44 Replies to “Documenting Media Bias Against The Harper Conservatives”

  1. Right on!
    Next should come a series on butchers’ bias against the Harper Conservatives. And then we should go after hairdressers. And architects. Nor should photographers, corgi breeders, restauranteurs, and dentists escape the spotlight. Electricians and their like must also be exposed. Let us offer no quarter.

  3. I found this page from the link interesting:
    There is an old axiom in media tactics for shaping public opinion; it is called “assassination by insinuation.” That is, you don’t come right out and make an accusation, you simply imply it by the initial introduction to the story.
    […]
    In fact, the story was so imflammatory and biased that days later the Globe and Mail had to issue a retraction of their scintillating headline. Buried in the inside pages was the following tiny retraction:
    “Oops, my bad.” (paraphrased)

  5. Here in Sask we have a radio station that tells us to vote Tory. 980 Ckrm. What other party has that.

  6. ok4ua: “Here in Sask we have a radio station that tells us to vote Tory. 980 Ckrm.”
    Really, seriously?

  7. Why anyone pays any attention to the Canadian media is beyond me. They have shown time and time again that they have no integrity and in the process are damaging their reputations. As Mark Twain said “If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed”. Except now we have the internet to keep them honest.

  8. The Canadian left-wing media organizations are up to their usual tricks, but with PMSH, they have taken it to a new level. They are now hiding and distorting “the truth” to suit their “liberal” agenda.
    The good thing is that the left-wing MSM do not completely dominate the media, as they once did. In fact, more and more people are turning to alternative news sources and blogs such as yours, as they can only take so much of the liberal spin on a majority of stories they produce.

  9. A couple of recent examples of media bias were in the form of snide remarks delivered by CTV’s Craig Oliver and Jane Taber during the SPP meetings at Montebello Aug 20-21:
    link to CTV: http://tinyurl.com/33tmps
    Craig Oliver reports to Lloyd Robertson in the 1:34 video clip:
    “And tonight, when Bush went for a long bike ride, it was Stockwell Day who went with him, not Harper, and of course, maybe I’m assuming too much that Harper can ride a bike, I don’t know.”
    Robertson then chuckles as Oliver basks that his “punch-line” was well received. Was the message behind Oliver’s denigrating “joke” that Prime Minister Harper is clumsy or incompetent?
    Next, Seamus O’Regan asks Jane Taber in the 3:55 video clip:
    “So asides from taking notes, what was actually done”? (Seamus then chuckles)
    Jane Taber: ”Good point. I mean, they did a lot of eating. There was a dinner last night, with the, between the three leaders. It was supposed to be a working dinner to discuss hemispheric issues so we haven’t – we’ll hear more about that, we hope, later on. The leaders are now going into breakfast about 8 o’clock, just the three of them to discuss more issues…”
    Was Taber’s “they did a lot of eating” barb intended to imply that the leaders are an arrogant cabal of elitists simply there to gorge themselves and have a good time?

  10. We have the usial bunch here in america doing the same just look at the crap from such notoroius liberal left-wing birdcage linners like SLIME and NEWSREEK

  11. When the CPC wins a majority in the next election, it will be with great pleasure to finally witness the dismantling of the Communist Broadcasting Corp. Cut the idiots loose, and let’s see if they can make it in the free market. As a professional gambler, I will take the bet that they fail. Any takers?

  12. Interesting factoids….confirms what I had suspected about the paper thin egos and hubris of the Ottawa press corpse.
    People with such petty prejudices and gross vindictiveness really should not be allowed a national soap box….all they do is spread their personal twisted insecurities and malignancy into the national consciousness….no wonder we have become such a petty vindictive people divided by partisan vitriol….look at the sectarian spitefulness in our 4th estate aristocracy and think: “led by example”.

