By Judi McLeod ——Bio and Archives--December 6, 2022
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“TOM KORSKI, Managing Editor: “Tom is a former radio man who covered politics for dailies in Winnipeg, Calgary and Edmonton. He was Beijing correspondent for the South China Morning Post of Hong Kong. Tom joined the Press gallery in 1993. () “HOLLY DOAN, Publisher: “Holly is an award-winning journalist who joined the gallery in 1993. She reported for CBC and CTV in four provinces, was CTV Beijing Bureau Chief in 1995-8, and produced political history documentaries for CPAC. ALEX BINKLEY, Resources editor: “Alex reported for The Canadian Press from 1971, working in Montreal and Halifax before joining the gallery in 1975. He has been a freelance correspondent for publications in Canada, the US and England since 1993. KAVEN BAKER-VOAKES, Economics editor: “Kaven joined the gallery in 2009, specializing in business and trade news. Kaven has an MA from Carleton’s school of European, Russian & Eurasian studies. He’s worked in China and completed research in Uzbekistan.” (Blacklock's About Us)
“Remembered for his newsroom credo – “That ain’t the way I heard it!” – Thomas Hyland Blacklock was a pioneer publisher and war correspondent. Born in Halton County, Ont. in 1870, he became a frontier editor and first mayor of Weyburn, Sask. in 1903. Assigned to Parliament Hill by the Winnipeg Telegram in 1912 Tom remained a gallery man for life with columns published from Victoria to Halifax. As a WWI correspondent for the Montreal Gazette he was a passionate advocate of the troops, and became a confidante of Prime Minister Robert Borden. “I always held him in the warmest affection,” Borden recalled. In peacetime Tom served as 1922 president of the Ottawa Press Gallery and co-founded the Canadiana news service. At his death in 1934, the entire Ottawa press corps mourned Tom as “a keen observer blessed with a sense of proportion.” (Blacklock's About Us)Little wonder bought-and-paid-for mainstream media keep looking over their shoulders for truth-telling Blacklock reporters. This is a direct Canada Free Press cry for help to new Twitter owner Elon Musk: If it’s returning the reporting world to the advantage of Free Speech you’re sincerely after, the Ottawa Parliamentary Press Gallery would be the perfect place to start. No need for second guessing here because when armed police evicted Blacklock’s reporters on Friday, they were accompanied by Parliamentary Press Gallery executives! “Parliamentary Press Gallery executives accompanied by armed police on Friday evicted Blacklock’s. All questions were referred to a House of Commons employee. Blacklock’s said the eviction, first of its kind in the history of the National Press Building, was clear reprisal over its continued protests against media subsidies.(Blacklock's Reporter, Dec. 5, 2022)
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"Eviction followed Gallery president Guillaume St-Pierre’s threat to “terminate” Blacklock’s membership. “The complaints were made by three reporters: Emilie Bergeron and Michel Saba of Canadian Press and freelancer Hélène Buzzetti, a former Gallery president. Fourteen other reporters assigned desks in the National Press Building did not sign the complaint. “Failure to observe these prohibitions could result in further and potentially more serious sanctions including further and potentially permanent prohibitions,” wrote President St-Pierre, correspondent for the Journal de Montréal. “The Gallery refused to permit Blacklock’s to speak to the board of directors regarding reprisal complaints. “The executive did not invite oral representations,” said the eviction notice. “We will now see the Press Gallery in court,” Blacklock’s shareholders said in a statement. “Our subsidized competitors met in secret, plotted punitive measures over petty grievances and served an eviction notice accompanied by armed police. Their conduct is outrageous.” “Blacklock’s is the only Press Gallery member eligible for federal subsidies that neither solicits nor accepts government funding. “The eviction came one day after Blacklock’s published Access To Information records detailing a private meeting between 35 unnamed publishers and the Canada Revenue Agency on distribution of $595 million in subsidies.
“Blacklock’s in 2020 also reported Canadian Press unsuccessfully petitioned the Commons finance committee for federal grants to cover 100 percent of revenues, the equivalent of $500,000 a week. CP President Malcolm Kirk asked for subsidies “to fully offset subscription fees paid by CP’s media clients.” “Blacklock’s at a 2021 Press Gallery meeting sponsored a motion that “all Gallery members disclose all applications for grants, rebates or subsidies to any branch of the Government of Canada” and publish the disclosures on its website. The motion was defeated. “That’s cleared up,” said then-Gallery president Catherine Levesque of Canadian Press. “The Press Gallery action is clearly reprisal,” wrote Blacklock’s shareholders. “We will fight.”Blacklock’s has been a legitimate member of the Ottawa Press Gallery since October of 2012. Little did anyone know back then, that the Justin Trudeau-led Canadian Liberal Party would buy off the majority of the mainstream legacy media in 2018. Most folk do not realize that the $595 million the government paid out in media subsidies is in addition to the annual $1 billion government pays to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Related:
Elon Musk suggests news organizations who received donations from FTX and Sam Bankman Fried should be labeled "SBF-affiliated media." pic.twitter.com/GI8czzzzes
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) December 4, 2022
“Question: You know how foreign media is labelled on twitter as Russian Media? “Why don’t we do the same thing in the US with all of these media organizations that are getting us to go to war? “Why don’t we label them as US Government State Media”? “We should be labeling that SBF-affiliated (Sam Bankman-Fried) media, because it is”. “If you write a puff piece after you were given a ton of money, then the public should know you have a bias. “Who has editorial control? “Give users at Twitter the most accurate information of what is going on.”
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