- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 160
Nobody has ever accused Greens of all stripes with being anything other than capitalists. The more sensational the story, the louder the cash register rings. I think the true volunteers are scarce.
Media Bias [Merged]
- Thread starter Cloud Cover
- Start date
- Reaction score
- 1,400
- Points
- 1,160
Ah, the good old G & M. Not a liberal message in their organization.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/sun-burns-cbc-in-bid-to-hype-tabloid-tv/article1970923/
Sun burns CBC in bid to hype tabloid TV
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail - updated Apr. 05, 2011- Simon Houpt
Executives at the right-wing news chain Sun Media may not want to hear this, but they have a lot in common with Michael Ignatieff. Like the Liberal Leader, they’re throwing mud and schoolyard taunts at a dominant player, using the platform of the federal election to whip up enthusiasm for their message – and their new medium.
Since the writ was dropped 10 days ago, the Sun chain of newspapers has run more than half a dozen articles accusing the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation of political bias, effectively running parallel commercial and ideological campaigns.
The attacks are helping to fuel the chain’s ongoing marketing campaign for the April 18 launch of Sun TV, which is promising “Hard News and Straight Talk.”
Last Wednesday, Sun papers across the country proclaimed on their cover: “CBC Full of Grit,” pointing to an inside story that attacked an online election engagement tool sponsored by CBC, saying it improperly told some people their political leanings made them natural Liberal voters. Two days later, the Sun reported that Peter Loewen, a professor who helped develop the tool, had worked on Michael Ignatieff’s first Liberal leadership campaign. Each news report was accompanied by an editorial or op-ed decrying the corporation’s perceived bias. Then on Monday, the Sun hit the CBC again, running a story about the criminal prosecution filed against the broadcaster by the fashion designer Peter Nygard.
The attacks are evidently unprecedented in Canadian election history. “I’ve been looking at media coverage of elections since the sixties, and I don’t remember anything like this,” said Fred Fletcher, a professor emeritus of communication studies and political science at York University.
As a public broadcaster, the CBC says it goes to extraordinary lengths to ensure its journalism is free of bias, hiring the Toronto media analysis company Cormex Research to review its broadcasts and Internet offerings, and submit regular reports to network executives.
As a private enterprise, Sun Media has no such restrictions: Indeed, its biases are a part of its appeal.
Now the CBC is claiming those biases may be getting the better of the story. On Monday afternoon, the CBC released a letter it had sent the Sun to complain about its coverage over the Vote Compass issue. “The Sun had information that Peter Loewen also worked for Tom Flanagan during Stephen Harper’s 2004 leadership campaign and later for Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative leadership candidate Bill Black, but chose not to share that information with its readers,” read the letter. “In fact, Mr. Flanagan is on record noting that assistant professor Loewen is an outstanding researcher without an ounce of partisan in him.”
On Monday afternoon I reached out to the Toronto Sun to discuss the strategy behind its editorial policy. I explained in an e-mail to editor-in-chief James Wallace that, while the Sun has often made sport of kicking the CBC, “with the imminent launch of Sun TV and the current election campaign, there seems to be a new spring in your step.”
Though it is a subsidiary of the multi-billion-dollar Quebecor Inc., the Sun cultivates an image of blue-collar scrapper, eager to drop the gloves at a moment’s notice. Mr. Wallace promised that someone would get back to me shortly. Ninety minutes later, after I prodded him again, he’d apparently had a change of heart: “Hi Simon,” he said. “We're happy to let our stories speak for themselves. Cheers.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/sun-burns-cbc-in-bid-to-hype-tabloid-tv/article1970923/
Sun burns CBC in bid to hype tabloid TV
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail - updated Apr. 05, 2011- Simon Houpt
Executives at the right-wing news chain Sun Media may not want to hear this, but they have a lot in common with Michael Ignatieff. Like the Liberal Leader, they’re throwing mud and schoolyard taunts at a dominant player, using the platform of the federal election to whip up enthusiasm for their message – and their new medium.
