Politics as usual

Dear Peter Kent ...

I like you. Really. I have liked you since I first met you in the cafeteria of Maison Radio-Canada in the late 70s. You won't remember that, of course, because I was a mere CBC-TV News drone but I remember you and how you were a Big Man on Camera -- anchor of The National --and oh so cute.

I confess to having had a bit of a crush.

Since then, you have always graciously returned my calls, even when other journalists at CanWest Global, even senior ones such as Doug Kelly, the current editor-in-chief of the National Post, have not had the time -- or the balls -- to do so.

You also even once let me eat all your chip wagon French fries, which was not exactly good for me but I sure enjoyed them. Maybe you were trying to kill me?

So anyway, here's the thing. You've hitched your wagon to the Conservative Party and plan to run in St. Paul's against Carolyn Bennett in the next election. Fine. Good luck.

But you haven't given up your day job at Global as Deputy News Editor, although you say you now limit yourself "solely to backshop management duties."

Which makes all your bleating about small ''l'' liberal bias in the media somewhat grating. I mean, you're a big macher in what is probably the biggest news organization in the country and you can't do anything about this perceived (by you) ''tilt'' except fire off letters to editors or to journalism schools urging that a lot of time, money and energy be spent testing your dubious hypothesis?

To what end?

Even if a credible and scientific study could be put together, it would be merely a snapshot of a moment in time. It would not indicate anything more. And, as I have pointed out before on this blog, the best study so far shows that, in the federal last election the slant was against the Liberals.

But still, you persist, even though the right-wing charity the Fraser Institute would happily conduct a study that proves that the Canadian media are overrun with earthy, crunchy, Birkenstock-wearing, frangipani-reeking, leftist loony Marxists who firmly believe that Paul Martin is one of them because he has been seen with Bono. (Snort.)

Well, what the hell? You're almost a politician now and so you're entitled to get ink any way you can, even if it shocks and appalls your old friends and colleagues who happen to have actually run journalism schools.

But geez, you really don't appear to have a leg to stand on, as demonstrated by this op-ed in today's Star by Ryerson University's Marsha Barber and Ann Rauhala, co-authors of the Canadian News Directors Study, indicates.

We asked news directors — journalists in charge of setting news agendas — dozens of questions about what they think and what they do. Guess what? When it comes to voting patterns, our key TV journalists are not much different from their viewers. Their political allegiances are very much in line with those of the general population — in sharp contrast to what has been found in the United States.

In 2002, 46 per cent of news directors we surveyed said they would vote for the Liberals.

Environics polls conducted about the same time showed that between 40 and 46 per cent of the population intended to vote Liberal. Fifteen per cent of news directors intended to vote for the Conservatives and just over 10 per cent for the Canadian Alliance.

Environics estimated that between 15 and 18 per cent of Canadians said they intended to vote for the Tories and between 14 and 18 per cent for the Alliance.

Yes, the news directors' numbers were a little lower than the public's when it came to the Alliance. But that should be weighed against the fact that only 10 per cent of news directors intended to vote for the New Democrats. In Canada, NDP support at that time measured between 13 and 16 per cent. In short, TV news bosses are more in the middle than, well, the middle.

So now the question is, which is the mirror, the media or the people?

I think the answer is simple. More people watch the entertaininment programming on Global, most of it American, than watch the news. So the mirror is the news people, and not the other way around -- no matter how much the right hates to hear that.

But I grow weary of this subject which never goes away. Indeed, it's what fuels much of the blogosphere, here and south of the border.

Pete, what really cheesed me off this week was this, this letter to the editor you wrote to the Star about CBC, one that ran yesterday without identifying you as either a Conservative candidate or a rival broadcaster.

The sorry state of the corporation today is a direct result of a chronic, misdirected fixation on its original 1950's era mandate to provide a spectrum of local and regional television services that are irrelevant in today's multi-channel world...

...The corporation needs to be unbundled —broken into divisions that focus entirely on a strictly national service.

Why? So that Global can have the monopoly on running live provincial election coverage in its own home province -- which it did not do in the last couple of votes? So that Global can pick up more local advertising revenues during the supper hour?

Seems to me that, if Global wants the cash, fine. It just should pick up the slack instead of running U.S. sitcoms instead of public interest programming. But I didn't hear you say that, did I?

So, maybe you really are limiting yourself "solely to backshop management duties'' and keeping your finger out of the news pie at Global. But to me, it sure sounds like you're in the front of the store doing a hard sell for your employers.

Take care and all the best,

Antonia

Comments

[MQ]

Atta girl.