  13. What better place than this thread to remind folks that the same MSM that keeps slagging the Harper Conservatives is the same MSM that were enablers of a decade of corruption in Ottawa in the form of the Chretien and Martin administrations.
    Talk about hiding their Sh**, much like a “Puffin”

  14. I have to agree with you there Joe….if we have just escaped over a decade of the most corrupt kleptocratic government in history it was because their tracks were covered until the sleaze could no longer be contained.
    The MSM in Kanda has be the handmaiden of every sleazy regime we have suffered under…the only time they become inquisitive or sit in opposition to a government is when its a conservative government…this has been established from Deifenbaker on down to Harper.
    The largely liberal media is tolerant of liberal sleaze but intolerant of conservative success…every conservative government elected has been put in place by voters to clean up the mess and sleaze left by a corrupt, arrogant and lethargic previous liberal regime.
    But who allowed them to become corrupt, arrogant and lethargic? Where was the 4th estate when this process was taking place?

  15. WL Mackenzie Redux – what in god’s name are you smoking? The media spent the last several years of the Lib gov’t basically calling Liberals criminals and delivering the election to the conservatives on a silver platter, that admittedly they almost dropped.
    The media is giving the current government an extremely gentle ride compared to recent history.
    I have seen stories buried in the back pages and not even on broadcast news that would have been lead items in earlier times, particularly ones where recent information acquired through access to information has indicated that “Canada’s New Government” is using more untendered contracts, more polling contracts to friendly firms and appointing relatively higher numbers of its partisans to government positions.
    When back in the day Sheila Copps’ (ugh) assistant gets a near entire front page of the Shitizen for charging expensive lunches, one can only imagine how the above story would have played had the shoe been on the other foot. We get a government demonstrably doing the exact opposite of what they promised to do on a key election plank (i.e. money for partisan pals) and it gets no play whatsoever in the media.
    In your eyes, through your blue coloured glasses, however, nothing less than absolute obeisance to the party line will suffice, and any new in any way critical of your little PM will be seen as treachery, because you see him as infallible. That is not the real world, and perhaps a little time in government might get you and your little team more used to some occasional dispassionate commentary that might bew construed as critical of you hero.
    Comment by canadian_2 —

  16. Yeah, Ignatief’s suggestion to have the Puffin bird for a Liberal symbol was done with full knowledge it hides it’s excrement, he noted that fact and was stupid enough to assume we’d consider Liberals clean.
    Got news for him we have another take on it, it’s what the Liberals have been doing for decades, hiding their crap. So, inadvertently he picked the right bird but for the wrong reason.
    He will henceforth be known as PUFFIN IGGY.
    Clean bird, dirty bird, it’s all down to crap.

  17. Crabgrass, how many butchers or hairdressers have been appointed as Govenor General, or to the Senate. How many CBC staff have been appointed to the above patronage appointments.
    The major concern for the media leftists is, they will not get a Senate seat or an ambassadorship, that they have kissed ass for for several years.

  18. Barbara Yaffe, of the Van. Sun (via newswatch) says she will refuse to interview PMSH for some time to come. My bet is that if he called she couldn’t get there fast enough. The fact is, she would never be called. I wish he would call, and she goes, so we could all call her a liar.

  20. Yaffe’s column show just how brilliant the media is in this country. She bitches and moans about Harper’s fight with them and says how important it is to know what the government is doing, then says that if he doesn’t play ball with them they will trash him.
    Quote” As a former press gallery member, I know journalists can learn lots through informal, impromptu exchanges with politicians. Thus, it’s in the public interest for journalists to have broad access.
    Not only is Harper’s strategy anti-democratic, a poll this week reveals he’s developing an image as “controlling.” And his frosty rapport with reporters could backfire.
    Peter Donolo was communications chief for Jean Chretien, who was a real bully but never sought to manipulate the press to the degree Harper has.
    “It’s a bit like picking a fight with your mother-in-law,” Donolo has warned. “It may feel great at the moment. But she’s around for the long haul. She has a million ways of getting back at you, and making your life miserable. It’s just not worth it.”” Unquote.
    How are they going to make his life miserable Barbara?
    By spinning the news?
    Isn’t that what made Harper get out the wooden spoon and paddle your little backsides in the first place?
    Is it in the public’s interest to have the media spin news stories to make Harper’s life miserable as they try to get back at him? In other words, is it in the public’s interest to have her lie to us?
    Did she even think while she was writing that illogical mess of a column?

