Once more into the archives

And I thought The Mail  was biased and anti Catholic.

When I started rewriting my history of the Jubilee Riots I knew my research would have a hole in it, because I could not find any microfilm of one of the important Toronto newspapers of the time.  I started writing anyway, because I thought the last of the papers, The Leader, would not have any new facts to add to the narrative of events, and I could just add its spin on events into my history.

I finally located the relevant issues and copied them onto my flash drive.  I was half right- it has no new facts to add, but it does have a fair few lies.  The open contempt of this newspaper for the Catholics who were attacked for the heinous crime of walking through the Protestant sections of Toronto was so palpable it made The Mail's claims to be fair and balanced in its reporting of the riots seem to be perfectly reasonable and justified. The other papers at least tried to accurately report facts and then put their spin on those facts.  The Leader streamlined the process and simply made up their own facts. Their account was just plain wrong, completely wrong.  It was so wrong, and they were so adamant in their refusal to recant or correct their falsehoods it simply had to be willful. It... really has to be experienced.  It's very hard to describe except at length, which is something I may have to do.

At any rate, I repeat my old claim: when I hear people say that today's papers are losing their objectivity and no longer reporting the news, I have to shake my head and laugh.   Losing their  objectivity, you say?  They are losing their grammar, certainly.  They are losing their ability to articulate complex thoughts and ideas.  They have certainly lost any claim to having a vocabulary beyond a grade two level.  But losing their objectivity?  My friends, you cannot lose what you never had in the first place.