[Dana]

I'm glad to hear you like Peter Kent, Ms.Z, I really am. Because it would be so easy to think that he was just another conservative whiner.

Back in '98 there was a BC Liberal MLA for Parksville over on Vancouver Island forced to resign after it was learned that he'd been signing letters to the local paper under a series of assumed names. Letters that praised himself and his leerless feeder and the whole BC Liberal Gang of used car salespersons (wasn't that inclusive though).

At least Kent has the good sense to throw his red herrings in the water under his own name.

For the Conservatives I offer this:

The only consistent participant in all your dissatisfying forays into the political imagination of the Canadian people is you. We've been changing and growing all along and you're stuck in full steam ahead resentment.

That includes you Peter Kent. And your empoloyer of choice is still more proof of it.

[True North]

Can you imagine if Tony Burman were announced as a candidate for the Liberals or NDP, and was still working "in the background" for CBC News?

WOW!

National Post CBC Watch, Stephen Harper, Peter Kent, and all the other "Candian Republicans" would go NUTs.

Hell - so would I!

Kent is a fine example of blatant right wing hypocracy - which seem to know no limits these days.

Antonia - you are way too kind to him.

[Jiminy C]

Antonia - my conspiracy theory genes are way ahead of yours!
Petey -effety - Heh!
I'm more concerned that the neocon sycophants - Blizzard and Weston at the Sun and Wallace at Osprey - are being paid serious bucks to dump farmyard byproduct on ANY Liberals - irregardless of how commendable their actions are! Heck - I just put a rocket under the Liberal Communications machine to wake them up - because they seem to be in the listless mid-term yawn phase at the moment!
No good asking Worn to do anything - he's still stuck in that "pitch the book mode".

[Antonia Z.]

True North, you make a great point. Thanks.

[Adam in Whitby]

The Liberal Media is to Righties as the Military Industrial Complex is to Lefties -- overblown and politically useful for the arguers, yet not without reality. Can anybody argue that The Star isn't a lib-left paper? And is it not the paper with the highest circulation in the country?

Yet to prove or disprove this position, it's going to take a lot more than anecdotal evidence as used by Righties -- and this joke of a study out of Ryerson. Just listened to one of the authors of it on 640 AM in Toronto (which could be reasonably called a "Right of Centre" station in general). So the study looked at voting intentions of News Directors in the 2004 federal election. And that's it. No study of headlines or columns, no in-depth look at news broadcasts and their choice of focus or panel members, not even a definition of "liberal" and "conservative." So what do you call someone who voted Conservative, yet supports Access to Abortion, Gay Marriage and strict handgun control? Am I "conservative?" What about a Liberal who is against all of those things?

The authors of the study also blow their own credibility by touting this as proof there's no liberal bias -- any disinterested author would simply state "We have found no evidence of Liberal and NDP voting over-represntation in News Directors." Because that's all they found. No doubt a conservative author would come up with another benchmark.

But your points about Kent and Global are also convincing -- if there's such a liberal bias how does he keep his job? Just as people who insist on calling Noam Chomsky a "dissident" because he doesn't have his own Primetime Talk Show, those who bleat incessantly about liberal bias often seem to think that ANY example of skew or "bias" represents a Sinister Plot to Keep Them Down.

There is liberal-leaning Media (The Star, CBC), centre-sitting (CTV) and right-leaning (Global, Sun). And here's hoping we get more in the future -- more newspapers, more news channels, more viewpoints. This is the GREAT thing about living in the Media Age.

[Lene]

A while back, when Global news, without prior warning, showed a close-up of a man lighting himself on fire (and after the segment rationalized it as "the ethical thing to do"), I sent them an email saying I'd never watch the news on Global again.

I've always liked Peter Kent, but this? You run for office, while keeping your day job at a NEWS ORGANIZATION?? Ever heard of conflict of interest, Peter?

Confirms my opinion of them. Call me naive, but I always thought journalists were supposed to be relatively objective...

[Elvid]

Still would like to see the full study. Is it available on line?
Just wonder ihow many reporters and news directors would disclose their political affiliiations.
Would like to see the questions asked, size of sample base and other data and methodology before burying the question of liberal bias in some parts of the the media.
Sine no one at the CBC would admit to supporting the Alliance party and no figures were given for Conservative support, I guess still gives support to the right wing argument of CBC liberal bias.
Interesting headline. " No evidence of liberal media bias" . Who supplied that one. authors or Torstar.

