CBC and bias

[Michael Hardner]

Isn't that what we commonly call the education system? Meaning that you want to introduce more thorough models of critical thinking into the education system?

I suppose that would be a form of driver's ed (to motor along with the same analogy) but actual use is something else.

It might also be the case that government needs to be simplified to accomodate the general understanding of those who run it, ie. us, we, the public...

[Black Dog]

Isn't that what we commonly call the education system? Meaning that you want to introduce more thorough models of critical thinking into the education system?

That's a good idea. The current education system is based on little mor ethan rote repetition of "facts" and figures. Dialogue and critical thinking is not required and is often discouraged.

I firmly believe this is no accident.

But I don't agree with the author of the linked article that the individual is capable of detecting bias in the news. The fact that most Americans voting in the last election believed that Iraq had WMDs speaks to that.

I think people are quite capable of spotting bias when it runs contrary to their own beliefs. That's why some who slag the CBC off as Pravda will completely miss the obvious slants in FoxNews and vice versa.

[Michael Hardner]

I agree, BD, but that list in your article above had some more devious examples.

[caesar]

Well before Can West took on a monopoly of most of our media sources; we used to get more "NEWS"; now most of the articles are editorial style and very biased.

[ticker]

Well before Can West took on a monopoly of most of our media sources; we used to get more "NEWS"; now most of the articles are editorial style and very biased.

Ceasar I thought you liked monopolies. Air canada, attempts to nationalize the oil industry with petrocanada, the CBC if there was enough money left over

[caesar]

That just shows how little you know or can comprehend eh.

[Tawasakm]

It might also be the case that government needs to be simplified to accomodate the general understanding of those who run it, ie. us, we, the public...

Streamlining government is like the search for the holy grail. After all the struggles, quests and fights you still end up with nothing that you didn't have before. Perhaps I'm too cynical...

But I believe you are correct in what you are saying. Government should follow simple lines which are easy to trace and therefore simple to evaluate.

More later.

[caesar]

I think people are quite capable of spotting bias when it runs contrary to their own beliefsq

Or simply, calling it bias when it doesn't stress their point of view or news that supports their beliefs. They don't want news; they want articles backing up their viewpoint.

The biggest problem with news; is not what they tell us; it is usually what they do not tell us or bury in the back pages in small print.

[Black Dog]

The biggest problem with news; is not what they tell us; it is usually what they do not tell us or bury in the back pages in small print.

This demonstrates a key omission from the structural bias theory, which is that the very nature of the media today lends itself to certain biases right off the bat. We live in an age of multinational media conglomorates. The huge costs required to buy and run a news outlet ensures that it is the wealthy and/or the political elite (your Izzy Aspers, your Rupert Murdochs etc.) who control the news. They set the agenda to suit their own interests. So while you'll get the odd individual reporter or editor expressing their own personal bias, the underlying ideaology of today's mass-market media is decidedly corporatist.

[bbacon]

At a time when the largest share of the middle class family budget goes to pay taxes I for one see no reason for a tax funded State Owned TV service. Taxes now consume more of the family budget than food, shelter, clothing and transportation in Canada. The CBC TV state propaganda machine consumes 1.4B in tax dollars a year in a thousand channel universe at the same time get rid of the CRTC I think anyone old enough to pay taxes is old enough to decide what to listen to and what they want to watch without the good comrades in Ottawa drawing fat paycheques and telling us what is good for us.

[Black Dog]

Taxes now consume more of the family budget than food, shelter, clothing and transportation in Canada.

That's becaus eof regressive taxation measures such as the GST, PSTs, healthcare preimums etc, which are part of a bid to shift taxes to the bottom end of the scale. Think scrapping the CBC.CRTC would change any of that?

[fellowtraveller]

The CBC is unquestionably biased to a liberal/Liberal agenda, it serves them well in their quest for survival.

My question is: why are we paying for it, all of us? If you are a loyal listener/viewer then pay for it yourself. I do't ask for your money to support my entertainment, why do you insist I pay for yours?

CKUA has done it in Alberta, and is transformed into a model for subscriber supported public radio.

[bbacon]

Blackdog Canadians are overtaxed plain and simple, even a man living in a cardboard tax pays taxes on the money he panhandled and used to buy tobacco so much for the left wings pantings on help the poor help the poor, when in reality they rob the poor. The heaviest taxed tho is the middle class.

[I Miss Trudeau]

so much for the left wings pantings on help the poor help the poor, when in reality they rob the poor

Did I miss something?? Did some unknown left wing party sneak in and set our tax laws?!

[bbacon]

There is very little free and Independent Press or media at all in Canada. The Communist Broadcasting Corp. recieves 1.4B scarce tax dollars this year alone. All the other forms of media recieve tax dollars in subsidy or or tax breaks. I see no reason at all for the tax payer to subsidize any one of them left or right wing. Although I don't know of any right wing media sources in Canada. The CRTC should be completely shut down and disbanded, they just closed down CHOI radio in Quebec, if that is not state control what is, anyways why would anyone want to pay people to decide what they cannot see or hear, that sounds pretty Marxist to me. That kind of thinking does not belong in a so called democracy. The total public debt in Canada from these nanny state programs is about $4,000,000,000,000.00 dollars. Taxes have risen about 1300% since 1960's. We need less government in our lives and drastically lower taxes.

[I miss Reagan]

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. media coverage of last year's election was three times more likely to be negative toward President Bush than Democratic challenger John Kerry, according to a study released Monday.

The annual report by a press watchdog that is affiliated with Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism said that 36 percent of stories about Bush were negative compared to 12 percent about Kerry, a Massachusetts senator.

