Correcting Tabatha Southey's record on my work

I like Tabatha Southey’s column a lot but today, she makes an error when she writes in her Globe and Mail column:

When it was announced that Osama bin Laden had been shot, Sun News did not break away from its recorded coverage of the royal wedding…

In fact, we did break away. I know because I was the on-air anchor for Sun News Network for our “breaking coverage” of the press conference in which U.S. President Barack Obama announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed. That press conference began at about 11:30 pm ET though it originally been announced to begin at 10:30 pm ET . Speculation that bin Laden had been killed or captured began to filter out at about 9 pm ET that night. Some news networks immediately went to air with this speculation.  (And there was lots of speculation!)  Sun News Network was less than two weeks old when this happened, in the middle of the night on a weekend, but, if memory serves we were ready to go live-to-air for the originally scheduled Obama presser time of 10:30 ET . Brian Dunstan and I, with zero preparation, carried an hour of TV until Obama did speak while producers frantically tried to roust up every security expert we could find that Sunday night. (Media critic Steve Faguy called our show “awkward” and he’s probably right. I’d certainly never done anything like that before and it’s a tough job!) In that sense, I suspect what was going on in our studio was going on in every studio in Canada. Every news network, including us, carried the same live video feed from the White House.

So, no, Tabatha, it’s not correct to say “Sun News did not break away”. We did. Period.

And, while I’m at it, I’m pretty proud of our political coverage:

  • Sun News Network was the only Canadian news network to go wire-to-wire with live provincial election night coverage in Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. (We will be doing the same in B.C. on May 14)
  • Sun News Network carried every single Liberal leadership debate/event wire-to-wire and unfiltered. No French-language news network did that and neither did CBC News Network
  • Sun News Network will carry the BC provincial election leaders debate live across the country this Monday night. (Tune in ! 630 Pacific/9:30 Et

 

3 thoughts on “Correcting Tabatha Southey's record on my work”

  1. I find southey’s regular attempts at satire to be incredibly awkward. Wait a minute, what exactly does she do there?

  2. You can’t expect the CBC or others within the Media party to report on anything as mundane as the Facts David. That would really be something to see… all of them sitting around and talking about simply what’s happened without their own opinions involved. That would leave too much up to chance that someone might connect the dots back to their allegiances within the bureaucrats back in Ottawa. The ones who keep the payroll and gravy train running. I have yet to see any of them beyond Rex Murphy actually do any investigative or hard fact reporting for most of my adult life.

    Why is no one reporting on this glaring number in the media party???
    PM vs. Back bencher…
    http://www.parl.gc.ca/PublicDisclosure/MemberExpenditures.aspx?Language=E&Year=2011-2012

  3. I think you guys at Sun are doing a great job – but Tabby Southy wouldn’t ever watch Sun News unless she was strapped to a chair and had her eyes held open like Malcolm MacDowell in Clockwork Orange. So it’s unlikely she saw it – she just passed on someone else’s opinion – which is the real point.

    She doesn’t know what she speaks of – she just parrots others. Sad really.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *