Monday, February 26, 2007

Robert Jones report

There was some talk of the CBC report about broken Liberal promises by Robert Jones that ran last week on some other New Brunswick blogs.

First, I hope this will put to rest claims of pro-Liberal/anti-Tory bias when Jones had a report last summer on auto insurance. Robert Jones is a good journalist and as far as I know the ONLY investigative journalist we have in New Brunswick today. This is no slam on other journalists; most of them are operating in environments where they are expected to file two, three, four + stories per day. They simply do not have the time to do detailed, researched reports. Fortunately, we have Mother Corp here in New Brunswick with the resources to let a journalist get his hands dirty and uncover real news with substantive details, instead of the standard which is to merely report on the "news" that the politicians create and want reported.

Jones' report was fair in my view, as his reports during the Lord years were fair though then critical of the Tory government as opposed to today's Liberal government.

I've called my party out before for breaking the HST promise, even though I thought it was good policy for it to be axed, because, like Jones pointed out, they didn't bother to apologize for it or to even admit they made it.

Jones also points out that the Charter for Change implied that you could get a $2000 grant to retrofit your house, period. He pointed out something I had not noticed: the actual policy is 20% of costs, up to $2000. Meaning you need to spend $10,000 to get the grant they promised. Unfortunate. I think that this is a better line of attack for the Tories becuase, though the Liberals backed away from their HST pledge, this was largely because of the inadaquate (and you might argue incompotent) planning for the program by the Tories when they were in power.

In any event, Bob Jones isn't biased and, I'd like to think, neither am I. Hence this report. I'm nbpolitico, stay classy New Brunswick.

8 comments:

scott said...

First, I hope this will put to rest claims of pro-Liberal/anti-Tory bias.

We'll see. The jury is still out on Messr Jones.

Anonymous said...

Here we go...
htpp://shawnbreakspromises.blogspot.com

nbpolitico said...

To assist readers, I think you mean: http://shawnbreakspromises.blogspot.com

Spinks said...

Now that's the suspicious Scott I know and love. :)

Although kudos to Robert Jones for wading into the controversy himself at the Politics NB blog. Not too many journalists do that so full marks from this corner.

What do you think NBPolitico, how long does the new trash the Libs blog last? Warren Kinsella must have something to say about it. LOL.

nbpolitico said...

We'll have to see depends on the blogger.

Not sure what happened to Trench as he got a lot of hits so he can't have thought he was wasting his time but, my view is, without a media hit like Trench got, I suspect completely unbalanced constant attacks with bore most and result in a small reader base. If he is only getting a dozen or so visitors (which I think she will) the I would imagine he would fold rather than waste her time.

Anonymous said...

Just a head's up that we posted about your site on inFredericton:

www.infredericton.com

PoliticsNB said...

I've been looking at the site being discussed here, and all i'm going to say, is it looks quite similar in many ways to one that cropped up last year attacking the Liberals that lasted a short time.

My gut tells me this one won't last either.....like Trenchcoat, negative only on a single subject gets old really quickly.

Just my 2 cents. Spend it wisely. ;)

Anonymous said...

If the Trenchcoat was outed so easily by the TJ, I suspect it did not take long for the Libs to find him and/or he's gone underground just in case.