Media Bias [Merged]

[Fishbone Jones]

I am convinced, that our MSM has been obsessed, with him, since Trudeau announced his candidacy.

The polls, the news (for the most part) and the majority of journalists have used every opportunity to sway, impress, cajole and browbeat public opinion in favour of their anointed chosen one, Trudeau.

Polls, as we know, will give whatever result we wish by framing questions and demographic. The pollsters hire out to the person that pays for those results. Having Trudeau ahead in the polls is not a matter of public feeling, but of pandering want from isolated, financial and special interests within the liberal party and their partisans. Ignore.

The news, especially those firms who hold a hatred for Harper will never allow a CPC feel good piece to run when there is any opportunity to trash Harper or his group. Ignore.

And journalists, ahh yes, what else can we say about the majority of these blood sucking bastards. Journalism isn't a profession, a calling, an elite educated dictum of ethics and honesty. It's, for the most part, a bunch of hacks, hammering away on a keyboard. Being paid to offer their personal opinion, which is no better than that of the average man on the street. Long gone are the days past when they provided information and fact, leaving us to draw our own opinions and conclusions. Their articles are now devoid of fact and draw upon the school of Dear Abby in their condescension when treating us as uneducated children that need to be told how to behave. Immensly ignore.


Now they all want to tell the lazy reader, the unthinking dolt, and the mindless lumps staring at the TV what is good for them and who to vote for.

All because, they have a personal dislike about one person over another.

I am an informed voter, and I refuse to let idiots, pollsters and journalists dictate who I want to see driving my government.

 

[observor 69]

"I am an informed voter"  Which after you have eviscerated journalist in general makes me wonder, where do you get your informed opinion from?

 

[Fishbone Jones]

"I am an informed voter"  Which after you have eviscerated journalist in general makes me wonder, where do you get your informed opinion from?

If you can't make an informed decision about a politician without listening to the bleating of the MSM, you're exactly the person they pander too, and the one they tell who to vote for.

There is plenty of opportunity today to watch the near daily workings of most any politician you're interested in without commentary from the peanut gallery.

 

[Scott]

Vote compass (which was one network) and polls that had Peter MacKay losing in a near landslide = enough reason to never listen to these sorts of things again.

Vote compass is exactly the sort of thing recceguy is speaking of. There's more, but the above two things were more than enough for me

 

[jpjohnsn]

The problem with terms like Mainstream Media is that it has come to mean any media that doesn't agree with you.  One of the more interesting neoligisms I saw last year was in the aftermath of the Daniel Dale/Rob Ford incident in the public land adjacent to Ford's house.  As the details came out, all the papers except The Sun came out in favour of Dale.  At that point I started seeing NSM (vs MSM) in The Sun's coverage - NSM meaning "Non-Sun Media"; that is to say, even the other conservative-leaning media outlets were suddenly part of the MSM.

And while I agree that the CBC can, at times, be guilty of bias, I don't think anyone can put a laser focus on them with any kind of straight face while ignoring the Sun Media conglomerate.  The Sun News Network's coverage of the Trudeau/Brazeau bout alone should be required watching in any journalism class on ethics and bias.

 

[Journeyman]

The problem with terms like Mainstream Media is that it has come to mean any media that doesn't agree with you.

I've never seen the term used that way.  MSM, in my world, includes Sun, Star, Globe & Mail, CBC, CTV, etc...you know, the main stream -- the one's whose key focus is on filling space between the ads, rather than providing objective information to the best of their abilities.

But that's just me....    :dunno:

 

[observor 69]

What if .... there wasn't enough news to fill the MSM evening news broadcast? 

I do find the PBS NEWSHOUR to be informative and unbiased.

 

[Canadian.Trucker]

In the end the way I view the media is that no matter what the source they are out to sell a product.  Whether it's through television, radio, newspapers etc they need to have people interested enough to tune in to what they're selling.  It's a business like any other, and like any other business they want to continue to have consumers return to them for the product they produce.

 

[a_majoor]

Generally speaking terms like MSM or Legacy Media are used to describe media that has traditional (broadcast) outlets and traditional revenue (advertizing) business models. In general, Canadian MSM or Legacy media also seem to feed on the same tropes as the so called "Laurentian elites" described in the "Big Shift"; since these tropes are questioned or rejected by many people living and working in "New Canada" they of course find the media to be biased and incorrect. The fact that most Canadian Media is based in the Toronto-Montreal corridor has a lot to do with this.

