Canada Free Press -- ARCHIVES

Because without America, there is no free world.

Return to Canada Free Press

Media Report

A Way to Detect Liberal Media Bias

by Arthur Weinreb

September 9, 2002

There are many things to look for in deciding whether or not the mainstream media has a left-wing bias. Since the release of Bernard Goldberg’s book, Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News in January this year, many journalists in the U.S. have, if only reluctantly, admitted that the media tilts to the left. An easy way to detect whether or not this bias exists is to examine the way the media treat politicians who make silly mistakes or dumb comments.

When Jean Chrétien went to the Middle East, he made statements which showed that he was getting confused as to which country he was in. The Prime Minister advised PLO chief Yasser Arafat to make a UDI (Unilateral Declaration of Independence) which of course is exactly opposite to Chrétien’s views on how Quebec should gain independence if indeed that province does separate from the rest of Canada. The day after these humourous faux pas, the media had a good chuckle at Chrétien’s expense. The day after that, it was all forgotten.

Contrast this with the way Stockwell Day was treated by the media. Day, while campaigning as leader of the Canadian Alliance, got the direction that the Niagara River flows, wrong. Unlike mistakes made by leftist politicians, it was repeated over and over and over again. And it was such an irrelevant mistake. It is extremely doubtful that any voter ever made a decision based upon a candidate’s knowledge of the directional flow of rivers. The mistake was always brought up as one of the reasons why Day and his party should not form a government.

On September 1, Defense Minister John McCallum wrote a letter to the National Post wherein he referred to Vichy when he obviously meant Vimy. He didn’t know the difference between Vichy, the capital of the French government that collaborated with the Nazis during World War II, and the World War I battle of Vimy Ridge. His excuse was "I never learned any of this in school." After the initial flurry of articles, jokes and letters to the editor, watch to see if the media keeps making reference to it for the rest of McCallum’s political career. Probably not; his party are the good guys.

Kid Power

Annie Kidder and her group, People for Education, held a demonstration at Queen’s Park on September 3, the first day of school, to protest the Ontario government’s taking control of the Ottawa, Hamilton and Toronto school boards. Parents’ groups have been getting a lot of coverage in the media and they all say the same thing--that by taking over the school boards, the government took control of those boards out of the hands of democratically elected trustees. Rarely in the same piece, is the reason for the government’s actions ever stated--that the trustees, in refusing to balance their budgets, broke the law.

No education demonstration would be complete without children. On the September 2 edition of Global News, a little boy who couldn’t have been more than eight-years-old was interviewed. When he asked why he was going to demonstrate, he answered that there weren’t enough textbooks. It’s bad enough to drag young children, who can only know what they have been brainwashed into believing, out to demonstrate; it’s even worse to interview them. This is about one step down from shoving a microphone in front of someone whose family has just been killed and asking them how they feel. Both sides of the debate acknowledge that there is a shortage of textbooks. The issue is the spending priorities of the school boards and whether or not a proportion of their spending is on non-educational matters. There is absolutely no news value in asking a child an opinion on something he is incapable, because of age, to understand. It was merely anti-government propaganda.

Is that why he quit?

In an article by Heather Sokoloff in the National Post, she gives the reason why Jean Chrétien announced his resignation. "After successive opinion polls indicated double-digit support for Mr. Martin among Canadians, he said he would resign in 2004 and allow the Liberal party to elect a new leader."

Sokoloff makes it seem that Chrétien announced his resignation because that’s what Canadians wanted. Not exactly true. The Prime Minister only packed it in when he figured that he couldn’t win the scheduled review of his leadership that was set for next February. The fact that more average Canadians preferred Paul Martin or Brittany Spears as leader, had nothing to do with his decision.

Arthur Weinreb is a lawyer and author and Associate Editor of Canadafreepress.com



Pursuant to Title 17 U.S.C. 107, other copyrighted work is provided for educational purposes, research, critical comment, or debate without profit or payment. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for your own purposes beyond the 'fair use' exception, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Views are those of authors and not necessarily those of Canada Free Press. Content is Copyright 1997-2018 the individual authors. Site Copyright 1997-2018 Canada Free Press.Com Privacy Statement