by arthur Weinreb, associate Editor,
april 1, 2004
On a segment of CBC News: Sunday that aired on March 28, the program discussed whether targeted assassinations are ever justified. While the piece consisted of a debate between two experts who held opposing views on Israel’s killing of Sheikh ahmed Yassin, the introduction to the piece left no doubt about which side co-host Carole MacNeil was on.
MacNeil introduced the segment by asking "is it ever okay to kill your political opponents"? Does MacNeil think that the leader of Hamas was a mere "political opponent" of the Israeli government? It is way too much to expect MacNeil or any CBC talking head to ever use the "t" word when describing a group like Hamas, but to imply that Yassin was some layback political opponent a la Stephen Harper is totally absurd. The ordering of suicide bombers into Israel to blow up women and babies is hardly in the same category as asking Paul Martin an embarrassing question during Question Period. MacNeil went on to describe Yassin as "an old Islamic cleric", which is of course how his followers choose to remember him. Referring to Yassin as an elderly cleric is like referring to adolf Hitler as a best selling author and house painter.
actually — it was kind of pretty
The same CBC News: Sunday ran a segment of the Liberal Party of Canada’s nomination race in the new riding of Hamilton-Stoney Creek between Sheila Copps and Transport Minister Tony Valeri. Both candidates allowed the network to film them as they hustled the vote out for the contest that saw Sheila Copps go down to defeat.
The previous day, the Toronto Star had published an article entitled, "When Liberals fight Liberals, it’s not a pretty picture". according to the left wing Star, no fight is ever pretty or justified unless it’s against a conservative. But to those of us who, unlike the Toronto Star, don’t think that the sun rises and sets on the Natural Governing Party, the Copps-Valeri battle was a hoot.
Sheila Copps has held several high profile positions including that of Deputy Prime Minister in what is arguably the sleaziest and most corrupt government in this nation’s history. It was absolutely hilarious to find Copps so shocked and mortified when that Liberal sleaze was turned against her to lead Tony Valeri to victory.
Contrary to what sweet little Sheila and the Toronto Star think, the nomination battle was pretty.
Misleading Headline
One of the more common ways that the print media can exhibit bias is through the use of headlines that misconstrue the gist of the article that follows. This form of bias can sometimes be the result of an unintentional misunderstanding of the story by the person who writes the headline.
On March 26, CTV ran a story on its website entitled: " annan accepts blame for Rwandan genocide". Kofi annan, the current Secretary General of the United Nations and the man in charge of UN peacekeepers 10 years ago was speaking at a memorial conference about the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
annan was quoted in the article as saying: "The international community is guilty of sins of omission." He later added: "I believed at the time that I was doing my best. But I realized after the genocide that there was more I could have and should have done to sound the alarm and rally support."
The statements that annan made at the New York City conference could hardly be characterized as accepting blame. Merely acknowledging that he could have done more during a situation that turned out badly is not an acceptance of responsibility. and annan unequivocally states that the massacre of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus was the fault of the international community (read the entire world) and not his. He never accepted blame for the genocide.