Since the writ was dropped 10 days ago, the Sun chain of newspapers has run more than half a dozen articles accusing the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation of political bias, effectively running parallel commercial and ideological campaigns.
The attacks are helping to fuel the chain’s ongoing marketing campaign for the April 18 launch of Sun TV, which is promising “Hard News and Straight Talk.”
Last Wednesday, Sun papers across the country proclaimed on their cover: “CBC Full of Grit,” pointing to an inside story that attacked an online election engagement tool sponsored by CBC, saying it improperly told some people their political leanings made them natural Liberal voters. Two days later, the Sun reported that Peter Loewen, a professor who helped develop the tool, had worked on Michael Ignatieff’s first Liberal leadership campaign. Each news report was accompanied by an editorial or op-ed decrying the corporation’s perceived bias. Then on Monday, the Sun hit the CBC again, running a story about the criminal prosecution filed against the broadcaster by the fashion designer Peter Nygard.
The attacks are evidently unprecedented in Canadian election history. “I’ve been looking at media coverage of elections since the sixties, and I don’t remember anything like this,” said Fred Fletcher, a professor emeritus of communication studies and political science at York University.
As a public broadcaster, the CBC says it goes to extraordinary lengths to ensure its journalism is free of bias, hiring the Toronto media analysis company Cormex Research to review its broadcasts and Internet offerings, and submit regular reports to network executives.
As a private enterprise, Sun Media has no such restrictions: Indeed, its biases are a part of its appeal.
Now the CBC is claiming those biases may be getting the better of the story. On Monday afternoon, the CBC released a letter it had sent the Sun to complain about its coverage over the Vote Compass issue. “The Sun had information that Peter Loewen also worked for Tom Flanagan during Stephen Harper’s 2004 leadership campaign and later for Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative leadership candidate Bill Black, but chose not to share that information with its readers,” read the letter. “In fact, Mr. Flanagan is on record noting that assistant professor Loewen is an outstanding researcher without an ounce of partisan in him.”
On Monday afternoon I reached out to the Toronto Sun to discuss the strategy behind its editorial policy. I explained in an e-mail to editor-in-chief James Wallace that, while the Sun has often made sport of kicking the CBC, “with the imminent launch of Sun TV and the current election campaign, there seems to be a new spring in your step.”
Though it is a subsidiary of the multi-billion-dollar Quebecor Inc., the Sun cultivates an image of blue-collar scrapper, eager to drop the gloves at a moment’s notice. Mr. Wallace promised that someone would get back to me shortly. Ninety minutes later, after I prodded him again, he’d apparently had a change of heart: “Hi Simon,” he said. “We're happy to let our stories speak for themselves. Cheers.”
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 360
"Yes, Prime Minister" fans know what kind of people read the Sun! ;D
- Reaction score
- 5,973
- Points
- 1,260
This, reproduced under the fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Ottawa Citizen, might be relevant:
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Vaderization+Harper/4572593/story.html
It is often said that much of the media is pro-Liberal. Some of it is, some of it is pro-NDP and some is actually pro-Conservative (I’m ignoring the French language media and its, more complex, biases.) But I think that, since the 1960s, most journalists and most ‘journals’ – including TV news programmes – have, consciously and even proudly self identified as anti-conservative. Most of those journalists would call themselves liberals – using the bastardized, incorrect meaning of that world invented by stupid and lazy right wing commentators and journalists (like conservative “hero” William F Buckley) back in the 1960s.
The problem isn’t bias, in my view, it is a herd mentality and intellectual shallowness.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Vaderization+Harper/4572593/story.html
The Vaderization of Harper
BY KATE HEARTFIELD, OTTAWA CITIZEN
APRIL 7, 2011
At the outset of the campaign Liberal Ralph Goodale went as far as to call Conservative leader Stephen Harper Darth Vader.
