On October 16, former White House Press Secretary Tony Snow received the Media Institute Freedom of Speech Award.
He had a few things to say.
We also hear that the First Amendment is under siege. I think that´s true. I don´t believe anyone here would disagree with the proposition that the quality of public discourse isn´t what it once was or that it presently achieves levels of excellence and depth that it desperately needs to reach.
Yet, while it may be tempting to blame the usual suspects — the government, interest groups, angry factionalists — those forces frequently have always tried to restrict the free flow of ideas, and they always have failed.
They´re not the culprits here. Instead, there´s a new and unexpected menace on the block:
The media.
Let me explain. American journalism finds itself in a highly unusual predicament. In the early days of this nation, the press was wild, untamed, and omnipresent. Papers sprouted everywhere, and not even Ben Franklin could resist the temptation to turn his printing presses into devices for spreading gossip, maligning political enemies, and entertaining readers with items ranging from the important to the grandly weird.
Then came a period of consolidation and gentrification. Moguls controlled major media outlets and a handful of elite institutions — the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and the three television networks — shaped and defined not merely what counted as news, but what counted as acceptable opinion. The press lost its Wild West flavor and became what Tom Wolfe described as “a Victorian gent.”
[…]
Political rhetoric has turned nasty, childish, and very personal, especially on Capitol Hill, and Americans are sick of it. Hotheads seem to be enjoying a false spring of fame. And members of the mainstream press are scratching their heads and asking, “What´s going on here?” Why are the nation´s newspapers hemorrhaging readers? Why are the television networks losing viewers? Why has cable news suddenly hit still water? What is going on? Don´t Americans care about the news?
Well, of course they do: The problem is, they don´t think they´re getting news — and they´re right.
That’s the problem with Tony. He speaks the truth and doesn’t care who he pisses off. Too bad he has cancer.My prayers are with him.We need a whole bunch more like him.
I think what bothers me the most about the MSM is that they refuse to acknowledge their bias towards the Liberal Party/Democratic Party.
In Canada, you have people such as Jim Travers, Jane Taber, Gloria Galloway, Greg Weston, Mike Duffy, Don Newman and etc, etc (the CBC and the Canadian Press) who are obviously partisan to the Liberals. Yet, they insist they are ‘unbiased and objective’. They insist that we consider them as professional journalists providing us with The Truth. Do they? No.
Their opinion pieces in the various newspapers are relentlessly critical, not in a reasoned and logical manner, of the Conservatives, but are filled with malice, innuendo, hostility and ad hominem sneers.
Since Harper’s election as PM, there has been nothing positive they have to say; they ignore the very real accomplishments of this government and instead, focus on the ‘hypothetical’ of When Will It Fall. Each session of parliament has only one interest for them: When will it fall?
Their focus is on the Return of the Natural Governing Party, the Liberals. Their relentless talk is constant contempt and sneers against Harper, name-calling (he’s like Bush, he’s aloof, he doesn’t like us, he’s fat, he’s a control freak, he’s…) and endless talk of When Will There Be An Election.
They utterly ignore the accomplishments – more has been done in the two years of his govt than in the decades of the Liberal party. They also ignore the corruption of the Liberal Party and its complete absence of any policies.
Their rejection of Dion is not because he’s a Liberal but because he is incapable of returning the Liberals to power.
Their bias is so obvious, so pervasive, so overwhelming – and yet, they dare to inform us that they are ‘professional objective journalists’ rather than contemptible grovelling partisan hacks.
ET: I think what bothers me the most about the MSM is that they refuse to acknowledge their bias towards the Liberal Party/Democratic Party…
Does it bother you equally that the National Post and Toronto Sun also refuse to acknowledge their own bias towards the Conservative Party? Is your ire directed also at Fox News Corp, which also insists that it is unbiased and objective and that we consider its staff as professional journalists providing us with The Truth? Does your scorn extend as far as the WSJ, whose conservative and neoliberal biases are similarly obvious, pervasive, and overwhelming?
