Blatant promotion of a municipal candidate is not part of a columnist’s job

Re: Council needs business smarts to balance its odd ducks, Randall Denley, Ottawa Citizen, Aug. 24, 2010


Of course Randall Denley is a columnist rather than a reporter, so he will likely claim that he is entitled to express his opinions in his column. But to my mind commenting on performance of people in office is one thing, promoting the potential of a previously unknown candidate to the exclusion of others is another.

I’m sure that if challenged Denley would claim that his article was merely pointing out the value of electing candidates with appropriate skills and experience. But he goes much further than this by strongly extolling the virtues of a single candidate for Kitchissippi Ward, Katherine Hobbs, while invalidating the performance of the current Councillor for the Ward, Christine Leadman. Denley fails to discuss any of Leadman’s experience, focusing instead on Katherine Hobbs.

Denley suggests that real-life business experience is a good attribute for a councillor. But many would argue that this hasn’t paid off very well in the case our current mayor, Larry O’Brien.

Comparing the attributes and performance of all candidates running for election in a ward is one thing. But blatantly promoting one candidate to the exclusion of others is biased and unfair; just give people good comparative information, so that they can decide for themselves.