The Edmonton Journal's Graham Thomson has written a column on the dubious legacy left by the now defunct Tiny Perfect Blog, "Anonymous blogger spews vitriol, then runs: Pro-NDP 'Tiny Perfect Blog' became epitome of what its favoured party fights: intolerance and hypocrisy."
The anonymous Tiny Perfect Blog gained a lot of attention because of its Perez Hilton-style political gossip and malicious hit and run partisan attacks, but it shut down just as quickly as it appeared. While none of the people I speak to know for certain who the author of this blog was (though they have their suspicions), my former MLA, Rachel Notley knows. But she's not telling.
Notley says she knows the author, but won't reveal a name-- "I had nothing to do with that blog, truly... I'm not going to engage in a discussion about who else might have because my knowledge of that I gained in association with their confidence. But I will tell you without hesitation, I had nothing to do with that and I don't agree with what was on it."I was also quoted in Thomson's column, stating the position I've held since I stopped blogging anonymously over two years ago:
Cournoyer says even though there is a tradition of anonymous political writers going back hundreds of years, bloggers today aren't in danger of getting their heads chopped off by an angry king. "We're not living in China or Iran," he says. "We don't have to fear repercussions. The police aren't going to come busting down their door if you're actually contributing to political dialogue."
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76 comments:
Great quote! Keep up the great blogging Daveberta!
The important questions are:
*When did Rachel Notley find out TPBs identity?
*How much did Notley know?
*Why didn't she do anything about it?
*How can I in good conscious vote for her again in 2012 knowing that she sat quiet when her anonymous blogger friend wrote quasi-libelous attacks and mean spirited gossip?
We don't have to fear repercussions.
Spoken like someone who's never had a real job in his life.
Or someone who doesn't work for the government, the health care system, big oil, or any aspect of the Alberta establishment.
Dave, if you feel this way, why allow anonymous comments on the blog at all?
Ive never understood the mentality of the opposition parties in Alberta. The Liberals and NDP are both on conspiracy theories that the Tories are going to rob them in the middle of the night. I have only lived in Alberta for 5 years but I don't know how anyone expects to change the governmt in this prov if things dont change with the opposition parties. In Saskatchewan I was happy that the Sask Party won even if I had already moved. The NDP and Sask parties give good moderate governmnt in Saskatchewan. In Alberta the NDP sound more like Greenpeace than a legitimate opposition.
Dave is happy his only competition has left the scene, and we are left stuck with his boring blog and little else.
Thompson is upset that TPB trashed him for his pathetic columns, and also called the Journal on their inconsistent editorials and behind the times reporting. I'll never forget when TPB noted that the Journal front page had been covered by the Sun two weeks previously.
TPB allowed a lot of negative comments against him/her in the blog, so I suspect he/she isn't too bothered by Thompson. But the fact the journal carried a column on a defunct blog with probably only a few hundred readers shows how thin skinned they are.
I never cared for TPB, and told her so. But that blog was WAY more fun to read than anything else on Alberta politics.
Maybe if Rachel Notley came clean we could find out how thin or thick skinned the real Tiny Perfect blogger is?
Who's side is Rachel Notley on?
I don't know if it shows the Journal to be thin skinned, or in the hands of the Tories again.
Notice how the quotes Thompson uses are about how Stelmach lied? I bet those were fed to Thompson by Stanway or Olsen. They were beside themselves over that. As he has many times before, Graham sucked up to the people in power.
Don't worry Graham, you will get your appointment to the PAB one of these days.
Done't forget that the other reason Dave hated TPB is because it (along with centrebloq.com) totally punked the Liberals releasing all kinds of documents showing how bad their political strategy was, and how the Liberals were falling apart.
Swann's support for a sales tax, his new age guru, the caucus meetings from hell, the fact half his staff were working on splitting the party.
I don't recall the journal covering this stuff.
They want to shut down the oil sands, tax and spend hard working Albertans, and support anonymous attacks. Just another reason why Albertans can't trust the NDP socialist party.
I was always amused when Tiny Perfect Lou Arab's readers would attack anonymous commenters on his blog for being anonymos as they were sitting there reading his blog.
