I have noticed that more and more bloggers are talking about how the media is being completely bias and what we can do to correct this behaviour. It has been suggested that their be a watch dog office to investigate which papers or news companies are proclaiming to be non partisan while leaning heavily one way or another, however I believe it would be easier to make it mandatory for each author or journalist that puts there name to an article to also include who they support politically. I remember in the last federal election of 2006 the C.B.C. did a meet the candidates segment, where the idea was a great tool to introduce each party leader to Canadians via our biggest and most viewed evening news broadcast, the actual interviews were appalling due to the blatant partisanship. Steven Harpers interviews were always pleasant and jovial, the N.D.P. also seemed to have non confrontational interviews as well, on the other hand the interviews with Paul Martin were a constant attack about the sponsorship scandal and no talk of policy or anything else. This could have had a much fairer outcome had the journalist/ interviewers had stated their political preference right from the start, most Canadians do not follow every detail of politics and tend do be easily guided in their discussions by someone they trust nightly with their news. I have also heard Rex Murphy talk on his show about his long and fond friendship with Peter McKay father and his family, I would love to hear at the end of each thursday night show a quick blurb like "this is Rex Murphy and I support the cons". In order for the media company to be held accountable for being non partisan they could easily count how many reports have Cons/N.D.P./Liberal Party affiliated with them, and as for if a reporter/journalist seemed to be dishonest, they could have a complaint mechanism in place. Anyways this is a great topic as these are the items we need to talk about in order to correct the issue of our media being infiltrated by big business and their political puppets. By the way 11.6 billion dollars per quarter (Shell Oil's 2008) buys a lot of publicity in all shapes and sizes and it also buys politicians, something to be concerned about just look south and ask weather or not the Iraq war was started for oil or not?
One of the comments I made on Liberal Arts and Minds blog this week was in regards to media coverage and the stupid stories the Conservative get coverage for and how important issues such as a "Green Shift Plan" gets very little and how that influences voters. The Comment I made went as follows: Unfortunately these are the stories the media give the air time to and the numerous announcements made recently to the various provinces not held by the cons. This is exactly how a band of clowns like this get elected, they manipulate and lie to fool the average Canadian who only watches the local nightly news and maybe reads the weekend newspaper. The one thing I truly hope the Liberals understand is that our elections are fought and won through the media. When a media mogul like say a Oprah Winfrey get behind and more than supports a candidate like Barrack Obama, this begins to shift momentum and when more and more popular people begin to jump on board, well then... What Stephane Dion needs are some high profile celebrities to discredit what the Steven Harper messages/lies are. We saw a little of this when we had the likes of Lynn McDonald and Judge Reid Scott and David Suzuki promoting Stephane Dion and his visionary thinking with regards to the "Green Shift Plan", However the Liberal Party needs to get more high profile people and get that into the evening news and weekend newspapers. There should be enough celebrates that this government has jerked around in the last two and a half years, getting some of them to come out and support Stephane Dion should be easy. The biggest problem still exists that media coverage in this country is persuaded by true blue conservatives such as Peter Mansbridge, Rex Murphy, and Lloyd Robertson. The average Canadian doesn't keep up with all the bills introduced by this government that change our way of life, they don't know the outrageous lies that they tell daily they don't follow the blogosphere to get the truth and facts, they will need to see these on T.V.
Another Comment I made on Garth Turner's blog was with regards to weather or not re are ready for an election right now, it goes as follows: The longer the current cons stay in power the worst off Canada is on the world stage, on global warming, on our own dependency for fossil fuels to drive our economy, for our own federal economy(not just certain regional economies) on our federal unity, on our civil liberties, on what it has always meant to be a Canadian (for the last 141 years). The answer to the question is YES WE NEED AN ELECTION A.S.A.P., that being said The Honourable Stephane Dion has shown some real wisdom, leadership, and patience to refrain from triggering an election to date, the cons have an abundance of money and all the facilities at their disposal to fire up the slogans and propaganda machine. With absolutely no help from the N.D.P. to get rid of this clown and his band of merry men, in fact Jack Layton seems to play directly into Harpers hand on almost every issue, Mr. Dion should continue to use his wisdom and the strength of his team to go when the time is right. Mr. Dion has been put in a very difficult place however, if we do not go to an election right away, the environment suffers, if we go now and the cons bags of tricks and bribes proves to be too much to win the election for the Liberals, then the environment loses for ever. I believe the world needs the old Canada back and Canadians need to get back to what being Canadian has always meant!
