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January 18th 2010 | 7

Iggy on Campus

As Michael Ignatieff’s tall figure stepped up on to a make-shift stage in the Drake Centre atrium at the University of Manitoba, everyone was startled as a huge protest banner descended from two floors up. The banner was a little incomprehensible, but the predominant message was that Liberals had consistently and wrongly cut funding for social programs in the 1990s. The banner fell directly beside Ignatieff, who coolly proceeded with his talk until finally asking, a little too cordially (and to significant applause), “If you could just take that up, I don’t have a problem with it, but I’d like to see the people at this side of the room.”

I immediately assumed that the banner was a stunt by a couple fanatical neo-cons, and it seemed that Ignatieff assumed something similar because at one point he looked up and assured the two demonstrators that “they loved the country, too.” I managed to speak with the two guys responsible, who acted alone and with no organizational backing. They both claimed to be trying to raise awareness over barriers to post-secondary education access.

“We were trying to show all the barriers there are to education, and that all past governments have failed in this way,” said Kyle Mytruk, one of the demonstrators.

He assured me that it didn’t matter who the politician was, whether it was the Prime Minister or Michael Ignatieff, because these failures weren’t partisan in nature. Considering the open forum of the event, I asked him why they didn’t simply ask Ignatieff a question regarding access to post-secondary education. He responded by saying the forum was mostly open to people from Liberal organizations with questions prepared beforehand.

“The banner wasn’t meant to embarrass him, just to spur discussion,” he said. “Barriers to education need to be discussed.”

I found the banner to be grossly inappropriate and unnecessary. The separation between the leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister of Canada is often too broad in Canada. Both are equally deserving of respect, especially when they have opted to conduct an open town hall forum, where students can ask any questions they feel are pertinent.

The two demonstrators were a couple of guys starving for attention, who received it from at least one journalist (me) and a photo (above) in the Winnipeg Free Press, which gave readers the false impression that the banner was part of Ignatieff’s presentation.

People like this too often dominate the media. It is not our job to pay lip service to people that use open political forums to raise “awareness” to something that Ignatieff was there to address in the first place. It is, however, our job to accurately report on events and we are often obligated to talk to fanatical idiots simply because they’ve decided to cause a disruption.

Don’t get me wrong, these guys were admittedly benign and had good intentions. I don’t doubt that they are harmless, decent students but they didn’t show enough respect for Ignatieff or for the forum itself, and their “protest” came off as a cheap stunt to get noticed. But people who manipulate the media are often much more sinister, and The Uniter has singled them out more than once in an article by Andrew Tod and one that I wrote over a year ago.

Journalists cannot forgo their obligations to accurately report on events. All we can do is keep people like Kyle Mytruk and Brian Latour (the other demonstrator) on the sidelines rather than at center stage.

Photo from WinnipegFreePress.com.

Discussion

Hey thanks for the press it’s seems according to you that is all I was in it for. It might of been nice if you had, I don’t know, asked me about this instead of slagging me in an online blog, very classy! You say that we should of asked questions instead of protesting but there was absolutely no possibility to ask questions. I believe maybe 10 people got to ask questions.

It’s funny that you say that we are starved for media attention. Because we did not go to any press organization to get interviews , didn’t release any press releases, and most media organizations didn’t report on this. You actually came to interview us we didn’t go to get interviewed by you. Yeah it really seems that we were only in it for media attention (that is sarcasm).

Also, from talking to us for maybe 5 minutes you seem to know us very well. By saying we are all for media attention. You also seem to be all about attention by releasing a blog like this.

And what a great journalist you are (again sarcasm). By actually misquoting me. I never said that most of the questions were from Liberal organizations and prepared beforehand. I said that a couple questions seemed to be from Liberals.

Igniatieff was not at the forum to discuss post-secondary education as he did not discuss that at all. Only after a question about it did he acknowledge it and then proceeded to say really nothing about the topic.

