Media Coverage of Crises

[Arwon]

If the CBC is government-funded, then wouldn't it be biased towards whomever's in charge?

That said, subsidized news seems interesting. For-profit news is in the business of making money and will do and say whatever it can to make more.

There's a fairly strong tradition in Westminster countries of independent non-partisan institutions established by charters and protected by legislation. The CBC, BBC and ABC are all examples of that.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Has Fox identified the shooter as a (D) yet?

They keep mentioning his religion for some reason.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/10/23/soldier-shot-at-war-memorial-near-canadian-parliament/

Earlier Wednesday, Canadian authorities identified the shooter as Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, 32. A government official told Fox News that they have been advised that Zehaf-Bibeau, a Quebec native, was thought to be a recent convert to Islam who had changed his name from Michael Joseph Hall. Investigators offered little additional information about the gunman. However, Harper said in his address that "in the days to come we will learn about the terrorist and any accomplices he may have had."

Court records that appear to be the gunman's show that he had a long rap sheet, with a string of convictions for assault, robbery, drug and weapons offenses, and other crimes.

The shooting, which triggered a lockdown of Canada's capital, came just two days after a deadly hit-and-run terror attack targeting soldiers in Quebec by a man the Prime Minister referred to as an "ISIL-inspired terrorist." That killer, also identified as a convert to Islam, had been on the radar of federal investigators, who feared he had jihadist ambitions and seized his passport when he tried to travel to Turkey.

ISIL, better known as Islamic State or ISIS, has called for reprisals against Canada and other Western countries that have joined the U.S.-led air campaign against the extremist group in Iraq and Syria. On Tuesday, Canada had raised its domestic terror level from low to medium due to "an increase in general chatter from radical Islamist organizations like ISIL, Al Qaeda, al-Shabab and others who pose a clear threat to Canadians," said Jean-Christophe de Le Rue, a spokesman for the public safety minister.

Not sure why.

 

[Zelig]

"Terrorist threat level" and "terror level" don't really mean the same thing.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Has Fox identified the shooter as a (D) yet?

We don't have those in Canada.

If the CBC is government-funded, then wouldn't it be biased towards whomever's in charge?

Absolutely not. There is a strong perception among some on the CBC comment boards that the network is biased toward the Liberals, but that's not true. Unlike many modern news networks, CBC journalists are objective and not afraid to be critical of anyone who merits it. I've certainly noticed that CTV is biased toward the Conservatives, and long before Harper got in. It was Mike Duffy (disgraced Harper-appointed Senator) who permanently turned me off from watching CTV news during their coverage of Pierre Trudeau's death. Margaret Trudeau had come to Parliament Hill to see the makeshift memorial people had put up, with all the flowers, cards, canoe paddles, etc. and Duffy, who was then a CTV news correspondent, waddled over and cheerfully guessed it must be hard for her, considering that day was the anniversary of her son Michel's death (he died in an avalanche). She broke down crying and when she tried to get away somewhere private, Duffy chased after her, calling for her to come back. No CBC newsperson would ever have behaved in such a cruel way.

Historically I don't think that's been the case, but I'm not really sure about any past examples of bias..



The broadcasting act says this: The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, as the national public broadcaster, should provide radio and television services incorporating a wide range of programming that informs, enlightens and entertains.

The rest is details. The board answers to parliment, but parliment consists both an upper and a lower house, only the lower which is what we elect. There is also a governor general, and even a viceroy, and a senate. So the CBC board of governors doesn't answer directly to the party in power, but rather all the elected ministers in government, but also all the senators, and a whole bunch of other weird people with fancy titles.

It's the British theory that once everything is confusing enough and looks silly enough, that people just don't even bother with bias. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.



The CBC is actually a lot more than just a news station. They have original programming.. and uhh.. a radio station with good classical music, stuff you won't hear anywhere else on the radio.. I'm going to have to be honest and say that I don't really know that much about them - but they do the news right, so every once in a while I'll check out what Mansbridge has to say. I don't think they do hockey anymore, so I haven't really been watching CBC much lately.