You would think that Rachel would be keen to clear the air and let everyone know the identity of TPB, except she doesn't want to because it is Lou
Anon 12:41
I think that first comment was the lie TPB accused Stelmach of.
While TPB's style was little tabloid, I think that's what the Alberta left needs. It's not like boring policy lectures have woken voters.
Thompson calls TPB intolerant? Really? TPB defended transexuals, the queer community, and special needs kids. When was the last time Thompson stood up for any of those groups? The only think TPB was intolerant of was intolerance.
If you disagreed with TPB, you could write a comment and have it posted right below the post. Check out Thompson's column on line, no comments allowed.
I gotta hand it to TPB, as a Liberal he/she got my blood boiling on more than one occasion.
I'd still like to know who his Liberal sources were.
Shannon wrote: While TPB's style was little tabloid, I think that's what the Alberta left needs. It's not like boring policy lectures have woken voters."
Totally!!! But not by a severely anonymous writer! The left needs credibility, not anonymous attacks! The left needs a leader! I don't who that it.
No wonder NDP insiders don't like Graham Thomson. He doesn't say nice things about them like Tom Olsen used to.
Suck it up.
Dave,
I like your blog, and have always preferred it to the TPB types out there.
However, you are off the mark in saying that just because someone isn't living in China or Iran they don't need to be anonymous. There are many reasons to do so, some were outlined above.
You can't encourage use of citizen social media, and then say that your way is the only way to do it. The whole point of social media is to break down the boundaries of what media 'should' look like.
You have your style, TPB had hers. No one has to read either, but both are valid expressions of someone's point of view.
"Check out Thompson's column on line, no comments allowed."
And Thompson calls TPB the coward.
The "left" will need a lot more than a simple blog if it wants to get anywhere in Alberta. How about abandoning the pseudo-marxist/trotskyist undertones? That would be a good start.
Hypocrisy much?
Notley refuses to name hidden blogger. Notly criticizes Alberta Tories for refusing to name nuclear lobbyists. Maybe I should submit a FOI request to Notley's constituency office demanding she come clean?
At least Notley admits she knows who Tiny Perfect Blog is. Mason knows damn well who it is, but lies about it.
Yes tpb is in love with me, they are EXACTLY the same thing.
:eyeroll
Sorry Steve, I just don't accept that.
TPB defended the Queer community all through the Bill 44 debate, long before many other bloggers and even the media realized it was a key issue. And long before the Elniski debacle. And I for one will always be grateful to him/her for that.
He/she was a pretty sharp debater though, and was pretty quick to defend his/her views. That doesn't equal intolerance - that equals standing up for your beliefs.
I will say that he/she was usually the first to point out that the King had no clothes, and that put TPB on the outs with much of the Alberta public.
"We're not living in China or Iran,” but we live in Alberta where we "shoot shovel and shut up” Aside from the occasional bad manners that TPB had, there are bigger implication for Alberta where more public interest stories would be revealed if it were not for the power establishment. I seem to remember that even Dr. Lyle Olberg said he knew where the government skeletons were buried – I wish mainstream media would dig it up, and look what happened to him. We are going to need more anonymous reporting, not less, at the extreme someone’s life might depended on it. Even basic media literacy suggests that you get information from more than one source; TPB is one less source for us all to read, even if it was with a grain of salt at times. To the other bloggers out there stop beating your chest believing you have it right and he/she had it wrong, all you do is score more brownie points with Mr. Olson, which still will not get you stories of importance for Albertans.
Gotta love anyone from the Journal calling anonymous bloggers cowards.
Who signs the Journal editorials?
Exactly.
"Who signs the Journal editorials?"
The Editorial Board of the Edmonton Journal.
Good article by Graham Thomson. I agree one and one hundred percent. People who blog anonymously so that they can slander and trash public figures are cowards.
Brian Hayter
Edmonton, Alberta
"The Editorial Board of the Edmonton Journal"
Exactly, an anonymous board of people with a variety of opinions. When they slam Brian Mason for using the term "Stalinist" (one month before they call him the same thing) is it every member of the board saying that, a majority, a minority because the others were on vacation, or just one member who was allowed to freelance that day. The fact is we don't know, and the paper is free to throw around insults without any one person having to account for it.
