A keen observer

I spotted this at the bottom of a brief Canadian Press article on Afghanistan as carried by CTV News.

Meantime, a keen observer of the conflict says he worries the public won't understand that Canada's real success in Afghanistan includes building new roads and farm infrastructure.

Lee Windsor, of the Gregg Centre for the study of war and society at the University of New Brunswick, says success should be measured in the number of Afghans employed in a legitimate and functional farm economy.

I'm not sure what criteria are used to determine that Dr. Windsor is a keen observer. He may well be and I'm not trying to suggest otherwise though I would argue with his choice of the metric he thinks we should focus on in Afghanistan. But I think it would be fair to describe him as a paid observer. It seems pretty obvious that the Gregg Centre is affiliated with, and funded by, the DND. And the government has been pleased to use Dr. Windsor as part of its public relations effort on behalf of the mission. I really think these associations should be noted when someone is presented in a news article as an expert — the obvious implication we're meant to draw from "keen observer" — whose opinion we should be paying attention to.

Or is that just me?

Later that same day:

The story is at least twice the length it was when I first linked to it and judging by Toe in comments it's been revised at least twice.

And my point stands. Dr. Windsor is introduced into the story as if he's some kind of neutral observer when he really isn't. In a sense he reports to the same people as Brig.-Gen. Bowes, who's featured at the top of the story. Windsor just reports through a different chain of command. So to speak.