The Future That Might Have Been, Or: How Fox News North Planned To Target David Suzuki

A sad story in which Donna Laframboise, once journalist for the National Post, and now a free-lance climate change denier here, is courted by Kory Teneyke of SunTV, and then discarded in the aftermath of his departure.

It comes in two parts--part 1 and part 2-- which I will excerpt with comments. It begins with Donna describing one of the bogus CRU Hack related pseudo-scandals she "researched" back in April:

Among the avalanche of e-mail that followed was one from a person of indeterminate gender whose first name was Kory. A third party (also a stranger to me), thought perhaps I could recommend clear-thinking journalists for a project Kory was working on. Was I available for coffee?

My last journalism job had been as an editorial writer and columnist for the National Post. Laid off back in 2001 along with 130 others, I’d called it quits. The Canadian media landscape is small and cliquish. Newsrooms are miserably managed workplaces where people hate their lives. I said sayonara.

In the end, however, Donna met with this "brash young man with a pinstripe suit". At a Starbucks, no less. Which tells you something right there, doesn't it? With these Conservative Muckety-Mucks, its always "heart on the right, coffee mug on the left." Because who really wants to drink the plonk that passes for coffee at Tim's if they've ever lived somewhere that serves something better? Hmm? If Tim's coffee were wine, it would be the kind of wine rummies drink under the bridge. Better by far is the gay coffee you can buy downtown in any decent sized Canadian Metropolis.

But in any case, Kory wanted Donna to function as an in-house climate change denier for Fox News North, writing a column every week for the Sun Chain of newspapers and discussing that column on one of FNN's talk shows.

Kory responded to my really, I’m not a television person protestations with assurances that it would be OK. At the beginning, few people would be watching anyway, he insisted. He was sure that, with a bit of practice, I’d do fine.

Interesting timing here: this discussion takes place in early (the first Friday of) May, 2010, while Kory is still working at CBC (which he didn't leave until June).

[Teneycke's]one firm directive was that I should challenge David Suzuki. I hadn’t thought much about Suzuki before that conversation, but Kory’s instinct was correct. Although Suzuki tells us constantly that he’s a scientist, he’s actually a preacher who espouses environmentalist views with religious fervour.

Now that's revealing: Fox News North was to have a reporter on staff who was specifically tasked with hassling Canada's best-known environmentalist. There are shades of Marc Morano and the U.S. denialist movement, who have concentrated their fire so largely upon Michael Mann, in this; and shades of the UK movement too, who went after Phil Jones almost exclusively during CRU Hack. But of course it all goes back to Alinsky: personalize, demonize. Anyway:

The conversation touched briefly on our respective backgrounds. He’s a prairie boy from Saskatchewan. I’m the daughter of a Northern Ontario auto mechanic. Neither of us has ever moved in private-school, trust-fund circles. But thanks to our rural roots, we both possess a restricted firearms license.

Just a note: if you ever run into Kory Teneycke, he may be packing heat. If I'd known that earlier, I might have been nicer to him. Also, it sounds like Canadian newspapers these days are paying somewhere around $500 per column. No wonder journalists hate their lives. (Although, note to anyone suing, or planning to sue, Ezra Levant: Kory was in the end willing to cut Donna a check for $4,200 per month)

Anyway, Donna signs on with FNN, and spends the summer losing weight for TV and boning up on Suzuki. Then, in September, it all turns to crap:

A few moments later I was advised that, well, global warming had been a personal interest of Kory’s but things have now changed. The news director told me I could perhaps write for Quebecor occasionally. He didn’t explain what would possess me to imagine that this offer is genuine when the previous one evidently was not.
[...]
Let us just say it looks like I’ll be seeing Quebecor in small claims court. (Stayed tuned.)

Donna is promising a part 3 in which she explains why Quebecor "lost its nerve". She mentions Atwood, but I think I should get at least a brief shout out. We shall see.