Can you name any MSM outlet that explicitly declares its particular political leanings (whether liberal or conservative)? They all have them, and they all pretend they’re impartial and independent. Seems to me that, in the world of journalism, claiming you’re the sole purveyor of the cold hard facts is just good business sense. Like Kate and Tony, your critique of the MSM would be far more compelling if it weren’t so trite and so…biased.
D Brooks, you are missing the point: No msm outlet will declare their bias as they either don’t want to lose half of their audience or actually believe they are impartial. As to hard examples of bias just read some older articles on this site.
btw, I haven’t seen much in the way of documented conservative biases.
Lorie Goldstein of the Sun is one who will bash Libs or CPC when he thinks they deserve it. But that is the editorial edge. As far as coverage of the events CBC,CTV, and Toronto Star pivot there stories around the Libs. After the recent throne speech their coverage was all about Dion, slim reporting on what the throne speech means to Candadians.ET has it right: if they are hitting Dion hard it’s because they are disappointed that he can’t bring down the House.
Tony Snow has it bang on.
The problem is that most Canadians get most of their news from the TV all of which is left bias. There is a more even distribution of bias for both sides in the papers although there I think even there the majority are still left bias. That is why I for one don’t watch the Canadian TV news at all. I prefer straightforward news as opposed to ideological preaching. Tell me what happened not what you and you organization think about what happened.
Fox News presents both sides and is considered by some of being biased? Biased at the level as the CBC? Are you drunk?
Does any one believe what the media, academic or scientific communities have to say anymore? They all thoroughly deserve the dishonor that hovers around their decomposing trust and respect.
Texas Canuck: D Brooks, you are missing the point: No msm outlet will declare their bias as they either don’t want to lose half of their audience or actually believe they are impartial.
No, I’m just highlighting the fact that it’s ET who’s “missed the point.” After all, she’s the one who stated, “I think what bothers me the most about the MSM is that they refuse to acknowledge their bias towards the Liberal Party/Democratic Party.” My point to her was that nobody would make such an acknowledgment. As you pointed out in your post (and I pointed out in the last paragraph of my original comment), it’d just be bad business sense.
D Brooks: ” … it’d just be bad business sense.”
What would it be if we were talking about the CBC?
Tony Snow rocks! He has stated what we have known for years but have not had the pedistal from which to shout it (with all due respect to SDA). We need more Snows to beat this drum and either bring the MSM to their knees or have them clean up their act. I feel so liberated since I have been accessing free thinking blog sites that allow ALL (albatross) points of view to come forth. Let the blogsphere flourish! Finally I am getting ALL the facts and I can make up MY OWN MIND!!!!!
“D”umb Brooks: What would you say to a 100% taxpayer funded radio/TV media monster that promoted ONLY conservative views in Canada? For years on end? On every single issue? And the government brainwashed the populace into believing that the content was merely a reflection of mainstream Canadian values?
Waiting for your lame answer, or should I say, deflection of the answer.
But I thought both the Sun & the NP declared their bias up front. Wasn’t the Black’s idea when he created the Post to offer a Conservative viewpoint not otherwise available to the Canadian public? I know that the Edmonton Sun often declares its bias in the same story it is reporting and/or editorializing. Can’t say I’ve heard the same from the CBC, CTV, Global, G & W, Asper papers etc.
I for one am so tired of this argument back and forth about this paper leaning this way and that paper leaning that way. How about some newspapers that just report the g.d. facts and let us decide for your own freeken selves already!!!!!!! I know that this would put alot of hot air our of business. Tough sh*t!!!!!
Logic dictates that to those on the far left, EVERYTHING appears to carry a conservative bias.
And likewise, to those on the far right…
Tony Snow is a smart man and he has clearly defined a problem with news reporting.
To rectify that problem he is hoping that news media suddenly take their job seriously and provide quality reporting based on context. That won’t happen, it has been tried on the PBS – McNeil/Lehrer news – it consistently got dismal ratings. He is also appealing to reporters higher ideals, good luck with that also, as he points out probably 90% of incumbents are liberal or dipper oriented and only see questions in the simplest form, such as he describes “are you in favour of full employment?” no brainer issues on which it is easy to savage the incumbents while totally ignoring any historical financial context.