Photograph by: Supplied Photo, The Ottawa Citizen
The day the government fell, the demonization of Stephen Harper began in earnest. Again. On March 25, in a radio interview with CBC's As It Happens, Liberal Ralph Goodale blamed the government for not giving Parliament the information it needed to make decisions "on the basis of fact, rather than just political rhetoric." He went on to say, "The prime minister is very much the solitary Darth Vader who works in the dark in the middle of the night and doesn't allow people to get close to him."
Oh no, the Liberals would never stoop to political rhetoric.
Darth Vader? That's so far past ridiculous it's crossing the border into parody; at this rate, soon the Liberals will be using the phrase "reptilian kitten-eater" and they'll be serious.
Apparently, the Liberals didn't learn much from losing the 2006 election, after they warned Canadians that Conservatives wanted "soldiers with guns in our cities." The temptation, when you're running second in the polls, is to scream ever louder and say nastier things. But hyperbole probably won't help and can backfire.
The current Liberal catchphrase "Harper regime" is, in part, a response to the rebranding of the government as the "Harper government." And, unlike "Liberal-led coalition," "Harper regime" has the benefit of being, strictly speaking, accurate. But its connotations of dictatorship are not accidental. The idea is to make Canadians think Stephen Harper is a dangerous, power-mad tyrant. He's not.
The caricature of Harper does bear some similarity to the flesh and-blood original, of course. Yes, Harper and his party have centralized control, favoured ideology over evidence, manipulated the democratic process, bullied civil servants, exhibited mistrust and disrespect for Parliament, the media and even, sometimes, the public -as shown by the party's strict vetting of participants at rallies and willingness to eject anyone whose partisan allegiance is in doubt.
Yes, this government has real flaws, flaws that should concern conservatives and liberals alike. But the Harper-as-dictator caricature is so over-the-top silly that it risks, paradoxically, obscuring those flaws and preventing any substantive discussion of them. The hapless Canadian left is creating a straw man for the right to bat aside effortlessly. Again.
In case you were starting to fear that Canada really is flirting with authoritarianism, I offer myself as a comforting example. I've written critically about the Harper government many times, both under my own byline and as one writer of the Citizen's unsigned editorials. We see it as part of our job to hold the government of the day to account, whatever its partisan stripe. I am not in jail. I have never been threatened with jail, or with any other punishment, for anything I've written. MPs from all parties, including the Conservatives, even return my calls.
We do not live in a dictatorship, and using that language in an election campaign -note the irony, please -does a disservice to all the human beings who do live under authoritarian regimes.
The hyperbole isn't limited to politicians. A few Toronto Star columnists have compared Canada's current government to dictatorships, or described Harper as dictatorial. The Star's Heather Mallick has warned of a nearapocalypse: "Guns on the street, gated communities, rampant drug use, unlimited anonymous corporate political donations, no government safety standards for food and medicine, classrooms that resemble holding pens more than civilized safe rooms for the young to learn. If Harper got his majority, these things would hit us like an avalanche."
Ah yes. Guns on the street. Where have I heard that before?
Of course, the right has its excesses. The Conservative MP for Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke, Cheryl Gallant, had to apologize recently for calling Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff "Igaffi" on Twitter -apparently a clumsy attempt to compare him with Moammar Gadhafi. And the Conservative attack ads about Ignatieff are tacky and misleading.
But while the Conservatives have a maddening cat-in-thecream grin that shows they know they're full of it whenever they say "coalition," some of their counterparts on the left seem to believe their own fearmongering. Ryan Dolby, who recently stepped down as the NDP candidate in Elgin-Middlesex-London and endorsed his Liberal rival, said he did it because he was "really worried" about what Stephen Harper would do to the country if he got a majority.
We Canadian fans of Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart watched smugly as they organized the "Rally to Restore Sanity And/Or Fear" last year, the point of which was to encourage reasonable, civil debate in the United States. One of the slogans was "I disagree with you but I'm pretty sure you're not Hitler."
