Why the Newmarket Era is Distorting the Facts About Campaign Fairness Reforms

Earlier this week, I posted a blog calling for the cessation of developer, union and corporate donations in Newmarket municipal elections.

As the Newmaret Era so often does in reaction to what I write, a few days later, the paper published an editorial calling for the end of developer - but not union or corporate - donations.

The Newmarket Era cites Campaign Fairness and the will of the people to justify it's point of view. (To learn more about Campaign Fairness, click the link here).

I don't have to fight Campaign Fairness' battles, but clearly the Newmarket Era is distorting the organization's views. Campaign Fairness in bold lettering declares:

Fair campaign finance laws for Ontario municipalities. Ban all corporate and union donations.

It couldn't be clearer that what Campaign Fairness is fighting for isn't just prohibiting "developer" donations, but all corporate and union donations too.  

Why would the Newmarket Era purposefully distort this fact? 

1)  The company that owns the Newmarket Era, the York Region Media Group, has itself donated money to incumbent's campaign in the past. The editorial writer wouldn't dare be critical of what her bosses have been doing.  

2) The worst offender of being beholden to corporate donations - and there is irrefutable evidence of him using his council expense account to repay his campaign donor (RC Designs) with public funds almost three times the amount of the donation - is Regional Councillor John Taylor. Recall that the spouse of  the controversial Mr. Taylor is a senior executive within the organization that owns the Newmarket Era. As I wrote earlier, Mr, Taylor's 2014 re-election campaign had 42 corporate donations between $500 and $750, the most of any candidate in 2014. The editorial writer certainly wouldn't criticize that, would she?  

Clearly because the editorial writer is fearful of her corporate bosses, the public receives distortions of fact within the pages of the local paper.  

A couple of years ago, the editor of the Newmarket Era went public with a speech declaring that Newmarket Town Hall Watch was an aberration, and only professional journalists, not citizen journalists like me, had the ethics and integrity to report the news. 

All of this is pure bluster of course. The reality is that her corporate bosses heavily influence her to distort the facts. She is the last person who should be allowed to advise us of what is good for democracy.  

Citizen journalists, like me, are not beholden to private, corporate, and union interests. We are 10,000% more likely to tell the story accurately because of this. 

Professional journalists often moan and complain that their form of media is dying out in favour of bloggers, YouTubers, and Twitter users.  

The Newmarket Era should be the case study in journalism school that defines why newspapers are endangered species. The public knows that the citizen journalists who talk about issues, like myself, are a far more trustworthy news source.