Posts in Media
And then Netanyahu won

Well this is odd. I was reading all these stories about "Israel Elections: Meet Isaac Herzog, Who Could Defeat Netanyahu" and "Israeli Elections: How the Left Could Win". And then this morning I read "Israel election: Netanyahu's Likud storms to victory". Say, could the legacy media have been reporting their desires as the news before it even happened? Arguably so, given that Britain's Guardian headlined a story about the actual outcome "Israel election: Bibi the magician pulls off a victory – but at what cost?" All the opinion that's fit to print, I guess.

**Update**

I notice that the top headline in today's Globe and Mail was "With Netanyahu, Herzog tied, the coalition building begins". In fact Likud won 30 seats, the Zionist Union 24. Some tie. The story has of course now been updated to explain that "Scrapping like a street fighter, the veteran Mr. Netanyahu used every trick in the book to overcome a four-seat deficit in public opinion surveys published just last Friday. His gentlemanly opponent, Mr. Herzog, waging his first campaign as party leader, didn’t stand a chance."

Thanks for clarifying that last point. From what you said earlier I... oh, never mind.

International, Israel, Media, PoliticsJohn Robson
In defence of Sun News

Yes, there was news on Sun News Network. My colleague David Akin offers a spirited defence of the network in Maclean's, pointing out that for all the mockery of our station, his Battleground show in particular often gave more detailed attention to politics and election campaigns than our rivals, including in-depth election night coverage. He's right, and I'd just like to add that, as part of that coverage especially on David's show, the network sent me to just about every province holding an election between 2011 and 2014 to film historical vignettes and other backgrounders to provide context for the current partisan clashes.

You can see a number of those on YouTube and I think it's fair to say "packs" like this one on the rhythm of BC politics offer a depth of background on politics you rarely find on the other stations. Sure, we had our failings. But when we say we were doing something different, David brings up one more important way it was true.

Of course sometimes we were snide. At least, I certainly was. But if you watch, say, my comments on Tim Hudak during the last Ontario election, would you say now I was off-target or too harsh?

Government, History, Media, PoliticsJohn Robson