In no small way this is how the public is easily stampeded towards ludicrous spending on idiotic issues, remember the Y2K debacle? what makes you think that climate change/global warming is any ? The answer is it is not, but the journalists are just too dumb to be able to ask the right questions, and the politicians are too scared to be seen doing nothing, so we see the likes of Baird doing something, anything to improve public perceptions rather than explaining as Lomberg does that spending on this issue could be targeted much more efficiently into something mundane like cash rebates for insulating your home or removing GST totally from energy efficient products.
Still, when the most watched TV shows are the likes of Entertainment Tonight and the internets most requested searches are Britneys latest disastrous outing you have too wonder if the public is even awake some days.
Doug, I love your resorting to the whole “either you agree with me or you’re brainwashed” argument. Is that how you really see your fellow Canadians? And what would that make you and your fellow SDA brethren — enlightened beings, the only folks wise and independent enough to see the light? Kind of arrogant and condescending, no?
How about this for an alternate interpretation: your views don’t play in the popular discourse, not even with a friendly government in power, because they’re far outside the Canadian mainstream. MSM outlets are, at heart, businesses like any other — they sell what people want to buy. Maybe the “liberal bias” you think you perceive is, in fact, just where mainstream Canada is at. They buy the G&M and the Toronto Star because they actually like what they read. Same goes for our more conservative US neighbours, which would explain why Fox News is so popular down there. Or would you also argue that Americans are just as brainwashed, only in a right-wing direction?
Not even Harper will touch the policy pipe-dreams (ban on “Muslim” immigration, capital punishment, dismantling Medicare, playing hardball with First Nations, privatizing the CBC, etc. etc.) popular among the SDA crowd. Why? Because he knows he’d never get the coveted majority (i.e., the approval of the mainstream) he so desires. So go on, keep telling yourself that you’ve got it right, and that it’s everyone else who’s brainwashed. Everyone wins — you remain ensconced in your smug misanthropy, and everyone else will continue to view you as irrelevant.
I am never surprised at the “parsing contributors” who adore the petty process of deconstructing comments to the point of MISSING THE POINT.
To carry the water of the MSM in Canada in any way is to be so witless and guileless as to prove the point.
When ET opines, the theme is usually illuminating and cuts to an insight, typically quite good.
Then a pettifogging parser comes along to start a pissing match.
Tony Snow speaks to an incredible command of the obvious. That he is dismissed by so many as being merely partisan, rather than appreciated for his candor about his profession is astonishing and quite shallow.
ET has stated it perfectly.
D. Brooks, perhaps you have never watched Fox News. There is no doubt that Hannity is on the right and Colmes is on the left – they state it explicitly themselves. They do not pretend that they are not biased. The interesting thing for viewers is that you get to hear the right-wing view point AND the left-wing viewpoint. You then get to decide which side is making more sense. On Canadian airwaves you seldom hear right of center voices and I don’t think you ever hear right wing and left wing debating.
or O’Reilly. He does not hide the fact that he is right of center. He hits the Bush Administration but he also hits Libs/Dems (and it is so pleasurable and enjoyable to watch).
Although I do not have the numbers to back this up, my own anecdotal experience is that there are more left of center voices on Fox News than right of center voices on all the other cable and network stations combined.
“In response to this neo-orthodoxy, competing media have arisen to fill the void. These include talk radio, conservative blogs and internet sites, and the like. It is telling that Fox News –which from experience I can tell you stresses the importance of telling both sides – gets hammered just for giving conservatives equal time and equal respect.”
Well, D. Brooks, if you had bothered to read the “rest of the story” you would realize that “some” media actually are unbiased or at least give both sides of the story. But then that would have required a little effort on your part and, seeing as how all liberals want the govt to do their thinking for them I guess that would be expecting too much from you.
