Media Bias: Whose Side Is It On?

The media, as the vehicle for most political messaging, are a highly sought after commodity. I've often been amused of the plaintive cries of conservatives about "the liberal media" when it seems to me there are many outspoken conservative voices in mainstream media. The reality is, it's a mixed bag that can be hard to sort out.

During the conservative ascension starting in the 1960s, conservatives accused the media of liberal bias as part of their campaign to change the dialogue in North America. Studies looked into this and found an overwhelming number of journalists and media actors were indeed liberals and voted for the Democrats in the US and that indeed in many segments of the media most reporting was liberal-biased. So conservatives got organized and began concerted efforts to infiltrate the media with their viewpoints through increased ownership (e.g. Fox) or increased commentary (e.g. Rush Limbaugh et al).

Throughout this period was the factor of corporate ownership which muddied the waters. How liberal could news agents be if they still had to be concerned with taxes and regulations as part of running their business? Could a media business really allow a writer to criticize a political party that was promoting corporate tax cuts and less government intervention? Today it's an issue but it hasn't always been that way. At the start of the 20th century most media was a direct voice for political parties or movements, but over time the progressive challenge for objectivity became the calling card for reputable media. Over the past 25 years the rise of global media and the large increase in options for people's time have dramatically changed the competitive landscape in media. The result has been consolidation of media under corporate empires and the move to more entertainment-oriented news delivery. Since conflict and opinion draw viewers/readers more than objective reporting and the increased partisanship of North America has lent itself to the arena of conflict, then media has trended to more biased positions. It's a win-win situation for media corporations as bias helps them politically and draws more audience both pro and con.

So the situation today is that most journalists tend to the liberal side, political commentators are mixed and, I would argue, slightly more numerous on the conservative side, and more media corporations favour a conservative view which in turn limits the potential bias from their liberal journalists and supports the stances of their conservative opinion-makers. Liberals are starting to organize in the same way conservatives did some time ago (e.g. Air America) in order to balance the trends in political commentary and quite frankly, if you're willing to look around a little, almost every opinion under the sun can be found on the internet.

So I laugh when Stephen Harper complains of media bias against the Conservative Party considering the National Post, Sun Media and CTVGlobeMedia all tend to the right; or when US commentators like Ann Coulter complain of the liberal media when you have CNN, MSNBC and Fox News all espousing conservative views. The media is as it should be, a reflection of our varied society and the truth is you can't rely on one source in feeding your information.  The only one who can be objective is yourself; that is, if you choose.

Legislated Duty Loses All Meaning

Angelo Persichilli wrote a column in the Toronto Star decrying the lack of duty many Canadians exhibit towards their country. I submitted a comment of disagreement on the article but it was never published on The Star's website in the comments section following the article, so I'm resorting to my usual outlet of opinion, my blog.

Persichilli feels the Charter needs to be updated to require some basic duties of Canadians along the sentiments of JFK's "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." I don't disagree with Persichilli's desire to see more commitment from Canadians to their country but I do disagree with his suggestion that there's a place in the Charter to create requirements along these lines.

The Charter defines Canada through its commitment to tolerance and an emphasis on rights for the individual over collective identities.  As soon as we start defining laws around even the collective identity of Canada, it's a slippery slope to prescriptive laws that legislate nationalism. Just look at China as an example of a place that legislates nationalism and you can see why I'm concerned with any notion in this direction.

I prefer that Canada remain the great country it is by ensuring the continued freedoms that we enjoy and looking for Canadians to honour their country by their own volition rather than requiring them to do so.  We'll be stronger for it and the commitment more genuine, which will really be something in which to take pride.

Crime Is Not A Partisan Issue

There are few subjects that clearly delineate the differences between conservatives and liberals like crime.  Two weeks ago StatsCan issued a report showing Canada's crime rate hit a 25 year low in 2006. Since then conservatives have been crying about liberal spin and advocacy of soft measures while liberals have been criticizing the conservatives' "tough on crime" approach. While this is predictable, I find politicizing the debate on crime unconscionable as it deals with the security and self-assuredness of our society. I live in downtown Toronto so crime is a prevalent concern for myself and my family and I want facts and a reasonable, productive, and honest discussion about just how safe our society is.

The conservative position is an extension of their emphasis on a competitive society and individual accountability; there are no mistakes, no second chances for committers of violent crimes and no exceptions. Their populist message is an easy sell and is ever-present in their political platforms. It's a natural human inclination to desire revenge on those who inflict harm on our safety, peace and order; and conservatives (and to a fair degree all politicians of every ideology) don't hesitate to capitalize on these emotions. Conservatives however accuse liberals of allowing crime to grow and prosper as a result of lax penalties.

Liberals and left-leaning political parties tend to favour more progressive and diversified methods of combatting crime.  They view crime as a symptom of society's ills (e.g. poverty, discrimination, mental illness) and prefer to focus as much on fixing the causes than on punishing offenders. They accuse conservatives of helping to create crime by doing nothing about the causes.

One of my mantras is that complicated problems that have compelling arguments on both sides usually means the truth, or solution, lies somewhere in the middle. Are conservatives completely heartless and hell-bent on putting as many people in jail as possible? No, but a sense of justice around the sentencing of criminals is not an unreasonable request. Do liberals really prefer to let criminals go in the hopes that mercy and forgiveness will eradicate crime? No, but a sense of balance and pragmatism in dealing with crime is practical.

So, just what is the situation on crime in Canada? Overall, the incidents of crime on a relative basis are declining and have been for quite awhile. This doesn't mean there are less incidents of crime but it does mean crime is not growing as fast as our population. Violent crime has also been declining on a relative basis but has been growing as a proportion of overall crime. Needless to say this is a concern because it means if you're ever a victim of crime your odds of encountering violence are growing. Crime grew steadily from the 1950s to the 1990s and has been slowly receding since, so it's a fact we're a more crime-ridden society today than when our grandparents grew up and there's still a long way to go to the days of unlocked doors and a sense of trust in your fellow man.

What are the solutions? The conservative solutions work to a point but tend to have their limitations beyond feeding the public's thirst for revenge. We can't afford to put everyone in jail. The stats in the US are frightening and haven't shown much effectiveness; so we have to look hard at what crimes and which criminals really need to be incarcerated and which can be rehabilitated through other means. Mandatory sentencing has some benefit in reducing crime but the details for each crime are not consistent so they're inherently unfair, which only serves to undermine our justice system and harden criminals against society. Increasing punishments offers diminishing returns in their effect on crime, so at some point we're just wasting money putting people in jail longer - this solution also improperly assumes that a longer sentence will benefit society, an argument that has no rational basis as I can't see a 15-year sentence being more rehabilitative than a 10-year sentence nor being more of a deterrent. Crime stats show concentrations around poverty and disenfranchised people which suggests crime is mostly about survival and a lack of shared responsibility for society. It stands to reason then that more legitimate opportunity for poverty groups and a sense of value from society will reduce people's motivation for crime. In my mind achieving these conditions are not conducive to the every-man-for-himself society that conservatives promote.

It's no secret that Canada's (and much of the Western world's) laws and its justice system bias to the liberal viewpoints. Liberals must be wary of the public's need for justice and have done well in maintaining a balance; but as violent crime grows the need to respond to this change is imperative and the balance must shift to show that violent crime will be properly punished in this country.

Canada is an incredibly safe country but as it grows it must respond to the changing face of crime. We must ensure a fair and effective justice system while continuing to address the sources of crime. These are goals that conservatives and liberals should be able to agree on and find common policies to achieve those ends. Crime is too important to toss about in the seas of partisan bickering.