Lord Hamilton addresses the peasants

#1

His Lordship opines and offers guidance to his fiefdom

thenorthernview.com/opinion/240120651.html

On the plus side, he at least isn’t trying to run a sting operation with pop cans this time

#2

as arrogant and douchebaggy as this article is it does have a point. Although it does go the other way too a lot of employers in Prince Rupert are not worth working for.

#3

There are certainly less condescending ways to make a point.

#4

Hamilton really makes me realize even more what a loss the Daily News was to Prince Rupert. He displays a complete lack of compassion and understanding that is typical of an asshole. He has no respect for Rupert nor does he seem to care to get to the root cause of a lot of issues. I am so glad I don’t know what he looks like. I would hate to run into him on the streets.

#5

thenorthernview.com/staff_pr … 18161.html

(Warning: Picture of Todd Hamilton’s face)

#6

Some of you may not like the way he writes his editorials. But he’s bang on with this one. Many lazy ass people who live here, or when they do get a job they walk around like they have a boulder attached to their leg. This town has problems and many don’t like to be told or reminded of it, and I’m not just talking about the lazy people.

#7

I have seen or met this idiot so called writer in my life but yeah I think a slap on the side of his head may wake him up to reality . The thing today is where or when is this FN BOOM coming to a community near you ? On that note , has anyone seen our MLA ? Do we have to put her picture on the side of a milk carton to find her ?

#8

[quote=“Justin Case”]
On that note , has anyone seen our MLA ? Do we have to put her picture on the side of a milk carton to find her ?[/quote]

LOL…That’s funny. Not that I have gone looking for her. Nothing going on in Victoria, so she should be here.

#9

Yes, there certainly has been a drop in journalistic standards. Daily News would cite their sources, while Hamilton bases his pronouncement about the unemployed on “There are statistics floating about that indicate …”.

What statistics and where can we find them?

Presumably they do not come from the same place that the “latte swilling eastern Canadian media” of Moneysense Magazine get their numbers. Those statistics are so bad that he’s not going to publish their best and worst places to live rankings < thenorthernview.com/opinion/200723581.html > (Moneysense uses Environics’ unemployment stats.)

Statistics aside, citing sources might be a problem for Black Press. I cannot help but note how North Coast Review will publish a blog item then the same story appears a while later on Black Press, usually with less detail or analysis and no links. I read both so a pattern became apparent after a while. It seems odd that (presumably) unrelated scribes would be following the same leads at the same time with such consistency.

As for Hecate Strait and Coastal Training Centre, the fact that outfits like that are funded by government and, according to Hamilton, can help put people “on the right track” suggests that there is quite a bit more to unemployment than some people just being lazy. From what I understand they help with employment skills. He contradicts his own argument (if it can be called that).

Both places buy ads in Black Press from time to time. Perhaps that is just another coincidence. I would wonder if as advertisers they would want to be associated with such negative and unhelpful messaging about their client base. If I was them I would think about whether there are some other channels to reach their audiences.

#10

I think he hit the nail on the head with this one

#11

[quote=“BTravenn”]
Yes, there certainly has been a drop in journalistic standards. Daily News would cite their sources, while Hamilton bases his pronouncement about the unemployed on “There are statistics floating about that indicate …”. [/quote]

Agreed.

#12

I’m glad I am not the only one to be deeply offended by this article. I was disgusted by the utter lack of compassion of the editor, pontificating from the ivory tower of white middle class privilege, and reinforcing the idea that poverty is a personal choice, not the result of a skewed socioeconomic system.

The one item that particularly ranked me was his indignation at people’s cheek to ask about their wages during the job interview. Listen, Mr. Bounderby: employment is a financial transaction, I give you my time and labour, you give me money.

Employers are business people who don’t get all coy about how much things cost when negotiating with their suppliers; why should a job applicant be embarrassed about asking how much they are going to be paid? Yes, maybe asking right off the bat is not the ‘done thing’, but let’s be candid about it: they are not trying to get that retail job for the good of their soul.

Did Hamilton ask how much he was going to be paid for inflicting his typo-ridden, business-biased, yesterday’s-news newspaper on his long-suffering readership before taking the job? I am sure he did. So why shouldn’t a potential cashier at the supermarket be just as savvy?