But next time a politician comes into town I will show him respect I will bow at his feet and call him lord, maybe kiss his shoes. Then he will proceed to continue this path to a elitist university that only serve the rich. But I guess according to your logic we should never protest these individuals.

Again thanks for the press asshole.

– Kyle Mytruk | January 18th 2010 at 9:24pm | Link
You’re just throwing toys out of a pram again, Kyle. I think there are much better ways to get your point across than a banner, and essentially swearing at someone who is obliged to write blog articles about current events.
And whether you wanted media attention or not,(and it seems like you did since you are apparently quite aware about who and who has not reported on your banner) you should have known, somewhere you would have been criticized for your choice of “protest”.

– Crystal in Winnipeg | January 18th 2010 at 10:46pm | Link
Crystal, I would hardly call this an article, more like an opinion piece. So apparently because I read the Winnipeg Free Press I am somehow looking for media attention. I came across the article in the Free Press.

Sorry for the swearing (I didn’t know ass was a swear) but it upsets to have someone slag me on a blog when they had the chance to bring this up to me in person and decided not to.

I don’t care about being criticized but it has to be constructive. I mean the guy called me a fanatical idiot. How is that a good way to criticize?

– Kyle Mytruk | January 18th 2010 at 11:18pm | Link
Hi Kyle,

I didn’t call you a fanatical idiot, I said that journalists are often obligated to talk to fanatical idiots that disrupt events.

I DID say that you and Brian meant well and were decent guys, you just didn’t show Ignatieff the respect he deserved and your protest came off as a cheap way to manipulate the media.

I also wrote the blog in order to let people know that the banner had nothing to do with Ignatieff’s talk, which I’m sure many assumed when they read the Free Press’s coverage of the event.

I didn’t criticize you in person because I wanted to interview you and get your side of the story, which I did and I have given the reader your justification for the banner and the protest.

I didn’t know that I would cover this portion of the event through a blog entry but after speaking with my editors we decided that it was more suitable for the blog, in which case I don’t have to be objective.

Overall, I’m sorry if I offended you, but when you do something like this, and grant an interview, you must know that you’re leaving yourself open to criticism.

– Ethan Cabel in Winnipeg, MB | January 19th 2010 at 12:37am | Link
Ethan, I appreciate the post. But you might of not directly called me a fanatical idiot but the sentence, “It is, however, our job to accurately report on events and we are often obligated to talk to fanatical idiots simply because they’ve decided to cause a disruption” makes it seems your talking about me because of the context of the story.

As I said criticism is fine but it has to been constructive. Talking about how you believe this is disrespectful and there were better ways we could of shown our opposition is fine and is a good criticism. But then saying, “All we can do is keep people like Kyle Mytruk and Brian Latour (the other demonstrator) on the sidelines rather than at center stage” is completely an attack on us not any sort of criticism.

It is the purpose of a journalist to hold people to account I understand that. But it would of been a lot better if you would of brought these criticism to me in person so I could have said my opinion on those. A interview doesn’t just have to be finding the information and letting the person speak, it is about trying to get the person to explain certain reasoning and sometimes holding their feet to the fire. I would of appreciated if you would of done this in the interview.

That is mainly what offended me, not the content of the article. It also would of been better if you would of said anything about the content of the Ignitiaeff talk. About how he did not say anything of substance on any topic.

– Kyle Mytruk | January 19th 2010 at 2:00am | Link
To be fair, Ignatieff came to Winnipeg last Thursday (14th). So the earliest Ethan could publish an article about what Ignatieff said would be this week. In contrast, he can post on his blog whenever he wants. And since the poster issue is better material for a blog than a weekly newspaper, it happens to be the first coverage we read. Check back today or tomorrow when this week’s issue is published to see what he writes about Ignatieff (or next week, if something came up or he missed the deadline).

– Josh Bernier in Winnipeg | January 20th 2010 at 11:04am | Link
Ethan’s piece was published online today. It can be read here: http://uniter.ca/view/2849/

– Josh Bernier in Winnipeg | January 20th 2010 at 3:04pm | Link