Maybe Canada will need its own rally for sanity before this campaign is over. I wouldn't mind seeing a few protesters carrying signs that read, "I disagree with Stephen Harper but I'm pretty sure he's not a dictator."
Kate Heartfield is the Citizen's deputy editorial pages editor. Follow her at Twitter.com/ kateheartfield.
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
It is often said that much of the media is pro-Liberal. Some of it is, some of it is pro-NDP and some is actually pro-Conservative (I’m ignoring the French language media and its, more complex, biases.) But I think that, since the 1960s, most journalists and most ‘journals’ – including TV news programmes – have, consciously and even proudly self identified as anti-conservative. Most of those journalists would call themselves liberals – using the bastardized, incorrect meaning of that world invented by stupid and lazy right wing commentators and journalists (like conservative “hero” William F Buckley) back in the 1960s.
The problem isn’t bias, in my view, it is a herd mentality and intellectual shallowness.
- Reaction score
- 1,400
- Points
- 1,160
An update from a earlier post: Sun burns CBC in bid to hype tabloid TV
The Blog has links embedded. See link. Interesting info on the CBC near the end.
All tied in: background of Vote Compass, SUN News TV, the "neutral" Hill media, Stephen Staples @ $1000 per appearance, etc.
As someone wrote, as a letter to the Editor of the Halifax Chronicle:
“When Liberal- friendly columnists posing as reporters base their stories on what fellow Liberal- friendly commentators have to say on political TV shows hosted by Liberal friendly TV talk show hosts pretending to be unbiased commentators, you have to know the fix is in."
http://blogs.canoe.ca/lilleyspad/
Andrew Potter doesn’t know squat
brian.lilley - April 6th, 2011
Andrew Potter, writer and thinker. Not a prostitute, intellectual or otherwise.
I am an intellectual prostitute. I know this because Andrew Potter told me so and if anyone knows intellectual prostitutes it’s Andrew Potter.
Andrew who?
For those of you unfamiliar with Potter he is, “a Canadian philosopher, author, and magazine columnist.” According to his Wikipedia entry, which he surely wrote himself, Potter has an academic background in “metaphysics and political philosophy, post-secondary educational policy, branding, consumerism and popular culture. He maintains an interest in technology and the future of the news media.”
Ring any bells?
You might have read him in your dentist’s office if you picked up Macleans where he supposedly has a column or in Canadian Business where he writes stuff but otherwise…..meh.
Oh, and he wrote a book called Authenticity Hoax, which remarkably is a book on our culture and not his autobiography.
Anyway, Potter is upset because I wrote an article that linked one of his friends to the CBC Vote Compass in a way he didn’t like. In the article I pointed out that Peter Loewen, a University of Toronto political science professor, is part of CBC’s Vote Compass.
Of course I didn’t point this out to promote CBC’s “tool.” The state broadcaster is doing plenty of promotion on their own. What was also of interest was part of Loewen’s past.
Loewen was a policy advisor on Michael Ignatieff’s failed 2006 Liberal leadership campaign.
Cue Potter’s outrage!
In addition to being upset that I wrote a story critical of one his pals, Potter claims that I engaged in a “deliberate withholding of facts.”
“As Peter Loewen himself told Lilley when Lilley interviewed him for his March 31 story, Loewen did the same sort of work for Harper in 2004 that he later did for Ignatieff. Loewen was also a staffer for a Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative leadership candidate in 2005. And he once donated money to Pierre Poilievre’s nomination campaign.”
Sounds like I did something wrong here. Potter tells me I’ve been a bad, bad boy.
“This information was available to Brian Lilley, his editor, and to Ezra Levant. It is thoroughly despicable that it was not included in the stories that were published.”
Loewen never told me that he “did the same sort of work for Harper in 2004 that he later did for Ignatieff.” What he did say is that he “did some work” for Flanagan.
Well, we checked with Flanagan, actually he emailed us to defend Loewen ahead of us contacting him and here’s what he said.
