Going to the Mat[tresses]

What's the matter with mat stories? Quite a bit, in the absence of full disclosure, it appears. We talk about the different approaches to mat stories in the two largest providers in North America, NAPS in the United States and News Canada north of the border. We talk about where the responsibility for disclosure resides and we see that there may be failings at all three points in the news chain, PR agencies, mat distributors and publishers. We also look at Facebook's curious performance during and after its testimony before a Canadian Parliamentary Committee. Called to testify about its privacy policies, Facebook's spokesperson first told Parliamentarians that Facebook has its own interpretation of Canadian lobbying laws. An interpretation that resulted in Facebook having no lobbyist registration, despite the fact that Facebook was on record having meetings with several Cabinet Ministers. Curious, said the NDP's Charlie Angus. But, there's more. To top it off, Facebook, the distribution platform on which many Canadians receive their news, refused to take any questions from reporters. This, even thought the reporters accompanied Facebook's Canadian rep down three stories from the Committee hearings to the building exit where he could finally flee them. Hmmm. When you distribute the media, you're probably bigger than the media and don't need to answer questions?