Horny Toad
Harvard has some numbers backing up the left bias in the US MSM. I would guess that the Canadian MSM has a similar tilt.
Even Harvard Finds The Media Biased
By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, November 01, 2007 4:30 PM PT
…The PEG-Shorenstein effort is only the latest to conclude that the mainstream media tilt left. Others include Stanley Rothman and Robert Lichter’s groundbreaking 1986 book “The Media Elite”; “A Measure of Media Bias,” a 2005 paper written by professors from UCLA and the University of Missouri; and Bernard Goldberg’s two books, “Bias” and “Arrogance.” All underscore the media’s leftward leanings.
The media, of course, insist they are careful to keep personal opinions out of their coverage. But the facts tell another story — one that can’t be edited or spiked.
d brooks- Fox most certainly admits that it considers itself ‘conservative’ but is not biased and tries to present both sides (eg, hannity and colmes etc).
The National Post admits its conservative support and tries to present both sides. Same with the Toronto Sun. [Do you seriously consider Eric Margolis a conservative?]
When I say ‘bias’, I don’t mean promoting left or right; I mean uncritical support of a particular viewpoint. And most MSM are uncritically in support of the left. That’s bias. An honest journalist would, in his writings, inform the reader that he/she supports the Liberal Party. Instead, we are informed that he/she considers his opinions ‘objective’. They aren’t; they are slanted – and the slant is firmly to the left.
And don’t try to blame the leftist perspective of the MSM on the consumer, ie, your statement that the MSM are ‘only left’ because ‘that’s what the public wants’. Rubbish.
They are ‘left’ because the journalist era in Canada was brainwashed into a state of Trudeaupian Cloud Dwellers. They are left because the Canada they were socialized within hasn’t developed an economy of risk-takers, of entrepreneurial innovators but has instead developed a dependent passive economy, a dependent passive society, a dependent relativist view of the world.
They are left, because such a society, dependent and relativist, encourages a leftist, socialist, Big Govt perspective.
They are left because they are middle of the road hacks, lacking any deep knowledge of history, lacking any critical thinking skills, lacking any deep knowledge of political and philosophical history.
They are left because they obtain their jobs within a small-town cabal of contacts, where each is married to, or is the son/daughter of, or related to – the other.
The MSM papers are NOT doing well in Canada. The CBC is a deep well of leftist emptiness – and we, the public, complain and complain – and can do nothing. Yet.
Canadians have been moulded into a passive population – that is only recently, with the rise of blogging, beginning to move out of such passiveness.
Since you, D Brooks, view ‘us’ as irrelevant, may I ask why you bother to sully your hands with us?
Tony Snow presented an elegant analysis of how the free media lost their innocence and got to bed with politicians and you know what they do there to each other.
You want to believe that politicians are going to do what is good for the whole of the country and well being of the whole of the people, in short, stop messing things up.
Instead they do what is good for the interests of a segment of the population that they perceive may be better able to reelect them. Now in political terms this is nothing out of the ordinary, though in terms of wellbeing of the country it is not good. The media will support the political stream that sounds good, not at all that actually is good.
When Harper was elected as the Prime Minister of Canada, we had a discussion in this house on the subject of what will happen in the reportage on Afghanistan.
A suggestion was made that now, that the conservative party is in charge, the media will slowly turn the circumstances in Afghanistan around and will start turning against Harper and his government, the one that in this household that knows better, agreed. How about it, seems it turned out to be just so.
Some that comment here would like to damn Fox news. Is it not interesting that the Fox cable has more viewers than MSNBC, CNN combined? Obviously there is hunger for balance in the news coverage. Fox cable invites for debate all views, sometimes the socialists of the so called Democratic Party will not show up, the Fox commentators will clearly state that.
Those who damn the Fox have few problems with reality, it is either that they never watch the channel and go by hearsay, or are so blinded by ideology, they can’t admit balance. That the commentator has a viewpoint does not matter as much as the skirmish between opposing guest. As for the tabloid stuff, they can flush it down the toilet; the consistency of what goes down is approximate.