“Peter didn’t work for me in the sense of being a paid employee, but I shared data and discussed things with him. I have no doubts about his objectivity. I’d hate to see a promising young guy like him become roadkill on the media highway.”
So while it could have been nice to include the line about Flanagan defending Loewen’s objectivity, to do so would have required me pointing out that Flanagan denied the young academic worked for him.
Just for the record, there were other emails about this. Flanagan denied Loewen worked for him or the Harper campaign. Here’s an email from Flanagan on April 5th, after The Globe chimed in on this.
“The story has gotten a little distorted, I think. He was never on my payroll. I think maybe five years ago I sent him some data when we were emailing back and forth about a research project of his. I really can’t recall the details.”
And then again on April 6th after Macleans repeated the CBC claim that Loewen had worked on the Harper campaign.
“He was not a paid employee of the national campaign in 2004. I don’t know what he may have done in a local campaign. After the campaign, I had a lengthy email correspondence with him about some research he was doing, and I think we shared some data.”
I normally wouldn’t share private emails, especially ones that I wasn’t even a part of, but someone else has released some of this and is using it to claim I left out information.
Again, if I had included the claim that Loewen had worked for Flanagan, now exaggerated by CBC and his supporters to say he worked on the Harper campaign, I would have had to have included Flanagan’s denial and essentially called Loewen a liar.
So what about the other info?
Loewen did tell me he worked on Bill Black’s bid for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party in Nova Scotia. Really that’s not the point here. The story was about someone connected to a controversial voting guide that had links to one of the leaders in a federal election. In addition, provincial and federal parties don’t always match up, just look at Liberals in BC.
It is also true that Loewen once gave $50, that’s what he told me, to Pierre Poilievre’s nomination race in 2004. The young would-be MP is an old roommate of Poilievre’s. My old roommate is a big Liberal who I have helped with campaigns, including helping to raise far in excess of $50. I was helping a friend back then and that’s what Loewen was doing.
I included the most pertinent connection to the Tories there was. Loewen told me he gave $100 to attend a fundraiser for Stephen Harper to hear the Conservative leader speak. I also included Loewen saying he had no role in the placement of the parties and that he was not biased.
It appears Potter, CBC and others would have preferred I remain silent on this issue but something tells me no one would have been silent if it was Ian Brodie, the academic turned Harper chief of staff, who was working on Vote Compass.
I’ve now written about twice as many words to explain my story as I did in telling it. I shouldn’t have to do this, other media outlets don’t attack the journalism of their competitors the way they attack Sun Media.
There are a couple of simple reasons for this.
First we are about to launch Sun News Network. Lots of people don’t like that. We promise to be different, to steal away part of their audience and they were quite comfy with the way things were before we came along.
Second, I’ve been pretty active in the pages of all our papers in writing about CBC and their dismal record in telling us where they spend the $1.1 billion tax dollars that they receive from us each year. Journalists, especially elite ones like Potter or those in the Press Gallery, LOVE CBC. And I mean LOVE.
In my experience, when a reporter on Parliament Hill says they saw something on the news or heard it on the radio they are inevitably talking about CBC. Peter Mansbridge may host the third most watched national newscast but for Hill people he’s still number one!
It is important to note that CBC probably has about one-third of the memberships in the Parliamentary Press Gallery. Then there are all the other reporters. When you see a reporter from another media outlet on CBC giving their analysis, just remember they are not there for free.
CBC pays anywhere from $200 an appearance for these extra reporters and analysts to close to $1,000 per appearance.
Your tax dollars buying up the gallery.
If you’ve ever wondered why there are not more stories on CBC and how they spend your money, you now know the answer. It wouldn’t do to bite the hand feeding you.
I’d stick up for Ezra Levant, my fellow intellectual prostitute, but Ezra’s already done pretty well himself.
The Blog has links embedded. See link. Interesting info on the CBC near the end.
All tied in: background of Vote Compass, SUN News TV, the "neutral" Hill media, Stephen Staples @ $1000 per appearance, etc.