[John Whyle]

Antonia I must protest. Global Ontario has covered ALL provincial elections.
Here is what you thought of part of our coverage in '03:

Ontario's reality show big blue blur
> Antonia Zerbisias
> 637 words
> 24 September 2003
> The Toronto Star
> Ontario
> A07
> English
> Copyright (c) 2003 The Toronto Star

> Oh what hath American Idol, or Canadian Idol for that matter,
> wrought?
> Watching last night's debate among the three major provincial
> party leaders, I kept hoping for a snippy assessment by one
> of the judges on the popular pop music reality shows.
> You know, a Simon Cowell or a Zack Werner sneering, and
> perhaps snorting out a terse "That was appalling" or
> "Brilliant!" whenever Premier Ernie Eves or Liberal Leader
> Dalton McGuinty dodged a question. Or when NDP Leader Howard
> Hampton hogged the airtime. Or when all three men talked over
> one another.
> Instead, very proper moderator Mary Lou Finlay of CBC Radio
> One's As It Happens offered little more than a futile
> "Gentlemen, gentlemen ..." sounding much like a fourth-grade
> teacher going "Boys, boys...." But she acquitted herself well
> enough, considering the format - which included pre-taped
> questions from voters and live ones from five TV reporters
> who could ask no follow-ups whenever the leaders skated away.
> Which was all the time.
> Don't get me wrong: It was a very lively debate, as long as
> you didn't get knocked out by all the numbers being tossed
> out. It was hundreds of dollars in mortgage interest rebates
> here, and thousands in tuition fees there, and millions in
> corporate taxes here and billions in health-care cuts there.
> But it might have helped generate more interest from Ontario
> youth - who seem shockingly disengaged from this very
> critical election - if it rose above a mud-wrestling match
> and rocked.
> I am embarrassed to say this because she carries my name but
> my 19-year-old niece, a second-year university student who
> now resides with me, probably would never be aware there was
> a debate on if I hadn't had to watch it for this column. And
> she's no different from her friends at U of T who say they
> "aren't interested" in the election - as if it was a really
> dull reality show.
> Which it is - and isn't. It's not dull and it is a reality
> show in a way and more youth should be paying attention,
> except that they are woefully ignorant of civics.
> Visually, the debate was dull. Can't be helped really. The
> usual conservative dark suits, pale blue shirts and
> unobtrusive ties, but for McGuinty's red-and-white polka-dot
> number, were all predictable TV debate wear. The set was
> ho-hum blue while the opening and closing fanfares featured
> the standard blasts of important sounding brass.
> So viewers who caught the program on CBC, CTV, CP24, TVO
> and/or TFO were left with little more than McGuinty's hands
> to animate the screen. Those thumbs went up, down, sideways,
> palms this way and that, knuckles together and apart, as if
> he were conducting a marching band.
> It was Global that got it, with its in-studio panel of voters
> who used little gadgets to display their reaction. (I should
> say here that, of all the TV coverage of this election,
> Global's has been very good, if not outstanding.) Their
> responses were displayed in an onscreen graphic with a needle
> that jumped well into the positive zone when such issues as
> auto insurance and water quality were discussed.
> Odd, however, that despite how they all seemed to approve of
> McGuinty's words throughout the debate, they rated Eves'
> closing comments well ahead of those of either of his rivals.
> But then, that's how it works whenever audience participation
> is invited into reality shows.
> The guy who would likely lose in the real world ends up
> winning the TV game. But in real life? He hasn't got a chance.
> That, plus the polls, do not bode well for Eves at all.

[mel]

I'm no fan of Peter Kent, and all his whining about media bias is just as stupid as you described in your blog Antonia. But, let's be realistic about the so-called conflict of interest here. The man has been nominated to run in an as-yet unscheduled election. He's not drawing a politicians salary until he actually wins the job. So, as much as I don't like where he stands, I do support his right stay employed until the election. Why should he "give up his day job" before the election? Kent's just a working stiff like the rest of us, and has the same bills to pay.

Criticize his views, yes. But spare me the conflict of interest whining. At least he's publishing his opinions, rather than nursing some hidden agenda. To everyone in St. Paul's, vote Carolyn Bennett if you value the CBC!

[Antonia Z]

John ... I was talking about MANITOBA. That's CanWest Global's home province, not Ontario.
Two provincial elections in a row.
It did not provide live coverage.

Your post is irrelevant, but being a benevolent queen, I allowed it to remain.

[John Whyle]

>John ... I was talking about MANITOBA. That's >CanWest Global's home province, not Ontario.

Oh, THAT Henny Youngman!

Sorry!