Political reporters live in the bubble, along with the politicians, bureacrats and campaigners they cover. As well, we’re hampered by our tendency to hang around in our personal world with people who have similar political convictions. So any sentient journalist likes to check out what the real people are thinking, outside those circles. Here’s the […]

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Teaching statistics, math and polls to my journalism students this week, so I’ve got a wealth of material on my hands to use in class as examples of vague claims, misleading statistics, deceptive graphics, and other magical acts with numbers that the two major parties are performing. Both parties have contributed. Vision started with a news […]

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My weekend story about the history of this campaign, that started with casinos and chickens. And a side story with thumbnail sketches of the issues being ignored.

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And we thought this election would be boring. We’re down to the last nasty week now, with calls pouring in to newsrooms about how awful this or that party/candidate has been. And more polls. There’s the Forum poll out this morning, which many of us on this blog were robo-called on, suggesting that Robertson and […]

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Bogus alert: This is a pretty unscientific assessment of the signs, but it’s one rigorous step up from just by impressions or guesses. And it gave me something to do besides clean my house on Saturday. I thought about doing this a couple of weeks ago because I’ve been noticing a lot of NPA signs […]

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Poll stories are tricky, especially when those polls are coming from political parties rather than pollsters operating completely independently. So what to think about the NPA poll splashed across the front page of the Sun today that says the NPA’s Suzanne Anton is closing the gap between her and Vision’s Gregor Robertson? Here are my […]

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After the Non-Partisan Association sent out a news release yesterday claiming that Mayor Gregor Robertson had “over-ruled” its own Large Events Oversight Committee’s recommendations not to allow tents at the Occupy Vancouver protest, media jumped on the story. Turned out that was a teensy-weensy bit of over-hype. The committee didn’t make any recommendations, only heard […]

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Unions have been one of the groups most interested in how the Occupy camps are faring around the world. These unaffiliated protest camps were not a union idea and they certainly don’t preach a labour-influenced message. But they do talk about something union leaders are often trying to get a public conversation going on: income […]

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Oh bruther, just when you think things are calming down.This news release from the Vancouver police. “Run on the Developers” March Vancouver – Vancouver Police will be keeping a close eye on the Occupy Vancouver “Run On The Developers” march this Saturday. The march is scheduled to leave the Vancouver Art Gallery at noon and […]

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Firefighters have issued their list of endorsements for council. I’m a bit surprised — thought they might be leaning a little more to the Non-Partisan Association, but apparently not. Here’s what they had to say. “In these demanding times, we are convinced Mayor Robertson understands the incredible challenges facing the Vancouver Fire Department,” says Union […]

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