Canada Free Press -- ARCHIVES

Because without America, there is no free world.

Return to Canada Free Press

Media Report

There’s bias--and then there’s bias

by Arthur Weinreb

October 6, 2003

The CBC and many other Canadian media have left wing biases. But none rival the out and out bias that can be seen on Toronto’s Citytv. Not only does City employ the usual techniques that are employed by other stations and newspapers to slant the news a particular way, they cross the line to become out and out cheerleaders for their favourite politicos. The station’s "objective" news reporting should really be classified as infomercials.

City does engage in the regular form of bias. It has become obvious, if it hasn’t been before, that the station loves the Ontario Liberal Party and detests the Ernie Eves-led Tories. Two days before the provincial election, the station aired a clip from CFRB’s call-in program where host Bill Carroll had Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty as a guest. The clip that City showed was of a relatively passive Carroll allowing McGuinty to say that he would bring in one of his favourite policies during his first year in office. Citytv obviously couldn’t show the whole program on the news, so it showed a clip that showed McGuinty in a favourable light. But Bill Carroll, who is a better journalist than all of City combined, didn’t let McGuinty get the free ride that he appeared to be getting on the segment that was shown. At one point, when the Liberal leader stated how much automobile insurance premiums went up during the Harris/Eves government, Carroll broke in and said that airplanes crashed into buildings in New York during the Harris/Eves government and asked McGuinty if they were responsible for that too. This kind of bias in the selective use of a segment from a call-in show was no different than the biases that are usually found in the media.

But the station crossed from bias into cheerleading in another segment of the same news broadcast. City reported that Toronto police chief, Julian Fantino, had referred allegations that Toronto mayoral candidate, Barbara Hall, had breached election laws by campaigning and raising funds prior to registering as a candidate, to the OPP for investigation. The news item consisted of a brief interview of Fantino who explained why he sent the matter to another police force, a brief interview with Barbara Hall, and two people on the street, both of whom thought that the allegations were a crock. One of those on the street said that the whole thing was just a political ploy by rival candidate, Tom Jakobek.

If that wasn’t one-sided enough, Laura DiBattista premised the piece on the noon news by saying "it just won’t go away." So much for objective journalism. Not only does the news clip show only that which is favourable to Hall, DiBattista says that the whole thing should have gone away. It seems Lightweight Laura can’t distinguish between news and her own personal opinion. If she can, her objectivity isn’t as important to her as showing sympathy to her bud Barbara. At least on the 11 o’clock news, anchor Alex Pierson refrained from making personal comments about how she felt about the allegations against Hall. The noon newscast wasn’t bias in the sense that the selective editing of the Bill Carroll Show was--DiBattista wasn’t even attempting a weak attempt at being a journalist.

At least the Toronto Star, the newspaper that last month pretty well declared the mayor’s race over and anointed Barbara Hall as the next chief magistrate of Toronto, reported the initiation of the OPP investigation clearly. The Star told what Citytv conveniently left out--that Mr. Justice Brian Trafford, in the course of quashing a summons that required Hall to appear in court, found that there were reasonable grounds to pursue the matter of Hall’s breach of the election laws. The fact that a judge of the Ontario Superior Court found that the allegations were reasonable, takes it out of the realm of being a mischievous plot by a losing candidate. City, unlike the Star, made no reference to the court case and the substance of the charges that were referred to the OPP.

On October 2, the National Post reported that former U.S. Vice president Al Gore was interested in purchasing Newsworld International, the international affiliate of CBC Newsworld. According to the article, Gore wants to see a left-wing U.S. network to counter the right leaning Fox News Channel. It seems that CNN and the other U.S. networks are too centrist for the former veep. If Gore were smart, he’d save a bundle and buy Citytv instead; Laura, stock and barrel.

Of course if Gore were smart, he would have been president of the United States by now.