13 January 2014

Winner of Medal Of Stainhood for the week: Doug Saunders of The Globe and Mail

Here is the winner:


Here is the medal:


Here is the cause: Was our Afghan saga useless – or worse?

And here is the justification - by Terry Glavin:
I can't decide whether Doug Saunders' most recent attempt at journalism is downright creepy, disturbingly incompetent or merely comical. In any case, in his error-riddled essay he deceptively attributes any number of horrible things to UNAMA/NATO's "huge exercise" since 2006 that should accurately be attributed to late Obama-era half measures and a general shabbiness of the UNAMA/NATOs dismantling and withdrawal. Saunders claims a huge poll shows Afghans "overwhelmingly favour the Taliban over NATO forces and their own government," when the poll shows nothing of the kind - all polls that delve into that question in fact show the exact opposite. Saunders also claims that Afghan life expectancy (45-46) was actually better in the Taliban time, when in fact the WHO reports Afghan life expectancy today at 59 (m) and 61 (f). I even pointed out his misreading of the data to him several weeks ago, and sent him the references. He ignored them and reported what he knows to be untrue anyway. There's bullshit in almost every paragraph. Disgraceful behaviour by "Canada's national newspaper" today, and by Saunders.
Check.

6 comments:

SnoopyTheGoon said...

I am so glad Terry G called Saunders out on this one. A few weeks ago, Saunders also gleefully reported ago that masses of young Israelis are leaving Israel due to the lack of employment opportunities and immigrating to Germany. About the only journalist left at the G & M worth reading is Margaret Wente now that Rex Murphy departed for The National Post.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Tablet published a very worthwhile obit by Benny Morris.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Yeah, refusing to correct erroneous facts in an article is a pretty low behavior for a journo.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Thanks Lynne, I shall look it up.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Quite common, actually. Happens all the time in the NYTimes and WaPo.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Now in Globe and Mail too, apparently.