Here at the Daily Dot, we swap GIF images with each other every morning. Now we’re looping you in. In the Morning GIF, we feature a popular—or just plain cool—GIF we found on Reddit, Canvas, or elsewhere on the Internet.
It’s rare a political cartoon on YouTube causes a scandal in two industries, but Dan Murphy is a rare cartoonist. One of Canada’s most popular, and pointed, newspaper cartoonists, Murphy is now its hottest as well, thanks to news agency Postmedia, which pulled his latest video from the site of Vancouver’s The Province newspaper and from YouTube, allegedly at the request of the subject: the controversial Enbridge Pipeline project. Enbridge is in the middle of a $5 million campaign to improve its public image, some of which is spent in Postmedia papers.
The video, reposted by a third party, is a parody of Enbridge’s feelgood “It’s a path to…” ad, an ad which has received a measly 385 views. The parody, in contrast, is up to 5,723 so far, more than 150 likes, and only one dislike.
Murphy told the CBC that Province editor Wayne Moriarty told him, “‘If it doesn’t come down, Enbridge says they’re pulling a million dollars worth of advertising from Postmedia, and if it doesn’t come down, I, Wayne Moriarty, I’m going to lose my job.’” An anonymous source reportedly formerly of Postmedia contradicted that, telling blogger Laila Yuile that Paul Godfrey, president and CEO of Postmedia, was the one who killed it. ”It’s just how things go when one guy sits in a chair in Toronto telling papers right across Canada what to do. It’s a huge problem, and it’s frustrating most of all for the people who work in the newsroom, most of whom know better.” Moriarty, however, claimed responsibility in an interview with BackOfTheBook.ca, saying that Enbridge requested the removal of the video “because it contains copyrighted material,” a reference to the use of the Enbridge logo and designs, use of which is protected under Canadian journalism law. Moriarty acknowledged that the Province could have resisted the request on that basis, but it did not.
Enbridge has been removing from its Facebook page links to the parody or articles about the controversy, although environmentalists keep putting them back up.
Instead of linking to the video, maybe someone should drop Enbridge a link to the Streisand Effect.