As for CBC, simply don’t watch it, the news is basically NDP socialist propaganda machine, or it was observed as such some years ago, don’t like to say that, though it is appropriate description.
Honest journalists do not consider asking, over and over again, the marital situtation of the leader of a country.
Honest journalists do not throw soft ball questions to a leader of a country that wants to exterminate it’s neighbours.
Honest journalists do not take a trip to the Artic and after witnessing a ice sheet collapes into the ocean state “Global Warming… right before our eyes!”
Sixty Minutes…tick, tick, tick…
Your hour is over!
The media behaves (it seems to me) like a large fleet of square rigged sailing ships. The course was set to ‘objective’ many years ago and the fleet has sailed on the same course for years. Over time the compasses all developed a left leaning tilt, yet all of the ships judge their course relative to the rest of the fleet. A captain of an unattached ship can easily see the bias but within the fleet they still steer the course. Fox/Rush Limbaugh, etc. have recently appeared as newfangled fore-aft rigged sloops cutting through the fleet causing mayhem. The captains are more concerned with the confusion in the fleet than with steering the proper course.
I will henceforth refrain from silly analogies.
It is imperative each of us contact those journalists that show bias in newspapers or on TV. They can be reached by e-mail and most will respond–defensively of course!
Also an interesting read from Harvard – Marvin Kalb and his paper “The Israeli-Hezbollah War of 2006. The Media As A Weapon in Asymmetrical Conflict.”
http://tinyurl.com/yortep (it’s a pdf)
BTW: All the Papers can be found here:
http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/presspol/research_publications/papers.htm
I think d brooks is here for a more balanced point of view.
Here is a letter I wrote last week to the Toronto Sun about Greg Weston’s column. It is a perfect example of left wing media bias. Almost every column he writes eventually leads to a slap at Harper similar to Eric Margolis about Bush or the US government.
“Let me get this straight. Harper promised to place all crown corporations under the Freedom of Information Act and allow full scrutiny of their financial endeavors like expenses and he has done this effective September 1st. Weston has uncovered the odd nice dinner expense at VIA but not much else. PM Harper has gone to all this effort to open the books, especially the Post Office and CBC, but Weston thinks he has only done this to allow Conservatives to replace the Liberals in the trough! Weston, why would he do this now that anyone can view any financial abuse instead of keeping it hidden as the Liberals did?
Your hatred of Harper is so evident in your columns but I think you have slipped beyond this into plain stupidity. Maybe it is time for the Sun to get a political writer with a little less blatant bias”.
Although I do not have the numbers to back this up, my own anecdotal experience is that there are more left of center voices on Fox News than right of center voices on all the other cable and network stations combined.
I wouldn’t be surprised. I have the Fox News Channel and could easily name 12-15 liberal hosts or regular pundits. It IS ‘fair and balanced’ compared to the rest.
Out here in the boonies outside Ottawa, we only have home delivery for the Ottawa Citizen. If you want anti-Harper all the time, Susan Riley’s your gal. The PM passing up the PPG dinner really seemed to enrage the “journalists”. How come they didn’t also vent their spleen on the G-G – she snubbed them as well. The Citizen is a pro-Liberal rag, but unfortunately, it’s all we can get out here.
Out here in the boonies outside Ottawa, we only have home delivery for the Ottawa Citizen. If you want anti-Harper all the time, Susan Riley’s your gal. The PM passing up the PPG dinner really seemed to enrage the “journalists”. How come they didn’t also vent their spleen on the G-G – she snubbed them as well. The Citizen is a pro-Liberal rag, but unfortunately, it’s all we can get out here.
For a balanced Canadian TV show, watch Michael Coren. He has guests of all political stripes with sometime hilarious results. One that comes to mind is whacko lawyer Harry Kopyto(?)last week professing himself to be an NDP supporter rather than a Marxist as Coren had suggested. I though poor former NDP cabinet minister Marilyn Churley was going to sink under the table!
