Ezra Levant holds forth on his encounter with an Alberta Human Rights Commission case officer over the complaint lodged against him over his decision to republish the Mohammad cartoons in the now-defunct Western Standard.

Old skool LAT columnist Bill Dwyre writing on Jan. 19:

Our society has a massive appetite for drama, and little for reality. We read about Britney Spears when we need to read about Afghanistan. And the media, which has the mandate -- and the constitutional right -- to lead us from this abyss, are all too often not doing so. Media, which once led public opinion, now all too often follow it.

We aren't just talking celebrity scandal sheets, weekly shoppers and sports-talk radio.

Last week, a Los Angeles bureau executive of the Associated Press, no less, put out a memo to staff that said they were to pay more attention to developments about Britney Spears. The message was: She is news.

No she isn't. She is titillation. She is a troubled young woman whom we cover with delight, rather than empathy. She is web hits, the current fool's gold of the newspaper industry.

Cliff Arnall, a Welsh seasonal disorders specialist, inspired by a commission from a British travel company, has claimed for the past few years that the Third Monday in January is the most depressing day of the year.

I call bullshit on that.

This morning, I saw enough extra light on the horizon at 6:50 a.m. to make me think the corner has been turned.

When I lived on the Prairies, I usually found just the teeniest extra bit of heat in the sun (so long as I was out of the wind) at this time of year. Again, that would raise my spirits, knowing that spring was, at most, six months away. :^)

From CP:

The CBC says it has transferred an Ottawa reporter to Toronto after she fed questions to a Liberal MP during the Mulroney-Schreiber hearings in December.

The public broadcaster says reporter Krista Erickson's actions were ``inappropriate'' and violated CBC policies.

The broadcaster says Erickson acted on her own in providing questions to a Liberal MP and there was no bias in the news coverage.

I'd link to the CBC.ca story, but ... :)  However, the Corpse did send out a news release. CBC Radio covered the story 24 minutes into its 6 p.m. newscast as a voicer.

Jonathan Kay posted the following at the N-P's comment blog:

As for Ms. Erickson, she deserves to be able to get on with her journalistic career. What she did was wrong: Even if collusion between politicians and journalists is hardly unheard of in Ottawa, it is plainly inappropriate for a reporter with the national broadcaster to involver herself in a case with such partisan overtones — especially since the nature of her participation specifically involved trying to link a former Conservative PM with the current Harper government. Still, there was no evidence that she had malicious motives. Rather, she seemed to be trying to advance a juicy story line — which is, after all, what many of us journos are  trying to do.*

* Including some from his own shop! Check this out. 

Having gotten caught, the CBC's obligation to the Conservative Party and the Canadian public was to serve up the reporter's name and promise it won't happen again. The Ceeb has done that. And so we can all put Pablo-gate behind us.