Last week I listed ways to watch for bias or misinformation in
opinion articles. This week I discuss a more subtle bias that shows itself, not
in a single column or article, but when many are compared together.
Government is always a popular target of editorial criticism.
And that’s a good thing; holding government to account is a key role of news
media in a democracy. The right wing, due to small-government values, is more
apt to be critical. But they also support their own side of the political
spectrum in government, and that’s where the bias creeps in.
Three main targets of criticism are the governments of
Canada, Ontario, and Toronto. Of those, the federal government has been led by Conservative
Prime Minister Stephen Harper for 8 years, with Ontario under more left-leaning
(but really, centrist) Liberal premiers Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne for
a decade. In that same period, Toronto had a left-leaning mayor, David Miller,
then a very right-leaning one, Rob Ford. It’s interesting to see how a stable of
writers criticize those governments differently based on where their targets
fall on the left-right spectrum.
When these writers discuss Ontario’s problems, fault is tied directly
to the premier (McGuinty or Wynne) or a named cabinet minister. It would seem
that whenever something goes wrong in Ontario, whether if the screwup occurred at
Queen’s Park or in a Crown corporation or the OPP or even an entirely separate
organization providing services to government (like ORNGE’s flying ambulances),
it is the personal failing of our Liberal premier. A similar pattern was the
case in Toronto under Mayor Miller.
Yet when the federal government screws up, right-leaning
columnists seem loath to name or blame the captain at the helm, with whose
politics they sympathize. Instead, blame falls on “the government” or “Ottawa,”
a specific department or agency, or a particular named, but non-elected public
servant. Rarely is it acknowledged that after 8 years of government, the
Conservatives really should be considered responsible for actions under their
watch.
Is it wrong to blame Ontario’s premier when things go wrong?
Not always. Things such as E-Health should be top-level files the premier or
front bench MPPs oversee directly. They must own those failures. However, with
a hundred-billion-dollar budget, Ontario’s government is a huge and complex beast;
it’s not fair to lay every frontline failing at the feet of the head honcho.
Bias reveals itself in the inconsistency. If everything that
goes wrong in Ontario is the Liberals’ fault, then certainly every failing or
misdeed at the federal level is the Conservatives’ fault. Likewise, it makes no
sense to credit Rob Ford for every improvement in Toronto during his tenure but
not blame him for anything that goes wrong, having done precisely the opposite
with David Miller. Either leadership matters or it doesn’t; either elected
leaders wear both credit AND blame, or neither.
It’s hypocrisy of the worst kind to give one level of
politicians a free ride, and another level a whipping, for the same kind of
screw-ups, based solely on which political flag they wave. If you’re going to
call it like it is, call it fairly on all sides.
Published as my Root Issues column in the Barrie Examiner as "Elected leaders must wear both credit and blame".
Erich Jacoby-Hawkins is a director of
Living Green and the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation.
George Stromboulopoulous posted an interview with Mark Kelley a CBC journalist on FB this week. Kelly was complaining about the perceptions of the public regarding journalism and how journalists are writing to bring their audience the truth. I totally disagreed with what he said, because you are correct Erich. Much of our news media and all levels of governments do not present "fair" exposure to both sides of the disputes political parties become involved in these days. There is way too much control of the news media by governments at all levels in Canada and we the people are lacking a fair representation of the necessary facts. Al Gore came to Toronto to celebrate Kathleen Wynne closing down the coal plants and rightly so. It was all over the news. Yet there has been little mention in the news about the money Kathleen Wynne needs to refurbish the nuclear plants here. Yes, the press is jumping all over other reasons hydro rates are going up (like the ice storm in December) but nothing at all is mentioned about those nuke plants. People loose interest in political news as a result because they know how unethically it is presented and they are never sure what side of the issue they need to take. Thank you for sharing.
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