That, Mr. Thompson, is hypocrisy.
RIP TPB... I will miss the posts.. She was the 1st person to link to my new blog...
The best part about TPB, (and what probably did her in) is that she was the only blogger really willing to call the media on their shit.
Nothing she wrote (and I don't pretend to know who he or she is) was in anyway more caustic or out there then what all four papers have written on more than one occasion.
The only difference was that TPB had the stones to point out media errors, poor reporting, and out right pandering.
Does anyone really think Thompson's column is about anything other than the fact TPB thought it was ridiculous that the Journal's main political columnist doubted the science of climate change?? In 2008?? TPB made Thompson look like a weaselly toadying tool of the Tories, and I don't think he cared for it.
Democracy needs a free media, and that media needs critics to keep it on it's toes. TPB did that, and did us a service for it. She may not have had a huge audience, but reporters seemed to read her, and she touched a nerve that needed touching.
Tanya Summers
Edmonton, Ab
What a weird article. Why would a controversial blogger be interesting to anyone outside of the blogosphere? It smacks of "I tried to figure out who it was, but I couldn't, so I wrote a column about how awful the blog was instead."
I'm surprised at the self-righteousness of some of the commenter on this blog post. When did it become too much to ask for someone to put their name behind their word? Always thought it was common sense. Maybe not for some people...
The Edmonton Journal editors and journalists are a far way from anonymous. Democracy needs a free media, and that media needs critics to keep it on it's toes. Democracy needs people who will stand behind their word. These people stand behind their word. If you don't think so then don't snipe from the sidelines on a blog. Call them.
Allan Mayer - Editor in Chief
(780) 429-5201 amayer@thejournal.canwest.com
Barb Wilkinson - Deputy Editor
(780) 429-5374 bwilkinson@thejournal.canwest.com
Paul Cashman (Business Editor)
(780) 498-5669
pcashman@thejournal.canwest.com
Therese Kehler (City Editor)
(780) 429-5326 tkehler@thejournal.canwest.com
Karen Unland (Website Editor)
(780) 429-5499 kunland@thejournal.canwest.com
Keri Sweetman (Culture Editor)
(780) 429-5346 ksweetman@thejournal.canwest.com
Kerry Powell (Editor of Body and Health, Bistro, Friday Life, LifeStyle) (780) 429-5461 kpowell@thejournal.canwest.com
David Evans (Editor)
(780) 429-5207 devans@thejournal.canwest.com
Roy Cook (Letters Editor)
(780) 429-5220 letters@thejournal.canwest.com
Malcolm Mayes (Cartoonist)
(780) 429-5227 mmayes@thejournal.canwest.com
Alan Kellogg (Editorialist)
(780) 429-5345 akellogg@thejournal.canwest.com
Paula Simons (Columnist)
(780) 429-5266 psimons@thejournal.canwest.com
navel-gazing
n. Slang.
Excessive introspection, self-absorption, or concentration on a single issue: "Those crazy Internet People love to engage in bouts of navel-gazing whenever one of their own is mentioned in a newspaper."
Yes Rob, we know navel-gazing is one of your favorite terms.
TPB was someone who obviously spent a great deal of time in the legislature. He or she was not simply a political junkie. Rather TPB was almost certainly one of the NDP legislative staff or someone receiving a great deal of information from the NDP legislative staff. In either case, TPB must have had the support of the two NDP caucus members, or TPB would simply not have had the degree of information that s/he had.
And that is a concern because TPB rarely provided comment on ISSUES as such. Instead, TPB largely provided vicious attacks against individuals. Contrary to what some commentators here are suggesting, that can only hurt the NDP.
I was one of the frequent victims of such attacks. But I am not a supporter or member of the governing party or of the Liberal party. I have been an NDP member for 40 years. But, a year ago, I helped to form the Democratic Renewal Project (drproject.ca) and to some NDPers, particularly the leadership, the DRP is a cardinal sin because we are calling for an end to the magical thinking of the centre-left parties that business as usual will bring down the four-decade-old Tory government. It won't.
The ongoing struggle of the Liberals and the NDP to each be the official opposition rather than together to be the government is bad news for those who do not want to see the continuing erosion of public medicare, the continuing destruction of the environment, and the continuing failure to plan an economy for future generations.
