Friday, December 19, 2003

NOTE TO SELF

Pundits and weather reporters both have an unfortunate tendency to show a distinct lack of memory with regards to their own work. They will say things like, "Chretien is now a lame duck" or "it's going to be cold and rainy tomorrow" and then when Chretien refuses to join a war and bans corporate donations to political parties under sunny and warm skies both refuse to acknowledge, in any way, the things they previously said. In weather reporters this trait can be aggravating, in newspaper pundits it can be more dangerous.

To be continually reforming the way one sees the world without acknowledging what one thought before reduces those thoughts to meaninglessness. If hundreds or thousands of people are in the habit or reading ones writing this is even more of a problem.

All this comes in reaction to John Ibbitson's column in today's Globe. If, come May, Ed Broadbent is the member for Ottawa-Centre I'm going to make sure Ibbitson remembers what he said today.

Posted by Matthew @ 4:01 p.m.