Here is the mandate of the CBC btw, if you're curious. It tells them what they're supposed to be doing.

As a taxpayer I support some of my money going to such a thing. It's not a lot of money and we get stuff like Peter Mansbridge out of it. Peter Mansbridge alone would have been enough, but there's so much more.

I'm glad to see you approve of Peter Mansbridge. He has been an excellent successor to Knowlton Nash, and he passed up a lucrative offer to move to the U.S. to become a newsman there. He's one of the people in this country who is well-respected by most people, and unlike a lot of people in high places, he had a great sense of humor about being spoofed on The Royal Canadian Air Farce and by Rick Mercer.

CBC is part of the social glue that holds this country together. Just mention The Friendly Giant or Mr. Dressup to older Canadians, and chances are that they watched those shows or someone in their family did. There are still a lot of people miffed at the cancellation of The Beachcombers, and that show started in 1972! It was a victim of CBC budget cuts, thanks to Conservative PM Brian Mulroney.

Budget cuts thanks to Stephen Harper is why there isn't any hockey on CBC now.


Basically, I grew up listening to, and watching, CBC. From the kids' shows to the music (think Don Messer's Jubilee and The Irish Rovers), family shows such as Adventures in Rainbow Country and The Beachcombers, all the news and documentary shows, and the radio (Cross-Country Checkup was a weekly event where my family listened to this phone-in show for 2 hours), and later the sports - Olympic coverage on CBC is far more interesting than it is on CTV - and the political satire shows like Royal Canadian Air Farce, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, and The Rick Mercer Report, it's been a constant presence in my life from about age 2 until the present day.

 

[Evie]

Part of the glue that hold this country together - and at the same time a stark illustration of the two solitudes that divide us. We can both names dozens of CBC shows ; they've both marked our lives, and yet there would be almost no chance of an overlap between our lists.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Part of the glue that hold this country together - and at the same time a stark illustration of the two solitudes that divide us. We can both names dozens of CBC shows ; they've both marked our lives, and yet there would be almost no chance of an overlap between our lists.

Why don't you list some and we'll see if I recognize any? If it helps any, when I was a little kid, most of the names of the hockey players I recognized were French.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Has Fox identified the shooter as a (D) yet?

We don't have those in Canada.

If you think Fox would let a little fact like that get in their way you don't know Fox.

 

[Antilogic]

Sensationalism helps you attract people to your stories and make you more money. Fortunately CBC doesn't have to worry about making money as their #1 priority, because they don't have any shareholders. Their main focus can thus be honest journalism as opposed to half-arsed sensationalist nonsense.

That's why I think it's important to draw the distinction between News and News Entertainment. The CBC will provide you with news, while Fox News (and other such networks) will provide you with news entertainment... Much like Greco & Roman wrestling will provide you with wrestling while the WWE offers you sports/wrestling entertainment.

The difference is in the focus. If your focus is on pulling in as much $ as possible, you'll sensationalize everything to hell.. It seems to work. If you're just there to report the news, you'll do the exact opposite.

The revenue and incentive structure is the dominant factor, I think. I don't buy the excuse that these networks are just giving the customers what they want, as public polling suggests record-low trust in the media, and the big three networks which aren't as focused on entertainment still have massive audiences that Fear-N-N would punch a baby for. And then report on it.

When I see Peter Mansbridge on the screen, I know that we're going to get the best possible coverage. He's after a balanced, objective report of what happened, what's happening at the moment, what can be reasonably extrapolated from it, and he's not out to put himself in the limelight. That's the thing about the CBC. Any of the senior journalists there can, and have, served as news anchors. The only muck-racker among them (lately) has been Evan Solomon).

Do you think the on-camera personality is a major or minor factor? We haven't had people as widely trusted as Walter Cronkite or Edward Murrow for a long time. But at least we have this guy:

Spoiler :

I like how you brought in Fox News, when the site linked was CNN.

Fox News always comes into conversations like this, because they are the network that defended themselves in court with the 'there is no law that says network news has to tell the truth' defense. Not that any other network is bound by journalistic principles either, but only Fox has made the legal case of it.