Not entirely sure the SUN media chain is representative of the New Canada though, I suspect the mantle will eventually fall on some future media chain based out of Calgary or Regina. Business models based on "narrowcasting" or personalized distribution (think of self assembling a "newspaper" based on RSS feeds from journalists you believe or outlets you trust, or "a la carte" assembly of shows you wish to watch on cable/internet) might be the wave of the future "New" media as well.

 

[The_Falcon]

And while I agree that the CBC can, at times, be guilty of bias, I don't think anyone can put a laser focus on them with any kind of straight face while ignoring the Sun Media conglomerate.  The Sun News Network's coverage of the Trudeau/Brazeau bout alone should be required watching in any journalism class on ethics and bias.

The Sun, Star, National Post etc. can be as biased/unbiased as they want.  They are private enterprise.  The CBC ostensibly has no reason to "fill the ad space", since they get a generous payout from the taxpayer, which is what the majority of this tread has been about. 

 

[Edward Campbell]

Agreed, on one hand you have SUN News (AKA Fox News Canada) giving it to the government, then on the other hand you have the CBC and the Globe & Mail talking about how many unsecured guns.  Can we ever get a non-biased report in Canada.

Nope.

We are well past the age of "reporting"; now, in the 21st century we are victims consumers of the infotainment business.

Journalism, at its best, was never biased. William Howard Russel, the Times "man" in Crimea wrote very pointed accounts of the battles ~ anything but unbiased reporting; Edward R Murrow was not, in any sense, unbiased when he reported from London during the Blitz; ditto Christie Blatchford and Matthew Fisher. But Russell, Murrow, Blatchford and Fisher, with all their biases worn on their sleeves, still tried/try to inform; but what about, say, Sun News Network's Ezra Levant or the CBC's Evan Soloman? Is there any "news" in what they do, any "reporting," per se, any attempt to inform? Inflame, yes, inform ... not in my mind. They are, in fact, entertainers who work on news networks.

There are still handfuls of real "reporters" on CBC, CTV, Global, etc and several more in the major print outlets. They all, like Russel and Murrow in the past, have biases but most try to report the facts and then comment upon them. We might, some of us, wish for the 'good old days' when editors tried to separate factual, albeit often slanted reporting and the out-and-out opinion by having Opinion pages but now the line is badly blurred. Consider John Ibbitson, whose work I cite here very often: he's the Good Grey Globe's "chief political writer" which is, I guess, a nice way of admitting that Ibbitson "reports" his opinions! But he isn't confined to editorial/opinion/commentary sections, his work appears as "news," and his work is highly opinionated. But Ibbitson and his opinionated stablemate Jeffrey Simpson are money makers for the Globe and Mail because Globe readers, like most Canadians want their information to be interesting, and "interesting" is a synonym for entertaining.

Fortunately we have a range of choices: I can offset Sun News Network and the CBC with e.g. the Financial Times and the Economist. If I hear something outrageous on Fox I can crosscheck it, almost instantaneously, in e.g. Xinhau or the Straits Times.

By the way, in my opinion  , the blogosphere is far, far more biased than is the worst of the mainstream media.

 

[The_Falcon]

While Ezra does deliberately try to inflame passions, he does actually talk about stuff that various other outlets refuse to.  Like during Occupy, when he went into the tent city, and found them all empty at night.  Or when mayor spence was having her little hissy fit, he actually drudged up the actual treaties, discussed the audit etc.  I don't consider him a journalist since he is a lawyer by training, but I like that he likes to bring forward stuff, that most others can't or won't say (probably why Sun Media hired him in the first place).

 

[Edward Campbell]

I know that people like Levant do investigate but their reports are, in my opinion, intended to be inflammatory rather than informative. I see Ezra Levant and Warren Kinsella as two sides of the same coin: they are political/policy entertainers. Their job is to shout at one another across an electronic divide and, in the process, further confirm their supporters' views that the "other," and his supporters, are knuckle dragging social Neanderthals or loosey-goosey left wing fairies. It's probably good business ~ after all we see the same thing, "shouting heads," on TV networks all over the world. Is it because we value heat more than light? Yes. The "heat," the "sound and fury" is more fun, more entertaining, than simple "light" (information) and we are will to pay for entertainment while we are unwilling to pay for information.