As someone wrote, as a letter to the Editor of the Halifax Chronicle:
“When Liberal- friendly columnists posing as reporters base their stories on what fellow Liberal- friendly commentators have to say on political TV shows hosted by Liberal friendly TV talk show hosts pretending to be unbiased commentators, you have to know the fix is in."
http://blogs.canoe.ca/lilleyspad/
Andrew Potter doesn’t know squat
brian.lilley - April 6th, 2011
Andrew Potter, writer and thinker. Not a prostitute, intellectual or otherwise.
I am an intellectual prostitute. I know this because Andrew Potter told me so and if anyone knows intellectual prostitutes it’s Andrew Potter.
Andrew who?
For those of you unfamiliar with Potter he is, “a Canadian philosopher, author, and magazine columnist.” According to his Wikipedia entry, which he surely wrote himself, Potter has an academic background in “metaphysics and political philosophy, post-secondary educational policy, branding, consumerism and popular culture. He maintains an interest in technology and the future of the news media.”
Ring any bells?
You might have read him in your dentist’s office if you picked up Macleans where he supposedly has a column or in Canadian Business where he writes stuff but otherwise…..meh.
Oh, and he wrote a book called Authenticity Hoax, which remarkably is a book on our culture and not his autobiography.
Anyway, Potter is upset because I wrote an article that linked one of his friends to the CBC Vote Compass in a way he didn’t like. In the article I pointed out that Peter Loewen, a University of Toronto political science professor, is part of CBC’s Vote Compass.
Of course I didn’t point this out to promote CBC’s “tool.” The state broadcaster is doing plenty of promotion on their own. What was also of interest was part of Loewen’s past.
Loewen was a policy advisor on Michael Ignatieff’s failed 2006 Liberal leadership campaign.
Cue Potter’s outrage!
In addition to being upset that I wrote a story critical of one his pals, Potter claims that I engaged in a “deliberate withholding of facts.”
“As Peter Loewen himself told Lilley when Lilley interviewed him for his March 31 story, Loewen did the same sort of work for Harper in 2004 that he later did for Ignatieff. Loewen was also a staffer for a Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative leadership candidate in 2005. And he once donated money to Pierre Poilievre’s nomination campaign.”
Sounds like I did something wrong here. Potter tells me I’ve been a bad, bad boy.
“This information was available to Brian Lilley, his editor, and to Ezra Levant. It is thoroughly despicable that it was not included in the stories that were published.”
Loewen never told me that he “did the same sort of work for Harper in 2004 that he later did for Ignatieff.” What he did say is that he “did some work” for Flanagan.
Well, we checked with Flanagan, actually he emailed us to defend Loewen ahead of us contacting him and here’s what he said.
“Peter didn’t work for me in the sense of being a paid employee, but I shared data and discussed things with him. I have no doubts about his objectivity. I’d hate to see a promising young guy like him become roadkill on the media highway.”
So while it could have been nice to include the line about Flanagan defending Loewen’s objectivity, to do so would have required me pointing out that Flanagan denied the young academic worked for him.
Just for the record, there were other emails about this. Flanagan denied Loewen worked for him or the Harper campaign. Here’s an email from Flanagan on April 5th, after The Globe chimed in on this.
“The story has gotten a little distorted, I think. He was never on my payroll. I think maybe five years ago I sent him some data when we were emailing back and forth about a research project of his. I really can’t recall the details.”
And then again on April 6th after Macleans repeated the CBC claim that Loewen had worked on the Harper campaign.
“He was not a paid employee of the national campaign in 2004. I don’t know what he may have done in a local campaign. After the campaign, I had a lengthy email correspondence with him about some research he was doing, and I think we shared some data.”
I normally wouldn’t share private emails, especially ones that I wasn’t even a part of, but someone else has released some of this and is using it to claim I left out information.