  21. Far left journalist and longtime CBC contributor Larry Zolf let it slip in this March 28th 2006 CBC article.
    Zolf has been around a long time and knows the game. Message is loud and clear. Play it our way or we will use our press “freedoms” to bury you – just like we did to those before you.
    “The media made Harper. The media also first made Trudeau and Mulroney. Later, the media made both Trudeau and Mulroney and their parties suffer at the polls.
    A similar fate awaits Harper if he doesn’t change his basic suspicion and hatred of reporters and news commentators.”
    Yaffes column is a reflection of this attitude.
    http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_zolf/20060328.html

  23. You Tories don’t think anybody should challenge you. Our news media is mostly right leaning. You want nothing but good reports about you. It sucks to be you.

  24. When will these press types figure out we don’t rely on them for information anymore. They don’t understand the issues and are hopelessly biased, all of them.
    They have no more expertise on issues than the host of a game show. They have the credibility of tabloids.

  25. Okay ok4ua, that’s enough, time for your nap.
    When you wake up we’ll discuss how Larry Zolf and Barbara Yaffe have admitted that the media is biased against conservative ideas.

  26. Right you are Shamrock – I get notices from PMSH’s website via internet. The press gang could do the same if they were really interested in the actions of our government. The words of these prima donnas of the media are blackmail. Blackmail is a crime, in Canada, in our cities, in our laws….choose your side.

  27. ok4ua: Go off in a corner and crap in your hat then give it to Puffin Iggy to hide somewhere.
    All the information we require is readily available through our MPs as well. If we do not have internet service we have telephones. Oddly, the media have all services at their disposal but continue to play their dirty, silly, brainless games. At this point, they’re redundant.

  28. Anybody pick up this week’s issue of Maclean’s. The cover story is about how “Bush-era” capitalists are making money off of disasters such as Katrina,9/11,Iraq,etc. So one must assume that while Clinton was in office,every service was donated after a disaster. I don’t think so.

  29. ward – I hope you don’t believe Larry Zolf’s egoistic rant.
    Political leaders aren’t plasticine; they aren’t clay – to be moulded by the All-Wise, All-Powerful MSM. Political leaders have to have some kind of strength and vision – otherwise, they rapidly dissolve-as-leaders (eg, Paul Martin, Dion, Boisclair etc.)
    Because Larry Zolf and his socialist cronies have been around for a long time means nothing. This gang of well-heeled, middle class, privileged people – such as Gerry Caplan, Stephen Lewis, Michele Landsberg, Larry Zolf and others – developed as a ‘socialist clique’ from their days as undergrads at University College at the U of Toronto. So? Doesn’t mean that they have any wisdom.
    And – think about their arrogance, their incredible arrogance – in asserting that they who write essentially fiction, twisting and ‘making things up’, are stronger than factual reality. Now, that’s arrogance. That’s also stupidity.
    I happen to think that truth is stronger than fiction. And therefore, these spin doyens of the MSM – are doomed to spin. And that’s all. And gather dust in their spinnings.