 

[a_majoor]

The key difference is entertainers like Ezra, or Americans on FOX slip in information with their polemics (empty tents in tent city, the actual text of the treaties), so their fan base gets heat and light.

 

[Journeyman]

.....or Americans on FOX slip in information with their polemics....

I suspect that this is an example of:

....further confirm their supporters' views ......

Sorry, but if FOX has any reputation for slipping in information, I'm afraid it's either very very nuanced, or simply overwhelmed by habitually catering the lowest common denominator.

 

[mad dog 2020]

In Defense of Sun news, I like my fair share of news and various newspapers. I know I should read more in depth stuff. Starting to appreciate the Ottawa Citizen more with the military coverage.
I do find that the CBC and other news hours, skim off the topic and paint a 30 sec sound bite.
For an issue like Occupy Toronto, MSM works on a 9-5 schedule and interviews the hired talking heads or some stooge trying to gain favour and show support to the blending heart issue de jour. like Sid Ryan  who must get his face on the news.
I call these attention seeking, publicity driven political wanna-bes; the front rank or window dressing. Watch the music video of Dancing in the streets with David Bowie and Mick Jaggar and see them throw more elbows than Gordie Howe just for front and center position.
Yet I see Ezra and company go after hours, (any real issue should be 24/7) and visit the second, third and bleachers to give us a full perspective of participants (yes, I know they could select the most embarrassing clowns).
But, I agree that during the Occupy Toronto, the half baked almost elderly hippies had a hard time identifying this cause this week and it was more so a great place to smoke a dube in public and not have to walk into an alley.
This week I saw Ezra at the West Hanover pumping station and talk to the immediate neighbours who had no complaints, concerns and with a vested interest. Yeh the CBC was there for the people of Caledonia. They did not want to get dragged into such a political time bomb.
So Sun is trying and touch many topics others skirt away from. I enjoy it and take what I need from it. At least a different perspective.

 

[The_Falcon]

Ezra, has also on more than one occasion (particular if you listen to AM 640 in Toronto which regular has him on the John Oakley show), straight up said he isn't a "journalist", nor does he pretend to be.  He is a lawyer (ergo he acts like a lawyer, a bombastic one but still), who just happens to have an audience, so he has no issue, critiquing finding flaws and poking holes in various stories.

That's what really agitates people of the "Cause X" movement and various hangers-on, because he actually has training and experience in argument, and uses that to his advantage.  He doesn't interview people, so much as cross-examine them.

 

[Edward Campbell]

The Good Grey Globe reports that the "CBC rejects ad critical of Harper government’s influence on CBC."

The ad, produced by the lobby group Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, is amusing, in a sophomoric sort of way, albeit a bit long winded ~ you can see it here.

The Friends will capitalize of this to raise even more money.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Not about the CBC, not even about evident bias, but a reminder of the fact, and I suggest it is a fact, that the media is, by and large, entrenched in John Ibbitson's Laurentian Elites, is found in this article about Chrystia Freeland which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/journalist-chrystia-freeland-to-seek-liberal-nod-for-toronto-centre/article13470172/#dashboard/follows/

Journalist Chrystia Freeland to seek Liberal nod for Toronto Centre

DANIEL LEBLANC
OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail

Published Saturday, Jul. 27 2013

A senior editor at an international media organization will seek the Liberal nomination for the downtown Toronto riding vacated by Bob Rae.

Chrystia Freeland, a former manager and writer at The Globe and Mail and other internationally renowned publications, is hoping to win the Liberal nod in Toronto Centre for the upcoming by-election.

Ms. Freeland has written extensively about the growing income disparities around the world and would bring expertise on the plight of the modern middle class. That theme has been at the heart of Justin Trudeau’s message since he took over the Liberal Party in April, in part with Ms. Freeland’s behind-the-scenes input.

“In my writing, my reporting and my thinking, I have come to feel that there is a really great challenge that the world and Canada faces, which is figuring out how to make the 21st century work for the middle class,” she said in an interview. “I want to try to be a part of a team that does something about that, and that is 100 per cent the core of my motivation.”

Ms. Freeland, 44, grew up in Peace River, Alta., and earned degrees in Russian history and literature at Harvard before doing a Masters at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar.

Mr. Trudeau and Ms. Freeland recently met for breakfast in Ottawa and he invited her to consider a foray into active politics. The pair had been discussing policy issues in the preceding months, but Mr. Rae’s resignation from the Liberal caucus hastened Ms. Freeland’s thinking about her own political future.

