Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Conservative Media Bias

Today, I caught Politics with Don Newman, and yesterday I watched the Mike Duffy Conservative Hour.

Duffy and Bob Fife spent an hour on Tuesday basically using Conservative talking points to direct their (fox) news show. I watched in horror as they continued to play silly politics, talking about Dion as if they read about him on the Conservative website. The main player in Duffy's con propaganda show is bob Fife, who chimes in all of Harpers talking points, on Tuesday. My jaw dropped ( since I usually watch PTI on TSN after 5) as I figured that this would be a show that might have some journalistic integrity. Instead of journalistic integrity, I watched Duffy try and ambush Michael Ignatieff with some planted questions, which Iggy handled well under the circumstances about the Green shift.

Today on politics with Don Newman, James Travers and Daniel Lesage put in about 10 minutes. They put in about 10 minutes on how Harper's image is so good, and even talking about the clothes he wore at various events. They gave the Cons the free pass on the puffin incident, which has outraged many average Canadians. Newman didn't even blink. The positive on politics was the performance of Michael Ignatieff who talked in real terms, while Jim Flaherty spun his usual Conservative rhetoric and bs on the economy (the economy which has tanked under his watch). But compared to the Mike Duffy Conservative Hour it wasn't that bad.

It would be niced to have balanced media, I think the blogosphere has a role to play in showing inaccuracies and being a watch dog to overly partisan coverage. Though I would definitely cheer lead any pro Liberal bias.

6 comments:

Frankly Canadian said...

A must read that explains this phenomenon explicitly is "An Assault on Reason" Al Gore's most resent book. It goes into the proven psychology of how the brain interprets the constant borage of constant imagery and how it relates to our primal thought processes. The book also goes into details of how our media is definitely controlled by a small select few with the interest of the shareholders at the forefront. A definite must read!!!

Anonymous said...

I never watch the duffy show as it is so biased...it is sickening...but it is true Politics on cbc is just as bad...those two eggheads at the end of the show bragging about harper and making fun of stephanes' nerdy ways made me sick...I turned it off...it reminds of the way they ridiculed the wonderful paul martin.....they are a pair of old pr@@ks....signed nerdy gramps

Anonymous said...

Watch CPAC tonite thur. for real poll from nik nanos....we will know if we really are that bad off as the conservative papers and shows are telling us.

RuralSandi said...

Want to get really upset? From Andrew Coyne's blog (when talking about May and the debates):

MORE: What’s particularly galling is that every one of the players who made this entirely self-interested decision are funded in whole or in part on the public dime: the political parties, the CBC and Radio-Canada, but also Global, CTV and TVA, who make off with massive implicit and explicit subsidies. They’re conspiring against the public interest, on the public’s dime!

.....so ALL taxpayers, whether they be Green, NDP, Liberal or CPC are paying via their tax dollars for partisanship.

Disgusting.

Anonymous said...

Let's be clear. I voted Liberal in the last election, but this notion that somehow it is wrong to see a Conservative slant in the news is hypocritical. Ideally there should be no bias in the news or on news shows - but the fact is it exists. In Canada especially, news sources heavily favour left leaning policies and government. If there's a Duffy there or someone else rooting for the Conservatives once in a while it's fair game.

Just like in the US. For every Fox, there's an MSNBC.

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