Submarines: This is not news

Why do reporters insist on hyping material obtained by political parties under Access to Information? Especially when the substance of the story was actually printed months ago (and note the spin in the Ottawa Citizen story):

The Citizen:

Just one sub at sea until late 2009
Of four British castoffs Canada bought in '98, three can't be deployed

The Torch on February 16--with my spin:

Good submarine news

Update: It's all Jean Chrétien's fault; that's what a Liberal says:

...
According the [Ron] Huebert [associate director at the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies], the fleet's current state of disrepair can be attributed to inactivity. He compares the submarines to a car left outside for years without being driven.

"They stayed in water way too long," Huebert told Canada AM on Thursday from Calgary.

Huebert says the British government was intent on selling six submarines to Canada, but the transaction took three years, and in the end only four were bought.

Former Liberal defense minister, David Collenette, has said the delay was due to fear of political backlash.

"Chretien had always been a strong supporter of the submarine proposal, but he worried about the timing of an announcement when so many sectors of Canadian society had borne the brunt of deficit cutting," Collenette told the House of Commons defence committee in 2004...