The feeling in party circles is that she could bring fresh thinking to the Liberal Party’s economic team, now made up of veteran MPs Scott Brison, Ralph Goodale and John McCallum.

“It’s no secret that we want to build out a strong economic team across the country, and the Toronto Centre opening is a good opportunity to start on that,” a senior Liberal official said. “Chrystia is potentially a great piece of that puzzle.”

Ms. Freeland’s candidacy is looked on favourably in senior Liberal circles, and she might be perceived as having a leg up on the nomination given her close ties to Mr. Trudeau and his inner circle.

Still, she will have to compete for the votes of the party members in the riding. Mr. Trudeau has said all nomination races will be open and that he will never appoint candidates.

“One of the things Justin said [to Ms. Freeland] throughout the process is, ‘We’d love to have you, but like me and everyone else, you’ll have to win the nomination,’” the Liberal official said. “We want to make sure that we live up to the spirit as well as the letter of that.”

Todd Ross, a Toronto community organizer, has already said he will seek the nomination. Former Ontario MPP and provincial minister George Smitherman mused about running, but has also expressed an interest in waiting for the 2015 general election, when the riding will be split.

Ms. Freeland, who is the author of Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else, has held several positions over the years at The Financial Times in London and Moscow. The mother of three is moving to Toronto from New York, where she has just quit as a managing director and editor at Thomson Reuters.

The Globe and Mail and Reuters will no longer employ Ms. Freeland as a columnist.

“I’m taking a risk, and I’m ready to compete and to fight, and I think that is the way it should be,” she said.

Ms. Freeland grew up in a political household in Alberta with a Liberal father and a mother who once ran for an NDP nomination. She said that it is wrong to assume that the Liberal brand and the Trudeau name are toxic in her home province.

“It’s a mistake to try and divide Canada; we really are one country,” she said. “There are a lot of people in the West, in Alberta, who believe in that and who believe in the Liberal vision that I want to be a part of.”

She said she does not want to enter politics with a sense that she has answers to all of the questions that she has raised in her writings on the financial squeeze facing Canadians. “It would be incredibly arrogant and presumptuous and hubristic of me to arrive with a fully baked 10-point plan for solving the plight of the middle class,” she said. “The job now for me is to listen to people.”

The NDP has yet to select its candidate in Toronto Centre, although former MuchMusic VJ Jennifer Hollett announced her intention to seek the nomination this week. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has not called by-elections in Toronto Centre or the two other ridings that are vacant, Provencher in Manitoba and Bourassa in Quebec. They are expected to be in the fall.

Ms Freeland is would be a star candidate if - and with M Trudeau's imprimateur I guess "if" equals "when" - she wins the nomination.

Will her Alberta roots help the Liberals in that electoral wasteland? I doubt it. In fact, when redistribution occurs, I suspect she will be in too tough a fight with the NDP in new Toronto Centre riding to help out in the West.

What about her views? Pretty mainstream, I think ~ she's well aligned with e.g. Scott Brison: a natural Manley Liberal who could, easily, be a Conservative of the Michael Wilson variety ... if that variety hadn't, virtually, abandoned the CPC.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Not about the CBC, not even about evident bias, but a reminder of the fact, and I suggest it is a fact, that the media is, by and large, entrenched in John Ibbitson's Laurentian Elites, is found in this article about Chrystia Freeland which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/journalist-chrystia-freeland-to-seek-liberal-nod-for-toronto-centre/article13470172/#dashboard/follows/

Ms Freeland is would be a star candidate if - and with M Trudeau's imprimateur I guess "if" equals "when" - she wins the nomination.

Will her Alberta roots help the Liberals in that electoral wasteland? I doubt it. In fact, when redistribution occurs, I suspect she will be in too tough a fight with the NDP in new Toronto Centre riding to help out in the West.

What about her views? Pretty mainstream, I think ~ she's well aligned with e.g. Scott Brison: a natural Manley Liberal who could, easily, be a Conservative of the Michael Wilson variety ... if that variety hadn't, virtually, abandoned the CPC.

