How to bury Gaza

I've been reading newspapers long enough to know that the biggest stories go on the front page. Or at least the story that the editors deem to be the biggest.

For a whole lot of reasons, the Gaza story is by far the most important at the moment. Sure, global warming could bake us to a crisp, but not this week. MH17 is a plane crash that killed three hundred people. That deserves to be front page news, for a day or two, maybe a little longer if there are peripheral elements to the story, such as when that plane is shot down by a missile.

I was therefore perturbed when, as I was perusing the front page of Canada's newspaper of record yesterday morning, I couldn't find Gaza. Instead, five days after the event, MH17 remains the top story.

Except it's not so much about MH17 anymore; it's all about what Putin will do next, which could be anything from shooting down another civilian airliner to annexing Lithuania or Poland or the rest of Ukraine, apparently. Other stories deemed worthy of the front page are the Duffy Drama, a Chinese guy in BC charged with spying for China, and a court ruling about Canadians' legal rights to portage a canoe.

But no front page news about Gaza.

I'm leafing through the paper... mayor dies of wasp sting... car gets stolen... Rob Ford...

Pages 6 and 7 are entirely given over to anti-Putin propaganda presented as an insiders report on the imaginary Donetsk People's Republic.

Still no Gaza news.

On page 8 I was shocked to learn that big-talkin' John Baird wants Europe to take a tougher line toward Moscow.

Finally, on page 9, I encounter a Gaza story; "Hamas shows resilience despite shelling."

Hmm... that's not a good sign. Globe editors with an admiring headline for Hamas? Things must be going worse than we realize in Netanyahu's "Operation Over the Cliff."

OK, no wonder they buried it on page 9.

So today I pick up my paper, and guess what the top story is? Putin! Oh for f@cks sakes! And once again two pages of anti-Putin propaganda on pages 6 and 7!

First glimpse of Gaza-related news comes on page 8, where I learn that Ottawa has not yet formally banned flights to Israel but Air Canada is cancelling them anyway.

They're probably anti-Semites.

The editorial board at The Globe and Mail, on the other hand, should know better than to bury the biggest story in the world deep in their newspaper.

Cathal Kelly rides his anti-Putin bona fides to a slot at Canada's newspaper of record

The big dogs at the Globe keep an eye out for up-and-coming talent they can poach from their competitors. Therefore it was no surprise to see Cathal Kelly disappear from the pages of the soft-lib Star and show up instead in the pages of the more serious news organization around the corner.

I'm guessing it was this seamless melding of sports reporting with political commentary that sealed the deal.

Kelly establishes his mastery of geo-politics with the first two sentences; Vladimir Putin doesn't make entrances. Like the devil, he appears.

I'm sure that his former professors at whatever journalism school Kelly attended were cringing by the time they got that far.

It only gets worse. Kelly destroys virtually every convention of professional journalism with a non-stop propaganda attack on Putin. Did he meet or interview Putin? No, but he saw him at an arena!

That's good enough for Kelly's former bosses, and more than good enough for the new ones! Objective reporting be damned - we got a guy here who can parrot the Harper-Baird anti-Putin rants without even trying... sign him up!

Kelly went on to distinguish himself with a heart-felt plea for Canada's Para Olympic squad to stick it to Putin by boycotting the Para Olympics. Yup, it's not up to the able-bodied professional athletes to sacrifice themselves on the altar of political boycotts, but the "challenged" athletes who have been training for years should step up and make Kelly's political statement.

Cathal Kelly himself could have stood on principle and refused his Sochi assignment.

Why didn't he?