Note: In journalism school students are taught to report
not what people say but what they do!
not what people say but what they do!
All the big newspapers and TV networks breathlessly reported word-for-word what they were told at a recent joint political-General Motors newser:
The Globe and Mail:
“For decades, the splashy, job-creating announcements in the auto sector in Canada have been about manufacturing jobs.
“General Motors of Canada Ltd. went in a different direction Friday, announcing the hiring of 700 to 750 new engineers who will work on the automobile of the future – vehicles that are battery-powered, connected to the wired world much more closely than they are now and will eventually drive themselves.”
CTV News reported what Prime Minister Trudeau said, just as though the comment came from an official news release: "We know that to create good jobs ... we have to be on the cutting edge," Trudeau said. "This investment by GM in jobs that will support their operations all around the world shows we're succeeding in that regard."
How exciting! How futuristic!
But wait a minute. Here’s a bit of interesting background:
GM does not have to hire Canadian engineers for the 700 jobs. In fact, they are going to go to Silicon Valley to recruit them.
And there’s more:
If the reporters had bothered to scan through their archives, they would have discovered that the auto industry in Canada is doing very little compared to what it was like a few years ago, when many thousands of people were employed with excellent wages.