I fully agree with comments regarding Greg Weston and Susan Riley, both of whom have an irrational dislike of Harper and are constantly, endlessly, attacking him. Both are ‘hack’ journalists, without historical or political knowledge and embedded in the Liberal-Left culture of The Hill.
Eric Margolis has his own pathology, which is a hatred of Bush and America. Yet- he, another hack journalist, is hired as one.
Canada has only a handful of real journalists, people with historical and theoretical knowledge, people who attempt to view the situation objectively and critically. Ian MacDonald, John Ivison, Andrew Coyne – all of the NP, I think.
Sometimes Chantal Hebert – who, however, still thinks in the old centrist model of Quebec-Ontario as the hub of Canada. Coyne is unfortunately also a ‘centrist’ and fears Harper’s decentralization…each has their own focus, but, they aren’t biased hacks like the others.
To have come to a conclusion, based on a reasonable data base and critical examination of that data – isn’t bias. That is, having a specific perspective of ‘what is the best thing to do’ isn’t an act of bias, but of judgment. Many people assume that ‘bias’ means ‘having an opinion. Bias means having an ignorant, uncritical, uninformed opinion – and holding on to that ignorance with tenacity.
That description of bias, is valid for the majority of Canadian journalists, news reporters and editors.
ex-liberal: D. Brooks, perhaps you have never watched Fox News. There is no doubt that Hannity is on the right and Colmes is on the left – they state it explicitly themselves. They do not pretend that they are not biased.
H&C would be punditry, not news. The difference is this: punditry is explicitly partisan; news outlets are implicitly partisan. News used to be explicitly partisan in the past, but they realized some time ago that they could sell more papers by pretending to be neutral. You are criticizing them for following market principles.
*****
Horny Toad: Well, D. Brooks, if you had bothered to read the “rest of the story” you would realize that “some” media actually are unbiased or at least give both sides of the story.
See above comment to ex-liberal. Like H&C, talk radio, conservative blogs, and internet sites are all punditry, not news. You think that because Hannity is a Republican and Colmes is a Democrat that Fox News is therefore unbiased? Their actual news department is as politically slanted as any other; it’s just harder for you to see because they tend to frame stories in ways you approve of.
*****
ET: They are ‘left’ because the journalist era in Canada was brainwashed into a state of Trudeaupian Cloud Dwellers.
“Brainwashed”? You too resort to this condescending (and entirely subjective) claim? Why am I not surprised?
Since you, D Brooks, view ‘us’ as irrelevant, may I ask why you bother to sully your hands with us?
I’m a glutton for punishment.
Whoever controls the media controls the vote.
Cheers for Tony Snow and his absolutely accurate and concise assessment of the media.
Wow … I’m running with this one!
Reading this thread, I think it is painfully obvious that Tony Snow is a LOT smarter that D. Brooks. The point is not whether some newspapers are biased to the (gasp!) Right, while most lean Left. The point is, some subjects are simply not discussed. Ever.
My education in this regard started in 1989 when I lived in a really despicable dump of an apartment building with hot and cold running drug dealers. I thought it would be A Good Idea to have a gun to hand. I chose a 9mm carbine because it wouldn’t shoot through the concrete walls of the building or burst my eardrums if I had to use it. Safety first.
Fast forward to 1992, Kim Campbell makes my nice little bean shooter carbine illegal. No buy back, no grandfathering, no tax refund, no screw-all. This pissed me off something ferocious. I started looking in the MSM to see what was going on.
What discussion of this obscene government property theft did I see in the papers? NONE. I saw a uniform smear of gun ownership as an anti-social mental disease. I saw talking-head news TV where hunters were portrayed with scary music behind them. I saw lots of Big Media Names asking Joe Average Citizen “But why do you need a gun?”
In short, I saw a propaganda campaign. Everywhere.
There was no reasoned debate on the issue in the MSM anywhere, just name calling and lying. There still isn’t. The difference between 1992 and now is more people like me who see the lying and name calling for what it is.
Today you can see this same kind of campaign at work in the MSM with all kinds of subjects.