Fox News is highly relevant to the broader conversation on the historical development of this trend. CNN arguably invented the modern, 24/7 sensationalist television coverage, and has been perfecting its craft since the Challenger explosion. It's evident from their viewership numbers that nobody can cover a celebrity trial or a plane crash quite as sensationally* as CNN.

Fox News brought this 80s-style news "journalism"* to politics in the Clinton era, and has become a much more relevant 4th network due to this and in part due to the infrastructure.

*Yes, this is meant in the most insulting way possible.

I think this problem is more about cable news than it necessarily is "the media" in general. America's TV news coverage is beyond terrible. Lots of their digital, and even print media, is pretty good!

The print media, especially at the local level, are being reamed by the new media. And audience self-selection is still a problem for the more objective-looking firms out there, whether it's a cable news network or some random blogs online.

If the CBC is government-funded, then wouldn't it be biased towards whomever's in charge?

That said, subsidized news seems interesting. For-profit news is in the business of making money and will do and say whatever it can to make more.

Building off the points made on the CBC, BBC, and ABC in the subsequent posts, I think it's not so much in favor of the party in power as it is broadly biased in favor of the current political establishment (i.e. small-c conservative). We could probably tease this out in how their coverage of Occupy-style protesters differs or is functionally identical to the US coverage, for example.

 

[Evie]

Why don't you list some and we'll see if I recognize any? If it helps any, when I was a little kid, most of the names of the hockey players I recognized were French.

HEhe, yes, there are things we do share.

And you and me wouldn't be a fair test, given we have a fairly wide age gap ; so the odds of remembering particular shows are even lower. We'd need to find a Quebecer and Albertan of roughly the same age to really test it.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Claiming a network is objective does not make it objective. Every organization acts on its incentives.

US media annoys me because of its sensationalizing of pretty much anything it can manage. That seems to be the approach that works, which annoys me even more because unlike the firms working to optimize their income, responding better to such behavior doesn't seem sensible to me.

Subsidized media has its own issues too of course. It gets to the point where reading heated discussion on topics on boards like this is actually more reliable than professional media outlets, simply because the incentives are in discussion or driving home one's own point...but the competition of dissenting points overpowers any professionalism I see in media outlets, unless you simply define that term by who's effective at making money ^_^.

 

[downtown]

US media annoys me because of its sensationalizing of pretty much anything it can manage. That seems to be the approach that works, which annoys me even more because unlike the firms working to optimize their income, responding better to such behavior doesn't seem sensible to me.

Why? Being sensational optimizes their income. It's a completely rational move, especially if you're a TV network.

 

[NovaKart]

My roommate is Yazidi and his brother was killed by ISIS. Recently he was contacted by a reporter in America and she's interested in getting his story and information about the refugees and the conflict. I've been helping him because his English is poor and have been in communication with this person. I looked this person up and found all this neo-con, anti-democrat, pro-Israel anti-Islamic stuff on the website. While I greatly appreciate the effort to get his story out to the world I'm annoyed that it's being used in this way. If it leads to more support for US intervention against ISIS than I would consider it worth the effort and I suppose this is the result of politics but it's really shown me the agenda behind that.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Fox News is highly relevant to the broader conversation on the historical development of this trend. CNN arguably invented the modern, 24/7 sensationalist television coverage, and has been perfecting its craft since the Challenger explosion. It's evident from their viewership numbers that nobody can cover a celebrity trial or a plane crash quite as sensationally* as CNN.

Fox News brought this 80s-style news "journalism"* to politics in the Clinton era, and has become a much more relevant 4th network due to this and in part due to the infrastructure.

*Yes, this is meant in the most insulting way possible.

You skipped a step here. MSNBC actually discovered the move from straight sensationalism to niche market 'journalism'. Fox just looked at their success and improved upon it by using it at full network level rather than on a sideline cable news channel. Now we are solidly stuck with 'find a group who believes they are underserved and tell them whatever they want to hear', because it demonstrably works.