I remember this little ditty from the November-December 1989 issue of content magazine:

Media mini-baron Conrad Black talks about journalists in a recent interview in the Financial Times of London:

Mr. Black accepts that journalists cannot be treated as just another unit of production and that even terribly unproductive journalists can be extremely valuable to readers.

"Some of them are temperamental, tiresome and nauseatingly eccentric and simply obnoxious but that really has nothing to do with it. They simply cannot be measured by that criterion," says Conrad Black.

I had numerous issues with a June 22 column by the Toronto Star's Haroon Siddiqui on the issues raised by the CIC-vs-Maclean's case.

Let's go through them:

From a Maclean's news release issued June 26:

Maclean's magazine is pleased that the Canadian Human Rights Commission has dismissed the complaint brought against it by the Canadian Islamic Congress. The decision is in keeping with our long-standing position that the article in question, "The Future Belongs to Islam," an excerpt from Mark Steyn's best-selling book America Alone, was a worthy piece of commentary on important geopolitical issues, entirely within the bounds of normal journalistic practice.

Though gratified by the decision, Maclean's continues to assert that no human rights commission, whether at the federal or provincial level, has the mandate or the expertise to monitor, inquire into, or assess the editorial decisions of the nation's media. And we continue to have grave concerns about a system of complaint and adjudication that allows a media outlet to be pursued in multiple jurisdictions on the same complaint, brought by the same complainants, subjecting it to costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars, to say nothing of the inconvenience. We enthusiastically support those parliamentarians who are calling for legislative review of the commissions with regard to speech issues.

Sandra Buckler is stepping down as Prime Minister Stephen Harper's director of communications. Does this mean Tory MPs will be able to give more than their name, rank and serial number in the future?