Collins, who is now running as the NDP candidate in Cariboo-Prince George. Here’s what Ms. Collins has said about the possibility of another major terrorist attack in the United States: “Bush is losing his support base faster than he can say al-Qaida. Now officials are warning their fellow Americans and the world that Cheney and friends are planning to launch a 9/11-style attack on American soil within the coming months to bring about martial law and keep their hold on power.”

Even more damning was Collins’ participation in a creepy 2007 9/11 “truth” conference in Vancouver, at which various experts presented evidence to show that the World Trade Center was blown up from within.

Yet unlike Stéphane Dion, NDP leader Jack Layton has so far refused to cleanse his candidate ranks of a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. Why? Is it because, unlike Ms. Hughes, Ms. Collins has aimed her ludicrous theories only at the United States, and not at Israel? (looks whose being antisemitic now) Or does the NDP simply regard such theories as Ms. Collins’ to be acceptable?

Either way, Canadians should be offended. If Mr. Layton wants to convince Canadians that the NDP is a truly mainstream party, he must strike Bev Collins from his candidate list.

Kelly McParland is an idiot. There is a growing number of intelligent and well educated people who are questioning the official explanation of the comedy of errors, believing that to be the tinfoil hat in the room.

Obviously he either didn't read Ms Hughes' article, because she never suggests that legions of Jews knew of the attacks, only that the Israeli intelligence agency had warned the U.S. several weeks before the attack; or he has a problem with comprehension. Not a good trait for a journalist.

Or maybe he just paraphrased Peter Kent (before picking up his pay cheque? I'm just saying. Conservative Lee Richardson is a saint for suggesting that all crime is committed by immigrants, but a journalist is discredited for reporting alternative theories to 9/11).

She did offer an explanation, but really didn't need to. I read her article and she did nothing wrong. If we condemn every reporter for presenting things we don't want to hear, why bother having an independant media at all.

Lesley Hughes responds
October 1st 2008
By Lesley Hughes

Six years ago, I wrote a column which examined evidence that the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan may have been motivated by the drive for oil and drug profits.

As background, I reported that the intelligence agencies of Germany, Israel and Russia all warned the CIA that the attacks of Sept. 11 were coming, a fact also reported in the London Telegraph, the Jerusalem Post, and on Fox News. I noted that the U.S. disregarded the warnings, but Israeli businesses took them seriously, and (sensibly) vacated the Twin Towers.

The Canadian Jewish Congress seems to have assumed that I am one of those who subscribe to a bizarre conspiracy theory that the world’s Jews were responsible for 9-11, a ludicrous idea I have never supported.

As a result of the Congress’s assumption, I have been slandered as an odious anti-Semite, a claim accepted by the prime minister, by the leader of the opposition, and the nation’s media. I have also been labelled an extremist nutbar who has promoted, rather than investigated, the possibility that 9-11 was an inside job. As a result, the voters of Kildonan-St. Paul have no Liberal candidate, and a narrower debate before electing their MP.

One hopes journalists will be asking two questions: 1) Who benefits from this hysteria? 2) Is it still possible for journalists to do the work of journalism, which is to “challenge the official story” in an atmosphere of fear and ridicule?

I have a third question. Will Kelly McParland or Dan Lett ever grow a pair?