Angry in the Great White North

From the CBC:

CTV News apologized to Lucien Bouchard and his family Thursday for wrongly announcing that the former Quebec Premier had died.

CTV -- Canada's largest privately-owned TV network -- said it got the information from the CBC's French Language TV news channel, RDI.

RDI's News Director, Catherine Cano told the Canadian Press: "It's completely crazy and completely false." She demanded a retraction from CTV.

CTV's apology admitted the report "incorrectly attributed the source of the information to Radio-Canada."

But it gets better:

Cutting into regular coverage with a Breaking News graphic, CTV's 24-hour news network credited a Radio-Canada report and said Bouchard had died at the age of 66. Calling it dramatic news, political expert Mike Duffy began eulogizing Bouchard, saying he had a "profound impact on Canadian history" before stopping.

Duffy and CTV Newsnet anchor Kate Wheeler then said they were "happy to report Lucien Bouchard is alive and well."

Then the RDI hit:

"I don't know why Radio-Canada has been reporting that but indeed, now we're glad to report he's still alive," Wheeler said on the air.

Cano said she and others at the English and French networks of the CBC pored over tapes to see where Newsnet might have gotten the idea. She said nothing even came close to saying Bouchard was dead.

"I'm so angry, I could sue," Cano said. "It's our credibility at play here."

All this came from the CBC website. Go to CTV, and you won't see a word. Nothing anywhere refering to this news about the news.

The credibility of TV news has been hit, and that is news. But CTV isn't saying a word. English and French news organizations are hissing at each other, and that is news. But CTV isn't saying a word. Questions about the need for the CBC have been asked given the lockout that has essentially shut it down, and this major misstep by CTV will play into that, and that is news. But CTV isn't saying a word.

Part of this is probably related to potential legal action -- best not to say anything, the lawyers will say. But part of it has to do with the way the MSM deals with mistakes. Essentially, it ignores them and minimizes them. That's too bad, because we all lose an opportunity to learn something. With the Carol Jamieson situation, I've laid out the errors that took place (partly to do with which name she used in her membership applications, but also to do with printing something without confirming it with the original source), and I hope people will learn from it. But no one will learn from the CTV situation unless CTV puts it out in the open:

Tom Haberstroh, CTV vice-president of news, said an investigation was underway to find out how the mistake was made. "What I can tell you is we take pride in Newsnet, we take pride in its accuracy and we made an incorrect report. We apologize for it and we're investigating it." He said the report was corrected within a minute of airing.

No where in that blurb is Haberstroh quoted as saying that the results of the investigation are going to be published, regardless of what those results might be. CTV might still publish the results, but it would have been nice to have heard a promise made even before the results of that investigation are known.

The lawyers would hate it of course. Luckily, Angry in the Great White North has no lawyers on staff.