Tag: Halifax ChronicleHerald

How about some Trip Advice on Trout Point Lodge: A mostly guest post from comments by Finisterre.

“Sounds to me like Trout Point is beating TripAdvisor at their own game” ~ ChronicleHerald reporter Bill Powers after he picked up the Trout Point Lodge Privacy policy press release and ran it as a news story.

“Sold out and clueless does not begin to describe the media here.” ~ Nova Scotia resident on the Nova Scotia main stream media and the ChronicleHerald in particular.

“Since this post initially went up, I have gotten numerous emails, ranging from apologetic to threatening, from Charles Leary. He alleges bad behavior on my part. He also says the long-running lawsuit filed against Trout Point and him by the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) has been settled. In addition, he says the man I talked to who was identified by his staff as Charles Leary was not, in fact, Charles Leary. But he will not produce the document showing the lawsuit was settled and he will not identify the man he claims I spoke to. Finally, he reaffirms his belief in his policy of attempting to own all his guests’ thoughts, observations and opinions about Trout Point.

(image)” ~ Story Worldwide CEO Kirk Cheyfitz, would be Trout Point Lodge guest, on his horrible experience trying to check into the Lodge. The link to Leary’s picture was broken by Charles Leary after Cheyfitz pointed out via the link that Leary lied to him about the person that treated him and his wife so badly was not Leary himself.

“The girls are doing a great job putting themselves out of business :-)” ~ Sop to an outraged reader in Nova Scotia regarding the glowing Canadian Main Stream Media reviews published in exchange for free visits to the Lodge.

From my post Thursday Music: This is why the girls are still trying to sell that bogus “privacy policy” Finisterre made some great observations:

From the “policy”: “In exchange and consideration for TPL protecting the privacy of TPL guests from unwanted publicity while on the property…”
Ok, what steps do they actually take to? If the person registering neither seeks nor needs nor, especially, receives such protections, isn’t the policy then null and void, without effect, unenforceable? Or, what do these protections consist of? Apparently this was not an issue when Millie Ball was on the property, then they were more than happy to advertise who was there. Continue reading “How about some Trip Advice on Trout Point Lodge: A mostly guest post from comments by Finisterre.”

Team Trout Point begins another PR offensive: The Halifax ChronicalHerald covers the Trout Point Lodge Trip Advisor warning about Lodge

Occasionally newspapers like to spin a fairy tale folks and most of those are born at the intersection of Lazy Reporter and Deadline Boulevards. Other times the reports are the end result of some sort of payola like we all have recently witnessed in the saga of landfill whore Garland(fill) Robinette. In fact in a column about the Robinette scandal James Gill over at the Times Picayune filled us in on how things worked in certain media circles so it is there we begin:

In the old days, nobody fretted if a flack picked up the tab every time, and there was always a chance, say, that some travel company would fly you off for a vacation in a foreign resort in hopes of some positive ink. Reporters didn’t earn much, but, if anyone wanted to treat them nice, they were not inclined to be churlish.

Nowadays, even commentators as long in the tooth as Robinette have learned to bandy about such exquisite concepts as the “appearance of impropriety,” and it is hard to believe that the free-and-easy approach was normal as recently as 35 years ago.

There are a couple of Canadian media outlets that have relentlessly promoted Trout Point Lodge, the Globe and Mail and the Halifax ChronicleHerald. Fair enough, Nova Scotia, while possessive of wonderful natural scenery and warm friendly people isn’t known as a mecca of 5 star resorts so I imagine it is natural the media would be proud of the local resort in the boondocks. Even better though, media types evidently still get comped in Canada with free stays and the like in exchange for favorable publicity. Just last month for instance, Oliver Moore, the Atlantic Bureau Chief of the Globe and Mail revealed he was comped in exchange for promoting the Lodge and their latest pump of being a great place to hold hands with your lover and star gaze. (Barth Mississippi is also a great for that)  My email to Mr Moore inquiring about Leary and Perret’s editorial role in his reporting went unanswered. The bottom line here is sleazy, on the take journalists are evidently still alive and well in Canada.

This morning Halifax ChronicleHerald business reporter Bill Power takes a crack at the Trip Advisor warning about Trout Point and its admonition to Trip Advisor users to be very leery of Charles Leary. The wordsmithing of Leary in his quoted remarks is a thing of beauty as Story Worldwide CEO Kirk Cheyfitz’s review of his very shabby treatment by Leary (who denied being Leary) is dismissed because he didn’t stay at the Lodge. Of course he did not stay at the Lodge because of Leary’s hare-brained guest registration agreement but I guess Charlie thought that was a minor detail not worth mentioning. Continue reading “Team Trout Point begins another PR offensive: The Halifax ChronicalHerald covers the Trout Point Lodge Trip Advisor warning about Lodge”