Yesterday these two parties had a public slanging match about who should represent the opposition on the committee that will determine new electoral boundaries. This is sandbox politics and very disheartening for those of us who would like a United Alternative to the Tories as opposed to the continuing spectacle of parties with the same basic program fighting tribal wars.
Alvin Finkel
On the couch - you list 12 people, so tell me how I am supposed to know who the heck wrote any particular editorial, who agreed with it, and who disagreed with it?
It is simply not fair or true for Alvin Finkle to claim TPB rarely tackled issues. The blog frequently covered children services issues, government spending, bill 44, health care, seniors care, and education.
Even on Finkle's pet issue of merging the efforts of the two opposition parties, TPB repeatedly provided arguments, statistics, history and alternatives to Finkle's views. Finkle claims to be a 'victim' but I recall TPB usually showing considerable deference to the good Dr.'s character.
I think it's pretty amusing how many obviously pro-NDP commenters are going to great lengths to use he/she or even just "she" while discussing TPB. We all know it was Lou Arab, that cat's out of the bag. And while Lou is a big pussy who turned tale and ran, I think we can still use male pronouns when discussing him. You're hardly throwing us (or AUPE) off the scent.
Hi everyone, thanks for the comments.
I would like to note that in the first 24 hours of this post being published, it attracted more comments than my post on the Canadian Armed Forces in Afghanistan, which has been posted for a week.
I've removed some of the comments on this post for reasons that should be fairly self-evident. Feel free to continue commenting, but please do not post libelous comments about individuals or their families (they will be removed).
I tend to agree with Ken Chapman on Rachel Notley's position. If Notley did indeed come to know gain that knowledge through confidence, then it's not fair to ask her to reveal that information. That said, 99.9999% of the people that have spoken with me about this are strongly speculating that the author of the now defunct blog was Notley's husband, Mr. Lou Arab. In the past, Mr. Arab has had no problem commenting on this blog under his own name, so if he is inclined, he is more than welcome to join the conversation under his own name and put an end to any speculation.
Frankly, this is one column and blog post, and there are more important issues out there.
Again, thanks for all the comments and please keep it clean.
Cheers,
Dave
What's up with the martyr complex? It's not like this guy was dragged away by the secret police and sent to a labor camp in Siberia. Dave is right. The Government of Canada is not China or Iran. People who have no reaseon to hide dont hide. Maybe this person shouldnt have been putting this stuff on the internet in the first place. A spouse of an MLA could get their partner into a lot of trouble if they were putting bad stuff on the internet about other people under their real name. Sounds childish to me.
--Cody--
Dave - I think you already have a pretty clean conversation going on here. From what I see you have only rejected one comment out of many.
We obviously need social media in Alberta to be aggressive and effective in pushing for more government accountability and transparency. That is merely asking for a minimal standard of governance quality - but we don't have it yet.
I hope we can also use social media to push for a much more democratic culture and a revitalized citizenry in Alberta. We don't have that now either.
Political parties and how they operate are part of the democratic deficit problem in Alberta. I know that from the PC side when we can't muster the courage in a constituency to propose a resolution at the AGM to repeal the Bill44 fiasco. Alvin Finkel's comments above show how party culture works in the NDP. The demise of the Greens speaks for itself. The province wide Liberal leadership race had fewer votes cast than a healthy constituency nomination should generate.
A social media that has defaulted to being as anonymous as it has become in Alberta is not going to be much help with connecting with the larger Alberta population for obvious reasons.
Why would you ever believe or believe in anything they say at any serious level about any serious issues if they don't have the courage to publicly stand behind what they say?
There are plenty of good reasons for some to have anonymity. But if anonymity is used to mislead or is mere cowardice or some other character flaw, what are they really contributing to anything that is worthwhile?
"There are more important issues out there." Is not the point that we want more unfiltered access to information and general commentary, not less?
Not too long ago gurus proclaimed that the Internet was doomed to a medium of partisanship. People would seek out the like-minded: moderation and consensus replaced by extremism and division.
The author of Tiny Perfect Blog should have thrived in such an environment. That he didn't is very interesting -- and more important than Dave allows.
