by arthur Weinreb
Tuesday, September 5, 2006
The Toronto Sun, "the little paper that grew", has always had a reputation of being on the right of the political spectrum as well as having a populist bent. Now, it is difficult to determine if the newspaper has any consistent view of the world editorially. Lately some of their positions have been simply bizarre and Monday's editorial and comments are examples of the paper's now fuzzy thinking.
The main editorial was entitled, "Yoo-hoo, american tourists?" The editorial talked about how visits to Canada by americans are down 30% from 2000 and argues for better marketing south of the border in order to increase those numbers.
The Sun states that the reasons for the drop in the number of americans visiting our country are "our higher dollar, gas prices and border delay and security concerns." Ironically, or then maybe not, the paper omits any reference to Canadian anti-american sentiments (remember Carolyn Parrish?) that reached their zenith during the Chrtien and Martin governments. Nor do they mention Canada's strong opposition to the coalition that was formed in 2003 to go into Iraq. Canada Free Press has received enough letters from americans to know that anti-americanism and opposition to the Iraqi war are the reasons why many americans who use to regularly visit our country now stay away.
all of the above is fine except for the Toronto Sun's comment to a letter to the editor that was found on the page opposite to the editorial. a woman from Omaha, Nebraska wrote to correct the paper's previous comments that right wing americans were upset about the movie, Death of a President that is set to premiere early this month at the Toronto International Film Festival. The Death of a President (or D.O.a.P.) portrays the assassination of George W. Bush in Chicago in October 2007. The woman wrote to say that americans of all political stripes, not just right wingers, were "taken aback" by the movie.
In answer to her letter the Sun wrote, "We understand the outrage, but seriously, would-be assassins don't need movies to give them ideas."
The Toronto Sun seems to miss the point that the movie has angered americans for the way their president is portrayed by British filmmakers, not because it might give a "would-be assassin" an idea.
The Sun is making light of the anger held by all decent americans about D.O.a.P. while at the same time lamenting over the fact of visits to Canada by americans. It is something right out of alice in Wonderland.
and . . .
One way that the media can portray its bias is by use of the word "debate" when in fact there is no real debate. The pacifist Toronto Star employed this tactic the day after four soldiers were killed in a fight with the Taliban in afghanistan by use of the headline, "Soldiers' death spur debate". The war in afghanistan has always been the subject of debate in Canada since the first troops were deployed and there simply was not enough time between the deaths of the four soldiers and the article to "spur" a serious debate around their deaths. In fact, only one person, NDP leader Jack Layton used the deaths of the four men to call for a withdrawal of troops from afghanistan. Sure enough, the "debate" in the article was between Layton and Liberal Defense critic, Ujjal Dosanjh. and the "debate" was not so much about the war as it was about Layton's timing of his demand to withdraw the troops, with Dosanjh arguing that you cannot demand a pull-out every time there is a death and accusations that Layton was playing politics with the men's deaths. Yet the headline is designed to make it appear that the nation is more divided than it is over the war because of the increasing casualties which is what the Toronto Star would like to see.
The word "debate" is often used by the media to give credence to the position that they hold by making an issue appear to be more divisive and important than it actually is. There may come a point when debate about our military commitment in afghanistan intensifies as a result of mounting casualties but we're not at that point yet. a more realistic headline would have been "Layton uses soldiers' deaths to advance agenda".
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