#13

Here’s the list of contact numbers of the Black Press BC management team:

blackpress.ca/management.php

Maybe tell them they’re paying too much for the cheap publisher.

#14

I agree with the message that the author of the article was trying to convey although it was written with little tact or class which ultimately ended up taking away from what I believe he was trying to say. What I also find unfortunate are some of the racially charged comments such as the one above. As a member of the “white middle class” I find this offensive. I find that attitudes have changed drastically over the past several years in a positive way and acceptance of others cultures and ethnic backgrounds has improved. Comments like that one though have no merit and only stand to fuel intolerance and hatred.

I also read this comment under the article in question:

“You can not, or at least should not be able to make blatant racist comments in a newspaper.”

I do not see where there were any suggestions about race in the article and perhaps some of you could try to let your guard down, stop assuming and try to manage your perceptions.

#15

Hey come on now lol , everyone should know by now most media don’t live in the real world.

#16

Adding to this, I find most of the FB comments critical to the article would enable Todd to poke the hornet’s nest more.

#17

I don’t always read Todd Hamilton’s editorials, but when I do I read with a healthy dose of skepticism.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness

I honestly don’t know whether Todd Hamilton believes in the balderdash he writes or if he is just trying to stir up rage to drive up readership (readership is linked to advertising revenue, after all). Maybe it’s both or something else

In this editorial he derides strangers he’s never met in their hundreds as lazy. Let me submit this. He doesn’t even attempt to substantiate any of his claims. Perhaps there is evidence to support his convictions and his low opinions of his neighbours, and he is just too lazy to cite it.

Or maybe it just doesn’t exist.

It sure sounds good to point at some imagined dirty scamming welfare bum to condemn the whole system, but by the same token, not every newspaper is better used as toilet paper than as a source of informed opinion just because some hacks sit at their keyboards spouting derision without bothering to inform their opinions with facts and first hand knowledge.

#18

He does not mention SA, he does mention EI though. My take on it, is that he is making some statements about the people on EI, who have to say, they are willing and able to work, but they choose not to. He does not mention at all, the fact that there is a high percentage of these people work in seasonal jobs, like tourism, forestry, fishing…

#19

He is running a free paper in the greatwetnorth what do we expect? What we deserve is another matter. Perhaps we can find someone who is unemployed to try out his job.

#20

[quote=“Crazy Train”]

I do not see where there were any suggestions about race in the article and perhaps some of you could try to let your guard down, stop assuming and try to manage your perceptions.[/quote]

There were no suggestions about race anywhere, I agree. Maybe some people are confused by what I meant by “white, middle-class privilege”, so I’ll try to explain it as best as I can.

Systematic privilege is the set of advantages automatically conferred to a group, based on the stereotypical assumptions about the people belonging to that group; it is ‘unearned, exclusive, and socially conferred’. We talk about male privilege, white privilege, straight privilege, etc.

If you are white, you may not even be aware of instances of white privilege, because they have always been part of your experience. As a white person, I have very few experiences of racial prejudice. I can enter a store, show up for a job interview, walk down a nice street in a nice neighbourhood, and there are all these assumptions made about me (not a shoplifter - reliable worker - not casing the neighbourhood for a B&E). Remember the young African American guy who was stopped at Barney’s after buying a very expensive belt? Would that have happened if he had been of a different race? Or if he had been older? Or a woman?

If you are middle class, during your formative years you acquire certain skills, standards and beliefs. Those are so automatically internalized that you assume them to be universal: it is “common sense” to dress formally for a job interview; it is “the done thing” to shake hands and make eye contact with the person interviewing you; it is “the usual protocol” to wait until the end of a job interview to ask how much the job pay. Well, not everybody knows that, but because we do, we assume everybody else is the same. The idea of someone wearing a hoodie and not a sweater to a job interview, or committing the faux-pas of asking about their salary first thing, is so foreign to us that it makes that person the deserving object of ridicule and derision.

So, going back to my comment that you quoted, what I meant to say was: the article blatantly ignores the challenges faced by non-white, underprivileged people, by assuming they are competing on the same level playing field as the rest of us.