  30. I also saw and recorded that blatant launch of partisan-soundbites on the CBC. It was like something straight out of a Liberal focus-group meeting. Just absolutely fraudulent.
    Here’s a network that has been campaigning against the mission — not, of course when it was a Liberal mission, just since the moment Mr. Harper inherited the mission from them — and has been pruriently appropriating,in service of this sideways political campaign, each casualty and injury to Canadian soldiers.
    And then, all of a sudden, out of the blue, on one evening’s broadcast, Mr. Harper is under vicious attack for being a “cut and run” man; i.e. someone who disregards the importance and merit of the mission when all he did was restate something that he has been absolutely consistent in saying — on the record, including in Hansard: That any extension on the mission will require a vote in the house.
    There is zero chance — none — that CBC’s reporters, producers and management were unaware of Mr. Harper’s consistent position on this issue, and yet they portrayed it as a sudden shift that merited the coast-to-coast launch of Lib-proxy perjoratives against him.
    Fraud. Mansbridge has the audacity to open with “…the PM’s tone seems to be changing…(is this) in fact cutting and running?”
    Paul Hunter: “…the PM’s tone seems to have changed.” (Paul Hunter). Andre Pratte: “It’s a political cut and run…” Mansbridge: “Well, let’s get straight to the issue of a ‘cut and run’, whether it’s a political cut and run, or a version of cut and run…”
    “Katy (O’Malley), what about you? Is there a cut and run underway, then?” O’Malley: “Well…there does seems to be a bit of a political cut and run…”
    Mansbridge: “…what we’re witnessing in terms of a change in gone…does it go as far as a form of cut and run…?”
    ELEVEN TIMES in a short stretch various participants — anchor, panelists, reporters — tried, in complete disregard for THE TRUTH, to attach the phrases “cut and run” or “cut and running” and “waffling” to Mr. Harper.
    Katy O’Malley and Alan Greg, in so cooperatively re-echoing the chosen soundbites of an openly partisan campaign, were either willing participants in a political smear campaign or social-climbing dupes of the highest order.
    In O’Malley’s case, it’s pretty clear that it’s the former. Her consistently revolting, fawning cooperation with Mansbridge’s suggestive approaches to “issues” absolutely flattens her credibility as a journalist. I have stopped buying Macleans magazine altogether — seriously — because of her performances, and I won’t buy the magazine again as long as she is representing Macleans on the CBC.
    Finally, there’s something I’m really, really curious about, but have no answers to: How is it that Mansbridge is inevitably the anchor when the most biased broadcasts occur? One would assume that the treatment of news and “issues” on a network would not be in any way affected by who the anchor is, and yet somehow the most egregiously partisan performances, from Keith Boag and Paul Hunter in particular, disproportionately occur when Mansbridge is anchoring the broadcast.
    The trend is far too consistent to be an accident. Although the difference in panelists’ responses when others are anchoring can be explained by the fact that Mark Kelley or Heather Hiscox are always less leading and suggestive than Mansbridge when asking questions, what could be the explanation for the more neutral tone of the actual news reports covering federal politics when Mansbridge is away?
    It’s highly doubtful that Mark Kelley, say, has any editorial control over reporter’s segments. The most obvious explanation for Mansbridge’s consistent appearance at the scene of the journalistic-crime would be that he’s onside with the anti-Conservative campaigners inside the CBC, and that his senior presence is a green-light of sorts to various producers and PPG reporters. But who knows?
    Any CBC insiders out there who might be able to provide some insights?

  31. To all of you who think the MSM is doomed and the internet will rule supreme. Think back to the last election. The liberals were being dumped on over adscam and it looked like the CPC was headed for majority. Two weeks before the election the MSM saw the light and did a reversal and look what happened. At a guess if they had seen the light a month before the weasel Martin would still be around. In Canada as has been proven over and over again “he who gives away the most free lunches gets the most votes” and you need the media to sell that kind of a campain.

  32. If there’s a disaster or impending disaster we’ll get it from the media, their arses are in danger too, beyond that they’re useless, egotistical slags of the worst order. They can spew their vile crap but they’ve lost all trust and it just won’t work with intelligent people. We have to hope there is a majority who fit that category.

  33. BTW, Johnny Canuck: your excellent 8:58 AM post is a valuable public service. I consider that sort of a commenting template when it comes to providing clear, pointed, steaming evidence of blatantly partisan journalism. Well done.

