CBC joins Martin's dirty Campaign
The analogy of the 2005-06 federal election as being a fixed “horse race” is a bit banal but it seems accurate from what I have seen of the first day. The “Martin” horse is presented at news conferences (staged public handicapping sessions) as the winner by default because no negative questions are asked while the “Harper” horse is given negative self-answering questions lobbed at him…we can see the Canadian media as being actively “handicapping” the electoral race by suggestive negative messaging of specific candidates while giving other candidates a free ride.
More about that here.
Lorrie Goldstein picked up on this trend right away (as did I) when watching the press scrums from yesterday. The real “scary” thing in Canadian political life is that the Central media is biased and partisan and is intent on becoming PART of the campaign instead of just reporting accurately on it. As usual the CBC is the worst offender when it comes to disinformation and partisan bias.
From Goldstein's observations:
What this illustrates is how totally the Liberals, who have been in power for 12 years, control our national dialogue.
If they insist that Liberal corruption, Adscam and the findings of the Gomery report are no big deal, then inevitably, that argument works its way into the media's thinking, no matter what Harper and the Conservatives say. Similarly, if they insist that Harper and the Conservatives are "scary" have a "hidden agenda" and hate Canada, then that too, inevitably influences the media's thinking.
Yesterday's coverage of the leaders' opening statements and press scrums on CBC Newsworld emphasized this.
Don Newman felt so compelled to criticize Harper's response to the "do you love Canada" question, along with another about whether he was ready to be prime minister, that he practically barged in on an unsuspecting Peter Mansbridge to declare it Harper's first big gaffe.
Now, I would have thought the more interesting questions were (a) why was Harper even asked a "when are you going to stop beating your wife" question like "do you love the country?" and (b) why didn't the media ask Martin about Gomery, since it was obvious why he wouldn't raise it.
Indeed, Martin will not “raise” the issue of a government plagued with corruption scandals from Earnscliffe to Adscam to the Gun Registry budget fraud…..so why don’t the media? And why do they make hysterical suggestive insults about Harper’s loyalty when Martin has been proven in breech of public trust? Well we all know the answer to that.
This election more than any other the national news media ( meaning essentially the cloistered media elite in TO and Ottawa) will be on trial by the Canadian public as much as the corrupt federal liberals. My feeling is that IF the Canadian public want a fair and balanced election where ALL parties/leaders are forced to answer the most pressing issues with Canadians, then the internet alternate news and blogeshpere will have to keep a very close eye on the media’s partisan spin and nail their credibility to the wall when they are found to be manipulating us for their “hidden agenda”.
The fact is, almost all of the Canadian MSM is part of the liberal patronage cartel either by ownership of direct patronage…remember the end beneficiary of the Adscam bucks were the news papers and Media networks who had to run the liberal ads…no one spends more money on media advertising than the government…..and of course they own the CBC outright so you can see the real “hidden agenda” here with the media’s political bias.
A good place to send your tips is CBC watch…Also don't be afraid to complain to the CBC Ombudsman or the CRTC when you see CBC breaking their corporate commissioning directives by actively being partisan and selling Liberal snake oil or using misrepresntative negative messaging about the opposition…hopefully when this dirty campaign is done the MSM will share the Liberal’s smashed credibility…they deserve it.