Like taxes. Taxes are good, tax cuts are BAD. There is no discussion of the social and personal impact of taxes, just how evil tax cutters are or how clever they are for using it as a political trick to stay in power.
Like abortion. In the MSM all you get is fruitloop Femminazis on one side and fruitloop religious fundies on the other. There is no debate, there is only a sideshow. A debate would look like serious people sitting down and asking some pointed questions, like what are the social costs and benefits to this policy, what are the PERSONAL costs and benefits, and on balance are we Canadians coming out ahead on the deal or not? When was the last time you saw THAT discussion?
Ditto immigration.
With social control. The Left vs. Right conversation is between two types of control. The Lefties wish to control what you have, the Righties wish to control what you do. There’s nobody in the MSM talking about the cost of government interference in general or the possible benefits of a SMALLER government that does less things. For that discussion you go to the Internet.
Same sex marriage. No reasoned debate, just Left smear vs. Right smear. I have yet to see a reasonable MSM discussion that asks if the government has any business being involved in marriage at all. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t, but the subject is not brought up. Ever.
Global warming. ‘Nuff said!
How about something important like Industrial Policy! (What’s that, mummy?) Should we really be letting the Chicoms make EVERYTHING? What would it take to compete with them head on? What’s the start-up cost for a small manufacturing plant (like lets say a garage suitable for an airbrush artist like Kate, or a guy like me who wants to make chairs or pottery or do something with cars), and what part of that cost is government? Can we make it cheaper? Should we?
I dunno. I’ve never seen it discussed. Ever.
And that, my friends, is what makes Mr. Snow a smarter guy than Mr.(Ms?) D. Brooks. Mr. Snow can see lightning and hear thunder, and he knows a sleigh ride when he’s being taken for one.
The Main Stream Media is a Potemkin Village. You can tell a lot by what isn’t there.
Yes, media is biased, that’s a problem of ethics and professionalism, left and right. Some certainly have an axe to grind, and most lack the analytical skills to truly inform. I like Chantal Hebert – she is the best thinker in the lot, despite her slightly centrist bias. Craig Oliver is becoming a bit of a joke with me. He, Taber and Mike Duffy were on together yesterday on Questin Period and it was mostly Harper criticism, with our ending of futile efforts to US executions, actually proof Tories want to revisit capital punishment here, with the proof well, they did promise not to tax income trusts. No surprise from that bunch; whatever.
But, just when I think the left bias point is overblown, I see National Newswatch with these top four editorial headlines:
What was Harper and his party thinking?
Harper: Spite is right
Mulroney affair begs attention
Tory moves could lift NDP
Harper and Dion glad to have a week out of spotlight
Know what, their judgement is simply crappy, for the most part. No big deal, it is what it is, which is, while acknowledging that they have no challenge for power, they still see this government somehow held heel (they’re not gaining in the polls don’t you know)by a condemned prisoner allowed to decide the date of their execution.
There you go.
I have to agree with Snow as his plait is the reason I’ve pretty much given up on newspapers (and I used to do 3/day). I blame more the USAToday mentality than competition with TV and the internet, but the result it is the same, news which doesn’t provide enough information.
I prefer my facts raw so I can leave them cooking in the back of my mind until I can come to my own analysis. I can deal with having to boil off the authors’ biases to get to the facts, but the facts have to be there, and all too often I boil down the news and find no nurishing facts. People don’t read newspapers to wolf down a quick snack of news, they want a substanitial meal full of nice juicy facts (and they are increasingly looking for this in TV news too, as the internet provides peoples junk news needs). News, I say, news, not soundbites.
Discover all the facts then wrote the story, don’t write the story and then try to find facts to support it – which is the pattern of most of modern journalism. I can understand why it works this way, it is faster, but the need for speed should not completely overwhelm quality.
On the derth of decent Journalists in Canada, ha the US steals them just like we steal your best comedians. Sure, you’ve managed to hold on to a few in print, but we’ve got your best TV people. Of course with the loonie higher than the US buck it might be possible to reverse this now… .