Again, if I had included the claim that Loewen had worked for Flanagan, now exaggerated by CBC and his supporters to say he worked on the Harper campaign, I would have had to have included Flanagan’s denial and essentially called Loewen a liar.
So what about the other info?
Loewen did tell me he worked on Bill Black’s bid for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party in Nova Scotia. Really that’s not the point here. The story was about someone connected to a controversial voting guide that had links to one of the leaders in a federal election. In addition, provincial and federal parties don’t always match up, just look at Liberals in BC.
It is also true that Loewen once gave $50, that’s what he told me, to Pierre Poilievre’s nomination race in 2004. The young would-be MP is an old roommate of Poilievre’s. My old roommate is a big Liberal who I have helped with campaigns, including helping to raise far in excess of $50. I was helping a friend back then and that’s what Loewen was doing.
I included the most pertinent connection to the Tories there was. Loewen told me he gave $100 to attend a fundraiser for Stephen Harper to hear the Conservative leader speak. I also included Loewen saying he had no role in the placement of the parties and that he was not biased.
It appears Potter, CBC and others would have preferred I remain silent on this issue but something tells me no one would have been silent if it was Ian Brodie, the academic turned Harper chief of staff, who was working on Vote Compass.
I’ve now written about twice as many words to explain my story as I did in telling it. I shouldn’t have to do this, other media outlets don’t attack the journalism of their competitors the way they attack Sun Media.
There are a couple of simple reasons for this.
First we are about to launch Sun News Network. Lots of people don’t like that. We promise to be different, to steal away part of their audience and they were quite comfy with the way things were before we came along.
Second, I’ve been pretty active in the pages of all our papers in writing about CBC and their dismal record in telling us where they spend the $1.1 billion tax dollars that they receive from us each year. Journalists, especially elite ones like Potter or those in the Press Gallery, LOVE CBC. And I mean LOVE.
In my experience, when a reporter on Parliament Hill says they saw something on the news or heard it on the radio they are inevitably talking about CBC. Peter Mansbridge may host the third most watched national newscast but for Hill people he’s still number one!
It is important to note that CBC probably has about one-third of the memberships in the Parliamentary Press Gallery. Then there are all the other reporters. When you see a reporter from another media outlet on CBC giving their analysis, just remember they are not there for free.
CBC pays anywhere from $200 an appearance for these extra reporters and analysts to close to $1,000 per appearance.
Your tax dollars buying up the gallery.
If you’ve ever wondered why there are not more stories on CBC and how they spend your money, you now know the answer. It wouldn’t do to bite the hand feeding you.
I’d stick up for Ezra Levant, my fellow intellectual prostitute, but Ezra’s already done pretty well himself.
- Reaction score
- 2,845
- Points
- 940
You think? :
It doesn't "truly" reflect anything of value....except perhaps how many times NDP supporters go to Starbucks, or Bloc fans use Cafe Morgan.
If only we had a literate electorate, this, and the CBC's "Vote Liberal" spam survey, wouldn't get any coverage
- Reaction score
- 35
- Points
- 560
The CBC is the biggest offender, and because they are funded by tax dollars this is totally unacceptable. If a private network or organization wants to display bias, at least I don't have to support them by purchasing their product or viewing their shows:
http://cruxofthematterinfo.wordpress.com/2011/04/25/biggest-loser-in-election-2011-media-coverage-will-be-truth/
http://cruxofthematterinfo.wordpress.com/2011/04/25/biggest-loser-in-election-2011-media-coverage-will-be-truth/
Listening to Dave Rutherford.....one caller commented on Robert Fife CTV commenting that "We're gonna get him" in one of his commentaries....not sure of what it was specifically in reference to about the CPC, but it's out there....
- Reaction score
- 5,973
- Points
- 1,260
It, the same message, is making the rounds on e.g. The Blogging Tories and MacLeans (scroll down to PeterB's comment) and several other blogs.
- Reaction score
- 1,721
- Points
- 1,090
A further example of media bias, this time from canada.com. A clear attempt to make a positive story a negative.