It seems that no political promise ought to go unbroken and so Justin Trudeau reaches into to his father's bag of tricks and effectively parachutes Ms Freeland into Toronto Centre according to this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the National Post:

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/07/30/john-ivison-justin-trudeau-parachutes-star-candidate-chrystia-freeland-into-safe-toronto-centre/

Justin Trudeau parachutes ‘star’ candidate Chrystia Freeland into safe Toronto Centre

John Ivison, National Post

13/07/30

The old joke is that you can’t make a Hamlet without breaking egos. Justin Trudeau is in the process of discovering the same is true of building his political dream team – particularly since he has committed to an open nomination process that bars him from appointing candidates.

When Bob Rae announced his retirement, it was assumed by many Liberals that George Smitherman, the former deputy premier of Ontario and three times elected MPP for the Toronto Centre riding, would be a shoo-in. He had considered running federally when former MP Bill Graham stood down but was pre-occupied by his job as Ontario’s Health Minister at the time.

There’s no doubt he carries some baggage from the eHealth and green energy miscues in the province. But he was an effective opposition attack dog, popular in the riding and tight with the team around Mr. Trudeau (he gave key adviser Gerald Butts his first job at Queen’s Park).

None of this carried any weight once it became clear that “celebrated” author and journalist, Chrystia Freeland, fancied adding politics to her curriculum vitae. She recently authored a book called Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else. Its thesis looks as if it will underpin the Liberal platform at the next election – namely that middle-class jobs are being made redundant or outsourced by the ongoing technological revolution. “Figuring out how to make today’s vast economic transformation work for the middle class is the central political issue of our time,” she wrote in the Globe and Mail, which conveniently provided a platform for her ideas just after it was announced in its pages that she planned on returning to her native land to run in the seat vacated by Mr. Rae.

It was a match made in pointy-head heaven and the Trudeau team made it clear on Twitter that she is their gal.

Mr. Smitherman was very gracious in a piece in The Huffington Post, explaining why he had decided not to run in Toronto Centre (or in any other riding, in any other election.) Except he didn’t really explain anything – on Gay Pride weekend he decided to run. Now he’s decided not to. The reason: “Fighting with Liberals is not my strong suit.”

People close to Mr. Smitherman say he has taken his forced retirement hard but is trying not to be bitter and to focus on his young family.

They say that there was no official prohibition on him running but that it was made clear Ms. Freeland was the leader’s preferred candidate.

There’s no doubt that the former Globe and Thomson Reuters journalist is a good catch for the Liberal leader. There have been the inevitable comparisons drawn with Michael Ignatieff, who also returned from travelling the world to let Canada see him. Experienced politicians who have looked both of them in the eye say Ms. Freeland has more genuine human characteristics that may make the job of retail politics more easy. While Mr. Ignatieff came from the disconnected ivory tower of Harvard, Ms. Freeland is moving back from the less esoteric, gleaming iridescence of Thomson Reuters’ headquarters in Times Square.

But the most interesting take-away from this whole affair is how similar Mr. Trudeau’s new politics are to the discredited old politics of previous Liberal leaders. Open nominations have fallen at the first hurdle. How much faith should anyone place in his other democratic reform pledges – loosening the grip of the Prime Minister’s Office; introducing changes to the electoral system; banning partisan government advertising?

Personally, I think it’s entirely sensible for the leader to reserve the right to parachute “star” candidates into safe seats. But when your whole unique proposition is that you are an agent of change, it behooves you to live up to your own heady rhetoric. “Doing politics exactly the same way as Jean Chrétien” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

Now, M. Trudeau's team will, no doubt, argue that George Smitherman decided not to run f0r his own good reasons, not because Ms Freeland is being parachuted into the riding, but if it "looks like a duck," etc ...

Ms Freeland must hope that Trudeau fils is better at picking safe seats than was Trudeau père - think "star candidates" Pierre Juneau (who was parachuted into Hochelaga, a "safe" Liberal seat, in 1975 - and lost the election), Bryce Mackasey (who was parachuted into Ottawa Centre, a "safe" Liberal seat, in 1978 - and lost the election) and Jim Coutts ( who was parachuted into Spadina, a "safe" Liberal seat, in 1981 - and lost the election). Sometimes the electors don't care all that much for the "para-candidate," star or not.

By the way, the Globe and Mail gave Ms Freeland a "free ride" in its pages (see link), allowing her a "guest" opinion piece before her formal nomination - despite a pledge (see my 2013-07-27 post) to "no longer employ Ms. Freeland as a columnist."

I think the phrase for which M. Trudeau and I are looking is "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" ~ welcome to the 1990s (the Chrétien era), as Pierre Trudeau might have said.