Sunday 25 November 2012

Getting played - the Conservative 'Bias' of Canada's Liberal Media

Fans of the West Wing, or just political junkies generally, know there are a few time-honoured ways to manage the press. For instance - releasing bad news on a Friday was called 'taking out the trash' on the West Wing. In the UK in 2001, a real politician was fired for stating that the attacks on the World Trade Center provided a good opportunity to hide bad news stories.

There are, no doubt, many other such games. Whether you view them as legitimate political gamesmanship or an 'abuse of the democratic process' will usually depend on whether the party playing the games happens to be your team.

What is currently annoying me is the frequency with which the Conservative government plays one of these tricks, and the so-called 'Liberal Media' (and the Conservative mouth-breathing crew too, of course) fall for it hook, line and sinker. Last year at around this time there was suddenly a whole lot of manufactured outrage about the banning of the niqab during the citizenship oath. A great little story for the Tories, as it plays to their core support, and it is guaranteed to fill up column inches as the progressives and conservatives overflow with moral outrage.

It dominated the news cycle in the same week as a much bigger story that was negative for the Conservatives. I remember that distinctly. Unfortunately what I don't remember is what the more important story was. BUT THAT WAS THE POINT. The niqab story knocked the actual important news off the front page, and we can be sure that was exactly what was intended.

I don't mind the Conservatives trying that game - but do the press have to fall for it so easily?

This week we have the 'storm' of 'outrage' over Justin Trudeau's 2010 comments about Alberta.

2010. So ... public comments, made in a television interview, on the public record for two years, are news this week? Now why might that be? Might it be because the Conservatives have been sitting on it for two years, or went looking through old speeches last week to coincide with David McGuinty's resignation, and they found an optimal moment to release it? Sure.

Again - you can't blame the Conservatives for trying this stuff, but what gets my goat is how the press simply swallows it without ever asking the next question: 'why now'? And then ask the question 'are we getting played'.

Sure, after all that, if you still think it's newsworthy that Mr Trudeau pointed out that the current government is dominated by politicians who originate from the Albertan Reform movement (a movement notorious for its antipathy for Eastern Canada and its need to build a firewall to protect Alberta from the rest of the country), write the story, but at least make a nod towards the larger picture while you're doing it.

The problem I have is with the lack of inquisitiveness of the media. The failure to 'ask the next question'. Maybe it's the lack of staff and lack of money from which the media now suffers in the age of the internet. Whatever. Combined with the media's fear of being labelled 'liberal' by the government, and the culture of fear and paranoia that pervades the entire CBC, it creates a situation where the 4th estate can be easily and swiftly put to work en masse by the government against its enemies.