Hypocrisy of Northumberland Today Editor

RE: the photograph of Sgt Mclean running to take down a suspect & CDS complicity

On May 1, 2006, the editor of the Cobourg Daily Star published a column entitled, “Exploitation, Not Entertainment.” The editor was referring to the just released movie, United 93.

This movie (not the schmaltzy sentimental slop of the tv movie entitled Flight 93) was an exceedingly astute portrayal of the doomed flight that had been hijacked by a pack of Islamaniacs on 9/11. The passengers realized their plight and attempted to take back control of the airliner. They heroically succeeded in preventing the jet reaching its intended destination, thereby preventing a greater loss of life, by causing it to crash in a Pennsylvania field.

The movie added no dramatic fictional flair. It wasn’t needed. It was a dramatic heroic tragedy as it was. The script utilized the actual dialogue that had been recorded in the cockpit, from passengers cell-phone calls to loved ones, from the control tower and from various other official recordings of personnel trying to make sense of a senseless act. The movie included many of the actual participants in the event playing themselves and repeating their own words, completely unadorned. The movie could hardly have been more authentic.

But the editor of the Cobourg Daily Star, all puffed up with sanctimonious arrogance declared the movie to be purely “exploitive.” Take a moment to let that sink in. The editor, who had not seen the movie, and asserted that they would not go to see the movie, declared far and wide that it was “exploitive.” It served no purpose than to make money. The movie and its producers were venal, etc, etc, ad nauseam.

So yes, I get it. The editor would never dream of doing anything that could be deemed as “exploitive” themselves. They would never publish anything sensationalist just for the sake of earning a few bucks extra from increased readership. Nope, not the sanctimonious editor of the estrogen dominated Cobourg Daily Star.

This brings me around to the story and photograph that the editor of Northumberland Today, the very sanctimonious editor, published on their web site, the photograph of Cobourg Police Service Sgt Mclean, who leapt out of a swooping unmarked police car and high-tailed it to take-down a deer-in-the-headlights suspect. What drama!

Forget asking any questions about the provenance of the photograph. How did the photographer get there ahead of time, to be able to park his car strategically, take his hands off the wheel, pick up his digital camera, press the button to open the lens, then press the button to take the photograph of Sgt Mclean bravely bounding towards the suspect.

The photographer was already there to eyewitness at least two unmarked police vehicles swooping into the driveway – that’s what was said in the article accompanying the photograph. After all the unmarked police cars didn’t wait there until the photographer arrived, parked and prepared to photograph before leaping out of their unmarked cars. The photographer was there ahead of time.

The suggestion that the photographer knew this take-down was going to happen and precisely where it was going to happen via a scanner is ludicrous. Biker gangs and drug gangs have access to sophisticated scanners. The Cobourg Police Service knows this. Cobourg Police Chief, Paul Sweet acknowledged this in his email to me. So here we have prima facie evidence of sloppy police procedure, of Cobourg officers transmitting drug takedown information including the address of the takedown over the radio waves for all and sundry to hear. What incredible dereliction.

But none of this matter to the editor in control of Northumberland Today. What matters most of all is to pay out cash to the photographer to get scooping rights to publish this dramatic action photo. Now, THAT is exploitation. What a sanctimonious hypocrite the editor!