November 11, 2002
A November 1 article in the Toronto Star reported on American political pundit Pat Buchanan’s calling Canada a "Soviet Canuckistan" and describing how we freeload off of the United States. Buchanan made the comments on his MSNBC television show, "Buchanan and Press". In describing the program’s hosts, the Star wrote:
"Almost half a million people tune in for two hours daily to watch Buchanan, a notoriously conservative former Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon speechwriter, face off with the more liberal Bill Press."
Here is another example of the left-wing mainstream media’s quickness to apply the "conservative" label to those on the right, while failing to properly describe those on the left. In the media’s view, there is no such thing as a person who is "notoriously liberal". While Pat Buchanan can be more properly described as an isolationist, believing that all free trade agreements are bad and that the United States should play no part in world affairs unless direct American interests are involved, nevertheless he can be viewed as someone on the extreme right. The Star bolsters the description of Buchanan as an extremist by linking him with Ronald Reagan. To show its contempt of those on the conservative side of the spectrum, the paper links Buchanan to Richard Nixon, who, as terrible as he might have been, was hardly "notoriously" conservative.
Contrast the description of Buchanan with that of Bill Press. The only thing that the Star tells us about Press is that he is "more liberal" than someone who they have just described as "notoriously" conservative, amounting to no description at all. Unlike Buchanan, Press seems to have had no background before appearing on his MSNBC program. In reality, Press served as the Chairman of the Democratic Party between 1993 and 1996 in California, one of the most liberal states in the union. Prior to that Press was the Director of the California Office of Planning and Research under Governor Jerry Brown, who was sometimes referred to as Governor Moonbeam for his leftist views.
Although the Toronto Star might be forgiven in this article because its subject of the article was Pat Buchanan and his comments and not the show or Bill Press, nevertheless it is an example of how the elite media stresses someone’s conservatism while ignoring or downplaying the fact that some on the left have extreme leftist views. The left-wing media feel no need to describe or attach labels to those whom they see, not as liberal, but as normal.
Out of touch
Cityonline is a call-in show that is seen at 12:35 pm on Citytv and rerun at 1:35 p.m. on CP24, Monday to Friday. The host has a guest and in addition to phone-ins, two telephone numbers are given out where viewers can phone in to answer "yes" or "no" to the question of the day. What is interesting about this program is that it provides a great deal of insight into how much the views of the elite media hosts differ from those of ordinary viewers.
On a program last week, the topic was the spate of gun-related deaths that have occurred in Toronto during the last few weeks and the guest was Ontario Tory MPP Frank Mazzilli. The question of the day was, "Should gun-related crimes carry automatic jail terms?" Contrary to the opinions of Mazzilli and many of the callers, the host, Ryerson educated Laura Di Battista gushed that she didn’t want her tax dollars going to build more jails. She never did enunciate what, if anything, should be done with the little devils who walk around committing crimes with handguns.
The poll results: YES 465 NO 20
Go figure.
Arthur Weinreb is a lawyer and author and Associate Editor of Canadafreepress.com
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