Around the world, there is an emerging centrist movement that seeks to escape the labels of partisanship. People are coming together in new combinations focused on solving problems, no longer obsessed with which tools are good or bad. An important thing, for example, is reducing the number of children living in poverty, not fighting over who should own the means of production.
It is a triumph of philosophy over ideology.
Those who remain bound by the old divisions -- the people who don't get it -- are doomed to pout themselves into oblivion.
Maybe I'm a little late to the party on the editorial board topic - just wanted to clarify though what it says on the Journal's editorial page every day in the bottom corner:
"Unsigned editorials express a consensus view of the editorial board, which includes Opinion page editor David Evans and editorial writer Alan Kellogg."
Nothing obfuscated there.
You touched a nerve, Dave.
Remember the last big interal NDP outburst?
Sounds to me like the NDP are still a little bitter about their staffers leaking nasty caucus labor troubles to Graham Thomson last year. Thomson must have forgot to check with the NDP Central Politburo for approval before he finalized his article.
"Unsigned editorials express a consensus view of the editorial board..."
Everyone who has ever worked at a newspaper knows that 'consensus' view of the editorial board means they agree to disagree, not that they come to a position they agree with every day.
As such, when a board member get's their turn, they can express their views having to really answer for them.
"Around the world, there is an emerging centrist movement that seeks to escape the labels of partisanship. People are coming together in new combinations focused on solving problems, no longer obsessed with which tools are good or bad. An important thing, for example, is reducing the number of children living in poverty, not fighting over who should own the means of production.
It is a triumph of philosophy over ideology.
Those who remain bound by the old divisions -- the people who don't get it -- are doomed to pout themselves into oblivion."
Christopher Spencer is a genius.
Christopher Spence claims TPB didn't 'thrive' in a partisan environment.
First of all, it's an open question if Alberta can be called a 'partisan' environment. The word partisan, to me, means different sides, something still lacking in our province.
But definitions aside, TPB did thrive, at least for a while. It's ratings at Alexa.com were higher than all other Alberta political blogs, including this one. For all the hand wringing about TPB's style, we all read it daily.
Paul Chabot
Stony Plain
Graham Thomson is touchy about TPB because time and again TPB broke stories that Thomson and his fellow stenographers at the Journal either missed or willfully ignored. It's pathetic, actually, to see the Journal devote so much ink, on the prime op-ed page no less, to slamming an anonymous blogger with a few hundred readers at best. And Rachel Notley knows who Tiny is? Now THERE'S a political scandal. Pul-eeze!
I don't see why it's a big deal that Thomson's column doesn't allow comments. If you really want to comment, sent an email to the Editor. Judging by the Globe and Mail, 99% of comments are completely useless and I really wouldn't miss them.
I'm a bit conflicted on the issue of anonymity. On the one hand, I think Dave is way too quick to say that there are "no repercussions" to blogging in Alberta. Yes, no one's gonna get their ass hauled off to a hard labor camp, but I can definitely think of many, many professional circles where it would be frowned upon to be known as a "progressive" or "anti-Tory" blogger. Some people don't want to take chances with their careers and their job security -- and I don't think there's any shame in that.
Having said that, if you have a conflict of interest, we need to hear about it -- or else one probably shouldn't be blogging in the first place. If you're a political staffer or party operative like TPB clearly was, not letting your readers know the source of the voice behind the curtain is, I would say, fairly unethical. Being a shill and pretending you're not is pretty uncool.
Coutler said...
"You touched a nerve, Dave.
Remember the last big interal NDP outburst?"
Isn't it ironic that the last NDP outburst that you're mentioning really exploded when Lou Arab objected to comments that were made, and it now turns out that Lou has been running a blog where he made numerous malicious comments about all sorts of individuals.
TBP was a good blog and it didn't hide what it was. Alvin seems to complain that TBP when after him despite TBP simply saying every single time the NDP has rejected what Alvin has been pushing for. Seems people were hurt because of the truth and little else.
I'm not sure if this adds to the discussion or not, but I'll throw it in anyway:
I saw Lou Arab at folk fest yesterday and put the question directly to him. He said he understands why people think TPB is him, but that it's not.
