Catching Up on MediaPolicy – News bias at the CBC – Online harms back on the menu – Doug, Donald and the 51st state

Exporting Canadian content, c. 1814

December 7, 2024

The closer we get to a federal election, the more the debate about the CBC heats up. 

It’s televised too. Check out the Parliamentary video channels ParlVu and SenVu. Both the Commons Heritage committee (CHPC) and the Senate Transportation and Communications committee (TRCM) are conducting ongoing hearings where Parliamentarians question invited witnesses.

Unfortunately the CHPC is often a gong show as MPs posture for the cameras, so the policy content is low. On the other hand, the unelected Senators on TRCM continuously engage in a serious investigation. Geraldo or the Dick Cavett Show, your choice.

This week the Senate invited former CBC journalist (and union president) Kim Trynacity as well as Richard Stursberg, the former CBC Vice President who recently provided a guest column for MediaPolicy. Both witnesses emphasized that CBC television’s best bet to recover its audience ratings is to double down on local and regional news.

Trynacity made the point that we just can’t wish it so: funding shortfalls were taken out of local television years ago, money would have to be put back.

Stursberg suggested there are unexplored synergies between CBC radio news coverage and cbcnews.ca and that perhaps there are localities where resources from the inherently expensive television news operations could be diverted to sister platforms. 

That’s a pragmatic idea if the gap between ratings and funding can’t be narrowed, but maybe not so enticing to audiences wedded to local news on that medium.

That’s just a taste of an illuminating policy dialogue.

On another policy topic I’ve video clipped three minutes of Stursberg’s time on the witness stand where he commented on accusations of journalistic “bias” against the CBC, the rallying cry that fuels Conservative fund raising to “defund the CBC.”

Stursberg reminded Senators of an external study on CBC editorial performance that he commissioned in 2010. The well publicized results suggested that CBC was being unfairly criticized for partisan bias. 

The advice Stursberg gives now is that the CBC ought to subject itself to this kind of public accountability every year. 

The review would be even more persuasive if expanded beyond partisan reporting (fair or not to political parties) to the hot button issues that routinely feed the culture war of impugning mainstream media. 

On that point, check out this 3-minute video recorded in 2015 by former CBC news anchor Peter Mansbridge who vehemently denies partisan motivations lurking within the CBC. But he posits a “Toronto-centric” mindset of the Front Street journalist corps leaking into its journalist culture and news coverage.

While we are talking about bias and the CBC, this is the opportunity to revisit Pollara’s survey results from last July that I posted about at the time.

First, here’s the headline number on how much Canadians trust CBC News in comparison to other outlets:

Then there’s the question of “nobody’s watching the CBC:”

The latter chart is obviously a polling of audiences on all platforms, not just television.

Now here’s a clue to some of the CBC-bashing:

These trust gaps are clearly driven by party allegiance, a proxy for a diversity of world view and perhaps a visceral cynicism about media (only 25% of Conservative supporters trust the National Post).

Regardless, the exaggerated trust gap for the CBC is a concern, no matter how you look at it.

On the other hand, if the concern is that polarized opinion on CBC “bias” is dividing the country regionally, consider this outtake from the 2024 Sparks poll that compares opinions in Alberta to those in Québec:

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The Liberals’ Online Harms bill has been plucked out of the Parliamentary wilderness. “Pre-study” hearings at the Commons Justice committee resume Monday.

Justice Minister Arif Virani finally acknowledged political reality and split off the anti-hate provisions of the bill which expand criminal sanctions and re-open the door to human rights litigation. The core of harm prevention in the legislation is a self-regulation regime for social media platforms and that will go forward on Monday.

Given the election calendar, don’t expect much progress. Also expect the Conservatives to filibuster in committee. The CPC has its own harms bill it wants to advance: ironically, it’s a crime bill (although directed only at harms against children).

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Ontario Premier Doug Ford annoys me so much that I often wish I could vote twice, once for a different Premier and once for a different mayor (oops, he’s not really Mayor of Toronto, he just governs as if he was).

But today I thank my Premier for zipping it to Donald Trump after la grande orange quipped about Canada becoming the 51st American state. I suppose we shouldn’t take offence: after all Trump only wants to annex us, not insult us. 

Globe editorialist Tony Keller has the story of Doug’s retort here, with a bucket of Canadian trash talk for Trump.

AI-generated photo of Donald Trump viewing the Matterhorn in the Swiss Alps

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Let me recommend a gripping start-to-finish episode of Ezra Klein’s New York Times podcast —-only 80 minutes long!— acknowledging that it may be of more interest to my fellow progressives. 

Klein interviews Faiz Shakir, a senior staffer from the Bernie Sanders camp, on whether Democrats are overdue to embrace “Bernieism.” 

Shakir believes Democrats can win with economic populism, a brand and policy platform that is based on what he describes as the majoritarian sentiment in the United States that capitalism is rigged and an authentic politician with bulldozer appeal can deliver change “for you.” 

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