Rabble.ca's Corvin Russell (a name I recognize from my Canadian University Press days) has been doing a good job of covering the NDP convention. Much more interesting than generally stale or downright bad mainstream coverage.

A good summary of the convention and the foolishness of the way professional journalists cover... everything (from a distance, paying more attention to their computers, and comfortably).

And he socks it to blockheaded Globe columnists who find the NDP boring and outmoded. If you believe that market ideology should not be questioned, and find concentrated money and power exciting, then of course you're going to find the NDP boring. Russel writes:

I’ll take the boredom of principle over the boredom of capitulation any day.

The mainstream media has never been known for its political astuteness or innovation in the realm of ideas. Far from being ahead of the trend, the chatterati mostly lag far behind political realities in their thinking. The market convictions of the Thomas Friedmans of the world sprouted long after Thatcher and Reagan had sown their oats.

And:

The media prescription to move to the centre expresses contempt for voters, treating them like a static lump whose choices are given, who can’t be engaged by political education and campaigning. Good politics moves the “centre” to where you are, not the other way around. It’s not like Canadians are passionately devoted to the Liberal Party’s opportunistic centrism. They’re not passionately devoted to any political project. That’s the real crisis that the mainstream media has missed: the crisis in liberal democracy.

Heck, just read the whole thing.