Canada's Democratic Malaise

[Michael Hardner]

Canada's Democratic Malaise

An interesting paper from Nadeau and Giasson - University of Montreal - at Policy.ca

I posted a long response over there, but I thought I'd summarize my view here. The authors basically want to turn the clock back in order to correct the cynical drift we've seen in political coverage. I'd rather see television news supplanted altogether.

Would you political coverage if it were to disappear from television ? What would you miss the most ? Election coverage ? Come on, admit it...

[Hicksey]

Canada's Democratic Malaise

An interesting paper from Nadeau and Giasson - University of Montreal - at Policy.ca

I posted a long response over there, but I thought I'd summarize my view here. The authors basically want to turn the clock back in order to correct the cynical drift we've seen in political coverage. I'd rather see television news supplanted altogether.

Would you political coverage if it were to disappear from television ? What would you miss the most ? Election coverage ? Come on, admit it...

I already miss the coverage. But not just during election cycles--all the time. Watch the news sometime. Watch a left network, a right network and the closest thing to a centrist one you can find. You get the core information each time but what you get more of is editorializing. After you watch all three and you see what was repeated in all three you have the facts and you can discard all the other worthless jabbering as the BS it is. When did the editorial page take over the news?

[Guest Warwick Green]

Would you political coverage if it were to disappear from television ? What would you miss the most ? Election coverage ? Come on, admit it...

Televsion is only good for short bites on breaking news. You want decent coverage you need newspapers and/or the web. I also find radio to be better for news than TV. The latter still has the "if it bleeds it leads" mentality

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear Mr. Hardner,

The authors basically want to turn the clock back in order to correct the cynical drift we've seen in political coverage.

and from the link...

Nadeau and Giasson propose three possible solutions to what they regards as the negative aspects of political journalism: 1) journalists must promote more meaningful contact between elected officials and voters; 2) the tradition of investigative journalism must be revived; and, 3) the public service news tradition in Canada must be revived.

For points 1 and 2, these are suggestions that run against the purposes of capitalism. The media willing entered the service of Mammon, and 'more meaningful contact', and 'traditions of journalism' would be treasonous against Mammon. For point 3, CBC gets nothing but scorn and derision from anyone right of centre, so our entire value system would have to shift left for these 'revival' things to happen.

[Hicksey]

Dear Mr. Hardner,

The authors basically want to turn the clock back in order to correct the cynical drift we've seen in political coverage.

and from the link...

Nadeau and Giasson propose three possible solutions to what they regards as the negative aspects of political journalism: 1) journalists must promote more meaningful contact between elected officials and voters; 2) the tradition of investigative journalism must be revived; and, 3) the public service news tradition in Canada must be revived.

For points 1 and 2, these are suggestions that run against the purposes of capitalism. The media willing entered the service of Mammon, and 'more meaningful contact', and 'traditions of journalism' would be treasonous against Mammon. For point 3, CBC gets nothing but scorn and derision from anyone right of centre, so our entire value system would have to shift left for these 'revival' things to happen.

After 13 years of the same promises recycled over and over again without one ioda of consequence from the media, why shouldn't people be overly wary and cynical? And that's not to mention some memorable scandals in the decade preceeding the Liberals' campaign of non-achievement.

I'm still sitting on the fence with Harper because of my cynicism. I'll defend him when Liberals try to slam him with really stupid and inconsequential things, but I am also mindful that he hasn't done anything worthy of praise yet. Nowadays, until they produce I assume they're all full of it.

[Michael Hardner]

For points 1 and 2, these are suggestions that run against the purposes of capitalism. The media willing entered the service of Mammon, and 'more meaningful contact', and 'traditions of journalism' would be treasonous against Mammon. For point 3, CBC gets nothing but scorn and derision from anyone right of centre, so our entire value system would have to shift left for these 'revival' things to happen.

Thelonius:

Yes. ON points 1,2 the original article addresses this problem and your point on 3 is well taken.

But we've had discussions on media bias countless times before and they don't go anywhere. My problem is less with economics than with physics. The authors want our media outlets to go back in time.

Rather than try to make television into something useful for all times of information, I it would be a better approach to build something new in other media - something that fills the gaps that television can't fill.

[Michael Hardner]

After 13 years of the same promises recycled over and over again without one ioda of consequence from the media, why shouldn't people be overly wary and cynical? And that's not to mention some memorable scandals in the decade preceeding the Liberals' campaign of non-achievement.

I'm still sitting on the fence with Harper because of my cynicism. I'll defend him when Liberals try to slam him with really stupid and inconsequential things, but I am also mindful that he hasn't done anything worthy of praise yet. Nowadays, until they produce I assume they're all full of it.

Hicksey:

I think it's useful to point out that when it comes to media, everybody has to walk on the same street. We've had lots of discussions about bias but that's not what the article in question was about - it's about media as democratic infrastructure.

Television has a number of shortcomings that make it a poor vehicle for political education.

It's entertainment based, so it requires "stories", which inevitably leads to narrative type stories, alarmist news, and simplification.

It lends itself to showing people more than facts, so you end up with personalities that interpret the news for you.

Government is more complex than ever, and people have less interest and less time than ever to spend getting informed. If you look at the threads here, many people that argue about politics argue about the broad strokes rather than the facts.

We need to get the electorate more attuned to what is being discussed, to make government more meaningful to peoples' lives and to raise the level of debate. One way to achieve this goal, I think, would be to strip away some of the needless complexity of government. In that respect, I think Mr. Harper's approach of five key areas is an excellent first step.