Mulroney Scandal Archives - Medialternatives

by davidrobertlewis - May 30, 2008

Independent Group Board Member to face ethics committee again

A Canadian government ethics committee wants to hear from Independent Group’s Brian Mulroney again. According to Juliet O’Neill of the Canwest News Service, Ottawa’s House of Commons ethics committee voted 6-5 on Thursday to recall the former Canadian prime minister to testify yet again about his dealings with German-Canadian businessman Karlheinz Schreiber amidst accusations that the government is dragging its feet on a promised public inquiry.

Mulroney declined an invitation some weeks ago to reappear at the committee, on grounds a formal inquiry will be better equipped, but the motion compels him to come back by June 12 for more questions about his acceptance of at least $250,000 cash from Schreiber shortly after his term as prime minister ended in 1993. Mulroney spokesman Joseph Lavoie deferred comment until Friday.

Mulroney was last seen in South Africa, dining out at Cape Town Castle with Rhodes-Mandela Foundation honcho Sean Johnson while his party was being arraigned over charges of bribery and corruption. Nothing new about the halls of power, but this is the press G-dammit! Is the Cape Times carrying the story? Not on your life, that would mean facing accusations of bribery and corruption from the very same people they are trying to lynch in the Mo and Shaik scandal.

by davidrobertlewis - February 19, 2008

Editorial: Media hypocrisy as the Intrigues of Ottawa rock South Africa

Whenever a black politician has been implicated in bribery and corruption in South Africa, the media have been quick to criticize. Not so when a Canadian politician like Brian Mulroney is implicated in a scandal involving kickbacks from Airbus and the arms industry. The story of abuse of authority by politicians is nothing new, but their relocation into the newsroom and media boardrooms has become an undeniable fact of life in the 21st century. Mulroney is a failed politician, and does not deserve a second chance in South Africa, while his comments regarding South Africa’s press freedom are welcome, surely his presence does more harm than good to the debate? The manner in which the Independent Group have failed its readers by neglecting to cover the Mulroney Scandal is a travesty all on its own and displays the hypocrisy of today’s corporate media. Could it be the fact that Mulroney sits on Independent’s Board, and is essentially its Chief Advisor that is preventing the South African press from covering the story? This blog urges the Independent Group to come clean before all faith in the press as a whole is finally lost.

by davidrobertlewis - February 16, 2008

Bunch of Phoney’s meet to discuss Media

Brian Mulroney absolutely sloshed WITH about as much clout as a ten-year bottle of whisky, Independent News and Media’s International “Advisory Board” is meeting in Cape Town to deflect growing criticism of the group as a whole. Pitted against mounting calls for a media tribunal that will address issues of public accountability, there are still unanswered questions raised by a damaging report tabled last year which labeled, chief executive O’Reilly nothing more than a crony capitalist.

“Sir Anthony O’Reilly” has become extraordinarily adept at lording it over the masses, driving content, interfering with editorials, pushing the Irish Model and feathering his own nest in the process. The man has staged rampant mergers and acquisitions that blur the line separating media from business, sport, entertainment, advertising and public relations with the resulting loss in respect for the press as a whole. Independent hacks in their slavish obedience to higher authority, failed to note criticism of the company, one actually praised the IAB for being an O’Reilly brainchild “formed 13 years ago to provide the group’s executives with intellectual soundings on the world scene.” Okay, so a 13-year bottle of Mulroney.

Eager to dip into the Canadian and Irish Whisky fortune behind the Irish Model was Sean Johnson, the class idiot who has created a masterful symbiosis between the Mandela legacy and the Rhodes club, with the usual problems associated with alcoholism. Board-members most likely to gain from group ventures into property and the petroleum industry are Ivor Roberts, career diplomat and former British Ambassador, to Ireland.