JONESIE: When ‘journalists’ help themselves, they don’t help anyone

Gaze with me for a moment at the soft navel of the dwindling news and media business of Kamloops and the Okanagan.

Kelowna Now had a good get this week. At least until they did Kelowna Now things with it.

They got to ask the Prime Minister a question when Mark Carney appeared in West Kelowna to announce relief for beleaguered softwood lumber producers.

If you didn’t know, the backstory to this is that all legitimate news outlets are getting their butts kicked by the loss of Facebook as a cheap and easy means of reaching readers, Kelowna Now more than most, I suggest. It built its entire business model and expensive future off the whims of Facebook and social media companies, which doesn’t need or even want news at all anymore.

Kelowna Now blames the government, justifiably. Over and over and over… it’s their hottest topic, the only reason I ever end up there.

Anyway, the get: One question and one only for the prime minister while he’s in their backyard and they chose to ask — not about violence against women, housing, affordability, crime, homelessness, invasive mussels, interprovincial trade, the drug crisis or even the softwood lumber industry, which is why he was here — no, they pushed their poor reporter in to ask about their own business.

“Bill C18 stands in our way to get back onto Facebook and Instagram, are the Liberals looking for an alternative or rescinding that so we can get news on those important platforms?”

It’s not even the first time they abused their access as “journalists” to blatantly lobby an MP.

Now I’m no “brand” expert and I’ve never been an accountant. But I don’t think self-serving reporting establishes a public good, let alone a public trust.

But I guess that’s their risk to take and I’m probably wrong, anyway.

Their approach seems to work pretty well for The Rebel.

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Meanwhile, in Kamloops, the Mayor’s Armchair is taking unnecessary swipes at the news again.

I say unnecessary because media scrutiny should be a wonderful thing. If we had more of it in Mel Rothenburger’s day, perhaps we’d have more trust from the public.

I just wish it were media scrutiny done well.

Rothenburger accused us by name, along with CFJC and Radio NL and Castanet of being either “slow or biased” in reporting Rothenburger’s favourite subject — Reid Hamer-Jackson, mayor of Kamloops (for now).

(I hope he gave Castanet Kamloops editor Tim Petruk plenty of warning that he was publishing his criticism because Tim really hates that. Yep. Tim’s going to be super mad, Mel.)

Anyway, Rothenburger learned that Mayor Hamer-Jackson’s private business office was broken into and vandalized, then he fantasized about why it hadn’t been reported yet.

Here’s the truth: Mel is the only person in the media Hamer-Jackson talks to anymore. Mel is the only one still listening, the only one not tired of chasing Hamer-Jackson’s cries of wolf.

Rothenburger has still not articulated a single good reason why Hamer-Jackson deserves support and the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award winner is so captured by his audience of the mayor’s supporters, he’s willing to do the heavy lifting and perpetuate the myth that the rest of council is in any way dysfunctional, despite all available evidence.

He’ll even put local reporters on a stake for them.

— Marshall Jones is the managing editor of iNFOnews.ca