  34. JT I’ll give you one guess who I would vote for in the next election. Shouldnt be too hard to figure out.
    ET: I don’t believe Zolf when he says that that the media “made” Harper. They did nothing of the sort. They made every effort assassinate Harpers character right from the beginning – and continue to do so. Nor do I think that the media is capable of moulding Harper. (Paul Martin yes)
    I do beleive Zolf when he says that the media will (take action to) make Harper pay at the polls. Whether or not Zolf is correct in his assessment that the media will be successful at damaging Harper and the Conservatives is a moot point.
    The key is that according to Zolf, this course of action has been taken in the past and will be taken in the future – play ball our way or we will use our influence to hurt you. The crime here is the intent to cause harm through misinformation.
    Yaffe makes the same point, as has Kinsella, Don Martin and numerous others. Interesting that these threats come from leftists all.
    Also illustrative that Zolf and others dont just say “I will make every effort to make Harper pay” They all assert that the media will act in concert to bring about the fall of Harper. That would be pretty tough to do – get everyone on the same page – unless they were already there, joined at the hip by their ideologies.
    Zolfs statement is also an acknowledgement that the practice of disseminating damaging misinformation is widespread in our media.

  35. It is a damn shame,what has happened to the profession of journalism.It used to be a noble undertaking,a respected vocation.
    Now,I shake my head in disbelief at the distance some outlets go to editorialize the news.I had my eyes opened wide about a year ago with this scary little Harper’s motorcade story….
    http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=9d545fe4-c050-4a6b-ba16-72fde9a5fdad&k=70961
    Keep in mind,although they ‘admit’ at the end this was solely the RCMP’s responsibility as supplier of security,this short article is no more than a ‘vehicle’ for Pat Martin to propagandize Harper disguised as news.It is peppered with the following references…
    “Darth Vader”
    3…count’em…3 direct references to President Bush
    “a presidential look”
    “even for a prime minister who ditched the Kyoto accord”
    “Secret Service operation”
    “it looks quasi-military”
    “air of intimidation to Harper’s motorcade”
    All from the fact the RCMP!!! added 1 truck to the rear of the PM’s motorcade.
    You would have to be blind or a leftist footsoldier not to see the strong anti-right bias much of the MSM regularly dishes out as news.
    Where has all the ethics gone in this profession?

  36. sp,ething calling itself Canadian2 meweled this: “The media spent the last several years of the Lib gov’t basically calling Liberals criminals and delivering the election to the conservatives on a silver platter,”
    I see partisan revisionism runs deep in your reward view. Sorry but I was there in the grass when the Chretetienites told the OPG to stand down on digging into Cret’s Golf club realty deals or his Powercor investments in Iran and when a CBC reporter was canned for telling the truth about where the orders came from to pepper spray crowds at the Suharto protest.
    I was also deeply integrated when the “copy” for major media was written for them by liberal department PR officers.
    So stop blowing smoke at us put you butt hole.
    BTW I have no blue glasses ahole, I’m an independent thinker and voter.

  37. WL Mackenzie:
    Independent? Don’t even need to comment on this…
    Thinker? You would be a little more convincing on this front if you could reduce the average number of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors to something less than 10-15 per post…
    And what about the non-story of the larger than Lib numbers of untendered sole source contracts -where is it in the pages on my newspapers? Seems to me the Chretien garbage (no fan of his by the way, idiot) was top of the news for weeks if not months.
    You can’t seem to find any actual facts to support your “argument”.
    Perhaps your glasses are not blue, perhpas they are opaque.

  39. Here in Sask we have a radio station that tells us to vote Tory. 980 Ckrm. What other party has that.
    Posted by: ok4ua
    Actually 980 is Newstalk CJME – home of Gormley ,620 is CKRM – home of the Riders – much more important 🙂

  41. 980 cjme voices gormleys opinion only. It is a Tory radio station that I once heard before the last election telling voters to vote for the Sask Party. Why should a radio station get away with that? He works Rural Sask into a frenzie about how hard up they are. He’s also a farmer. What about the other 400,000 or so people who don’t have a farm income. I guess we don’t count.

  42. When the liberal news media use terms like GUNNED DOWN or GUNMAN it just proves their biased and cant be trusted and i have read where they have had gang members pose holding guns and how NBC faked a truck explosion woth a GM pick-up which proves you cant trus these no good reptiles

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