He hadn't heard that commenters on this post made mention of his kids, and was very pleased to hear Dave took them down (he called it a 'classy move' by Dave). He said that he had learned the hard way defending himself on forums like this was just inviting even more mud throwing, and that it was easier to just ignore it - even if that gives free reign to people who dislike him to throw stones.
Given the tone of some of the comments against Lou (not to mention his kids), I can't say I blame him for staying out of it. I suspect I know who's behind some of the remarks about him, and having dealt with some of those people myself, I have to say I agree that it's usually easier to just walk away.
So let me get this straight. The so-called dean of Alberta political columnists can't think of anything else to write about except to attack some lame anonymous blog that doesn't exist any more? Possibly because said lame anonymous blog attacked his newspaper? Are these guys still in junior high school?
And you're wondering why voters don't care about Alberta politics?
To C.
Are we honestly supposed to belive that Lou would tell the truth about being TPB?
Lou has never been an overly honest person, or even a reasonable one at that, why would he start being either those things now?
Christopher Spencer is most certainly not a genius. In fact, he's confused, and he's not alone. His post-partisan world is not really post-partisan at all. It's a world where the centrist partisan/policy options have defeated their competitors. Partisanship of the centre (and hostility to partisans on the left and right) is still partisan - and often a less honest kind. It's certainly intellectually dishonest to claim that centrism doesn't somehow play the partisan game, or isn't itself ideological.
TPB was often vitriolic, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Nor is it a bad thing that he/she was anonymous. There are good reasons for some people to stay anonymous. Identities are just as likely to be used to discount and dismiss and lend credibility. You just had to deal with a progressive, NDP partisan. So what? You knew where he/she was coming from. With some exceptions, TPB's posts were generally substantive, occasionally well-researched, and way more thought provoking (provoking in general) than anything Daveberta's posted in recent months. Or the Graham Thompson's pathetic columns for that matter.
It's impossible to "know where TPB is coming from" when one doesn't know who's paying him (although many seem to have a good idea).
James L,
I could be mistaken but I thought TPB made it pretty clear he/she was not a paid political staffer or party operative. Clearly had strong ties, may even have been a former staffer, but those ties and allegiances were clear. I agree that if he/she were being paid to write it that would be somewhat relevant in evaluating or interpreting the posts. But absent financial backing (and there's really no evidence to suggest that is in place) there's really no conflict or ethical problem there that I can see.
Anonymous 2:54 demonstrates C.'s point.
We'll I like Graham Thompson's articles and found him to be thought provokingly sarcastic from time to time.
Anonymous @ 4:02
"I could be mistaken but I thought TPB made it pretty clear he/she was not a paid political staffer or party operative."
Isn't that exactly what a political staffer who wanted to stay anonymous would say though?
If TPB is who I think it is, it's not Lou Arab, and not a caucus or party staffer. I'm not 100% sure, but pretty confident.
Ha ha. You allow anonymous comments. I must be a shill for the communists!
I am not sure how, but in reading this comment thread it has come to my attention that there are some New-Democrat-type posts appearing, from time to time, as "Shannon." I would like to make it clear it isn't me. I don't care enough about the internal machinations of the Alberta NDP and in any event wouldn't take the positions this person posting as "Shannon" would take. I am wondering if there are two blogger profiles allowed to be called "Shannon?" Or if someone is logging in as me? I know not many people will read this, but for those who do, uh, yeah. It's not me. I have too many things to do to care much about this crap.
Thanks.
Shannon Phillips
I didn't log into your account, I just have the same name.
Sorry to cause confusion. I can look into changing my handle if you prefer.
Other Shannon
And more examples come out of why the NDP lost seats in the last election that they should have held.
Looks like someone is already filling the void.
The Alberta Report is back.
Jeez, I thought Tiny Perfect's blog was pretty benign. It was also thoughtful and well-written. Misguided politically shurely, but not something that got under my skin particularly. I'm sad to see it go.
Hurrah! The Alberta Report!
Thanks. I will add one more reason not to vote NDP.
"The police aren't going to come busting down their door if you're actually contributing to political dialogue.""
At the moment. We can't know that to be true forever in this country into the future. My guess it will not always be true, and expect to be at the front of the "list".
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