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”