tBlog - canada2

The notion that the press has it in for the Conservatives and is Liberal friendly is a ridiculous myth that just will not go away. The McGill media study should have put it out of its misery, but alas the ghost lives on.

Off the top of my head I can not think of a single Liberal friendly pundit that receives any kind of airtime. Take the CBC for example; Chantel Hebert, Travers, Andrew Coyne, Paul Wells and even Rex Murphy have been unrelenting in their criticism of the Martin Liberals and not entirely without reason I might add. The problem is that in their zeal they have left Harper off the hook. Apparently, he does not merit any attention at all.

Criticism of Harper is left to the only newspaper that comes even close to representing the views of the majority of the population, viz., the Toronto Star and to those on the right (e.g. Don Martin) who believe that the reason Canadians are down on Harper is that he has had a number of bad hair days of late and that he does not smile enough. It is beyond the comprehension of the National Post that maybe just maybe Canadians do not like Conservative policy and that is why 76% of Canadians still do not back the party, even though the government is mired in one of the biggest scandals in Canadian history.

The Posties are not alone in their incomprehension. Echoing Harper, The Globe and Mail and Vancouver Sun went Postal and warned of a coming apocalypse when the NDP budget deal was first made. It never occurred to them that Canadians actually liked the proposed changes and that populace would see their clamorings for what they where, viz., mere corporate propaganda.

Perhaps the fact that National Post employees have spread across the media like some sort of infectious disease has something do with it. Previously Macleans was only a banal rag that hurt no one, now one risks looking inside at one’s own peril. There may be a John Geddes article inside.

As for the media, the conservative hysteria machine was in fine voice prior to being derailed by allegations of the tapes being tampered with. Indeed, when the allegations first surfaced a CBC panel made up of Coyne and Hebert and the Fraser Institute’s Gordon Gibson completely ignored what they were brought on to talk about and inside focused on Murphy and UD.

Harper apparently wants to get them talking again. The Conservatives believe, a la their Republican cousins, that if they repeat something often enough and sound disgusted enough people might side with them. Someone wants to cross the floor and the Liberals did not slam the door in face. What nerve they have.

Now, let me see what is more newsworthy?, A) conversations between two Liberals and a prospective Conservative turncoat that end off with the Liberals concluding that the two sides where far apart or B) the bizarre, underhanded, unethical and hilarious actions of secret agent Grewal.

Judging by the paltry coverage the Vancouver Sun has given to the latter and the attention they gave to the former, Canwest would probably go with A). Conversely, the CBC, Toronto Star and Globe and Mail, in other words the only half way respectable news organizations in this country, the moralizing of Coyne and Herbert notwithstanding, have seen to have gone with B).