Charles Adler's mea culpa

Charles Adler, a radio hot line host at Winnipeg's CJOB is feeling rather down on himself these days. In an article in the Winnipeg Sun, Adler reprimands himself for his soft handed treatment of Belinda Stronach. You may remember in a past A Town Called Podunk, we recounted the soft lobs and easy going banter of Ms Stronach's first media event.

Adler gave her a pass that day, letting her get her feet wet in the media pit, without a scratch. No hard hitting questions, no follow ups to less than adequate answers, as he described it at the time, "who wants to be the guy that kills bambi". But with the distance of a couple of weeks, Adler has come clean on his performance that day. And like Jimmy Swaggart he now confesses to one and all, that he has sinned.

The cause of his reflection is a recent poll by something called Northstar, which shows Ms. Stronach is actually well ahead of her two rivals for the Conservative leadership. Now to be fair Northstar is partially owned by one of her handlers (see the fine print at the bottom of the poll, see link above!), John Laschinger, so perhaps a grain of salt should be taken with the results. But there is an interesting development tied into these results, the political team working her campaign has since cut back drastically on her public events and have ruled out any form of public televised debate with the other two candidates. If indeed she is in first place with her current peek a boo campaign, the safe bet is to keep her aloof, at fun events and off the media circuit.

For Adler the pain must be unbearable, he may have been the only journalist with the opportunity to provide a counterpoint to the carefully scripted campaign. Instead, he aided and abetted the political hacks running the show. Nothing scars a journalist more than discovering he may have been used. And that's why Adler is doing penance in the Sun today.