Conservatives remain on defensive as polls slip into their favour
By Mark Kennedy, Andrew Mayeda, Althia Raj and Mike De Souza, Postmedia News April 21, 2011
Link
Read the article and tell me if you can reconcile the headline with the content. I sure can't. I can't see how a rise in the polls puts one on the defensive. Nor can I understand the context of the headline... it's contradictory to say the least.
Conservatives remain on defensive as polls slip into their favour
By Mark Kennedy, Andrew Mayeda, Althia Raj and Mike De Souza, Postmedia News April 21, 2011
Link
Read the article and tell me if you can reconcile the headline with the content. I sure can't. I can't see how a rise in the polls puts one on the defensive. Nor can I understand the context of the headline... it's contradictory to say the least.
- Reaction score
- 6,069
- Points
- 1,160
IF Harper gets a substantial majority and IF the groundswell across the country is clearly in favour, how much trouble would it be to pull the plug on the CBC and privatize it?
We'd, of course, have all the artsy farsty types that make their living off bad movies and miniseries, supported by our tax dollars and the usual, 'Harper is evil' cabal.
Seriously though, how much trouble would it be to split them off from the radio section and sell them off?
We'd, of course, have all the artsy farsty types that make their living off bad movies and miniseries, supported by our tax dollars and the usual, 'Harper is evil' cabal.
Seriously though, how much trouble would it be to split them off from the radio section and sell them off?
- Reaction score
- 5,973
- Points
- 1,260
recceguy said:
Not a HUGE problem if it is done very quickly and is done a part of a larger "sell off" of government 'stuff' that includes, just for the sake of argument, Defence Construction Ltd, Marine Atlantic and VIA Rail. Selling off the CBC, all by itself, would look churlish.
- Reaction score
- 1,400
- Points
- 1,160
Another one: http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/04/19/liberal-volunteer-charged-in-connection-with-theft-of-tory-signs/
Liberal volunteer charged in connection with theft of Tory signs
Caught red handed (going through the red door).
I do not understand why the slashing on tires and scratching of an"L" is front page news in all the media. The thrust is that it is the evil Cons are doing this. Sound bite from Iggy (of course) stating that all party leaders should condemn these acts. Newsreader states the other two party leaders have done so.
It could be that it is just a bunch of vandals.
Anyway, the last I heard, the Toronto Police have twenty reported cases of slashed tires and "L"s. Front page news.
Of course we all know that every crime is reported don't we Iggy and Jack.
Liberal volunteer charged in connection with theft of Tory signs
Caught red handed (going through the red door).
I do not understand why the slashing on tires and scratching of an"L" is front page news in all the media. The thrust is that it is the evil Cons are doing this. Sound bite from Iggy (of course) stating that all party leaders should condemn these acts. Newsreader states the other two party leaders have done so.
It could be that it is just a bunch of vandals.
Anyway, the last I heard, the Toronto Police have twenty reported cases of slashed tires and "L"s. Front page news.
Of course we all know that every crime is reported don't we Iggy and Jack.
- Reaction score
- 1,721
- Points
- 1,090
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/04/25/cv-election-volpe.html
Here's an article on the CBC about Joe Jolpe's volunteer.
Notice the article is closed to comments. I bet there would be several thousand if this was a Tory.
Here's an article on the CBC about Joe Jolpe's volunteer.
Notice the article is closed to comments. I bet there would be several thousand if this was a Tory.
- Reaction score
- 114
- Points
- 680
ModlrMike said:
Indeed; I've just been skimming through the stories links and it would seem that any articles about the Tories are open for comments ... and let me tell you, there's some doozies of RTFOOer comments on them ...
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadavotes2011/story/2011/04/25/cv-election-harper-042511.html#
Wonder why they would not even allow comments for articles looking bad about the Grits, while every other party, and it's candidates, seem to be fair game for comments on CBC when it's a "bad news for so and so" article. :