Anti-Bush bias

Not surprising at all. This study involved US news coverage. I can't imagine what a study on Canadian news bias would show. Anyway amazing Bush was able to pull off the win. Imagine if there was fair news coverage how much Bush would've won by.

[Black Dog]

Not surprising at all. This study involved US news coverage. I can't imagine what a study on Canadian news bias would show. Anyway amazing Bush was able to pull off the win. Imagine if there was fair news coverage how much Bush would've won by.

You're assuming media coverage has any affect on people's voting choices. And that the negative coverage of Bush, the war-startin', draft-dodgin', defecit-buildin' incumbent was unjustified.

[Fortunata]

During last election CBC's Don Newman was consistently snide about the Liberals, especially aimed at Paul Martin about the sponsorship scandal. I was constantly surprised by this as it came very unexpectedly. I noticed that Peter Mansbridge got his digs in at every opportunity as well.

Conversely, while CPC policies, or lack thereof were yammered about the tone towards Stephen Harper was more polite.

And then there was almost no criticism of Layton at all, and certainly the tone was extra polite. CBC is not sympathetic towards the Liberals, it goes the extra mile for the NDP, which makes sense since it is a socialist party and the CBC would stand to benefit the most by a ruling NDP party.

CBC has on pundit reporters such as Andrew Coyne, more or less a regular, who has spit in his eye for anything Liberal. Coyne is a privatize CBC advocate. So, in all fairness, CBC does get a gamut of different political animals involved.

Now let's talk CTV and their two comedians, Craig Oliver and Mike Duffy. They're just sad.

[Archeron]

CBC is not sympathetic towards the Liberals, it goes the extra mile for the NDP, which makes sense since it is a socialist party and the CBC would stand to benefit the most by a ruling NDP party.

This is a prime example of what makes me disappointed with the CBC. Although I do not regularly watch CBC television (The National is about it) I do listen to CBC radio quite often. As someone who has listened to the CBC since I was a kid, at least 20 years, I have noticed some major changes in this regard. As recipients of government spending, they have always leaned to the left. This is fine... as with any news source, a degree of bias is expected, and what better direction to lean the bias than the hand that feeds. However, other than the news components, the CBC broadcasts have become unlistenable at times due to their heavy concentration on leftist issues and political correctness. If you are not gay or feminist with an interest in art, literature and fringe music, much of their programming is irrelevant.

I have no problem supporting the CBC with my tax dollars as I value their news, but come one, let's see some relevant programming. It would be nice to see their programming not just harp on those who woud cut their funding and praise those that would give it. In the end, it is paid for by us and should not be simply an expensive NDP (and other leftists) campaign ad.

I have seen some folks in this particular discussion trash the bias held by CBC news, but I would urge those readers to take a look at what many others have to listen to and watch. The BBC is pretty good, but aside from that, it is very difficult to find only semi-biased news.

[Black Dog]

If you are not gay or feminist with an interest in art, literature and fringe music, much of their programming is irrelevant.

Yeah, I know I'm sick and tired of being saturated with art, literature and music. Is there no where I can turn for celebrity gossip and info-tainment? Will the press stop covering artists and academics and give some press to the real heroes: the rich and attractive? We need our national broadcaster to set the standard here: shallow, not deep!

Seriously: what do you mean by "relevant" programmming?

[Archeron]

Seriously: what do you mean by "relevant" programmming?

By relevant, I should say "more broad-spectrum". In the long run, I have nothing personal against gays, feminists, literature or art. There is a fairly long list of heavily left-leaning topics of which literature or art may or may not belong to; perhaps those in particular are poor examples, the result of a hasty choice of words. I am by no means suggesting the elimination of any of these topics either as this would destroy the relevance for a certain portion of our population. I guess it is easier for me to identify the irrelevant than the relevant.

I used to look to CBC for decent current events and world affairs coverage. Now it seems that whatever the "hot" issue of last week happened to be leads to saturation of particular topics at the expense of all others. In the end, they are beating a dead horse (or mad cow). Other than the latest greatest story (tsunami, gay marriage, mad cow), a large portion of the CBC's broadcast time is devoted to leftist issues, presented from a leftist point of view, with opposing views often given the short end of the stick.

I guess in the long run, I just feel they are reaching for content and could turn somewhere besides the socialist issues for it.

[Black Dog]

By relevant, I should say "more broad-spectrum".

See, that's one of the thing I like about the CBC and the idea of a public broadcaster in general. Because such broadcasters don't have to rely so heavily on commercial revenues, they can give some attention to issues or subjects that otherwise would get lost in the commercial din.

I used to look to CBC for decent current events and world affairs coverage. Now it seems that whatever the "hot" issue of last week happened to be leads to saturation of particular topics at the expense of all others. In the end, they are beating a dead horse (or mad cow).

This is hardly unique to the CBC, but is standard media practice today.

Other than the latest greatest story (tsunami, gay marriage, mad cow), a large portion of the CBC's broadcast time is devoted to leftist issues, presented from a leftist point of view, with opposing views often given the short end of the stick.

Can you give some examples? What's a "leftist issue" anyway?

[Archeron]

Can you give some examples? What's a "leftist issue" anyway?

By "leftist" I mean the core socialist issues... health care, the poor, minorities, special interest groups and organized labour. The grass roots of the NDP. Not that they are not important areas to cover, but listen to CBC for a year and you will hear that and inordinate portion of their air time devoted to these areas. Perhaps I am just a little tired of hearing the same stories all the time and have just become overly sensitive to these topics and therefor notice them more. But that's my take anyway.

[Black Dog]

What would you rather be hearing about?

[Archeron]

Pretty much anything... just some variety.