Twitter Wars: Ditchburn vs Levant

Pictured: Ditchburn (left) and Levant (right)

Who knew Canadian Media Twitter Wars could be fun? Who knew that was even a thing?!

Well it is. And it's spectacular!

Let me set the scene. Jennifer Ditchburn, who works for the Canadian Press, writes a story about government bureaucrats posing as new Canadians for an Oath of Citizenship ceremony. There are some compelling questions that remain unanswered as to the media practices at Sun News and the level of compliance that the government will go to accommodate the media, especially Sun News whose VP is the former director of communications for Stephen Harper.

Consequently, Sun News sends out professional troll Ezra Levant to defend the "honour" of the network.



The attack on Jennifer Ditchburn in Ezra Levant's bizzaro world are these:

1. Ditchburn appears on a CBC political panel show and therefore is employed by the CBC. The CBC is somehow a de facto villain and this eliminates all her credibilty.
2. He babbles about her Access To Information (ATI) request. This is the not-so-interesting part...
3. Rambles on and on about the CBC until he says "government and media don't mix". Oh my...

Primo, Ditchburn is as much an "employee" of the CBC as she is of CTV and Global. She's appeared on CTV's "Question Period" and Global's "The West Block". Secondo, it's a newsworthy ATI request to find out about ties between the media and government but Levant's segue into the CBC's refusal to divulges personal financial information is a non sequitur. Terzo, tell Kory Teneycke, Krista Erickson or Brian Lilley that "government and media don't mix".

Then comes Sun News's David Akin on his blog implying that Ditchburn should have known the Sun News producer in charge of the segment through the ATI documents despite the fact that the name itself was redacted when attributing the quote: "Let’s do it. We can fake the Oath". So then, this exchange on twitter:

Them's fighting words, right Ezra?

Looks like Ezra is going ham here! What say you, Jennifer?

Oh snap! No collaboration with the CBC, she says. But Ezra isn't done.

"She" is Dayna Gourley. A Sun News producer now working for the CBC.

Get buck, son! Ditchburn schools that fool by pointing out that the spheres of TV news producers and that of print journalists are far apart.

By that logic, every political analyst that's ever appeared on TV is also an employee of all the networks they've appeared on? I hope Jennifer Ditchburn never appeared on Al-Jazeera English or else Levant would likely call her a terrorist.

Oh dip! Ditchburn suggests that Sun News were able to identify the news producer through the ATI request because it was common knowledge in the Sun News organization that they had staged the ceremony.

Douchecanoe keeps attacking Ditchburn's "link" to the CBC.

Dagger! An all-out salvo!

Ezra calling JD a hustler that's making bank through the CBC! Sorry Levant but that dog don't hunt as Chantal Hébert disclosed that the prestigious "At Issue" segment pays out $500 a week. It isn't bad but it won't pay the mortgage alone, will it? However, Ezra inadvertently makes a good point. What's the corporate culture like at Sun News? Has Gourley done anything similar at Global or City TV? Was there anything specific to her departure from Sun News other than better pay and benefits? Is Sun News as oppressive as its Quebec counterpart, LCN? I know I'm curious about all this.

It's been done over in Quebec through SRC's Enquête but why shouldn't the ROC find out as well?