To his credit, Brian starts off sounding almost reasonable:
Yesterday I postulated that Broadcast Standards should suggest that any guest on any information program that has received money from the government and is commenting on government policy should be required to reveal this conflict.
I like the idea, Brian. You have my support. Brian goes on to point out that blogs have a much looser standard of objectivity, and that's what the blogosphere is all about, so no quarrel there. Sadly, though, that's the point where Brian descends rapidly into gibbering madness:
It is the Mainstream Media that fails to reveal the perspectives and biases that exist in their reporting and in the reporting of their guests. But not always... Fox News reveals its bias, but CNN does not.
Ummmmm ... yeah ... "Fox News reveals its bias." Ignore Brians's amusing admission that Fox is, yes indeed, biased (despite howling protestations from the rest of the wankersphere). This is, according to Brian, the network that openly reveals its ideological leanings ... how? Oh, right ... by advertising itself with the slogan of being "fair and balanced." Quite the admission of bias there, Brian. How ever could I have missed that all this time? Silly me.
But it's Brian's jab at CNN that's even funnier, as he's clearly implying that that network leans to the left, despite about a bazillion documented incidents over at Media Matters for America that demonstrate exactly the opposite. Nice going, Brian -- if you could have picked two more inappropriate examples for your thesis, I can't imagine what they would have been.
But, in the end, I like Brian's idea, even if he thoroughly pooched its presentation. I think a blog tracking blatant bias in the Canadian media would be a great idea, along the line of Media Matters. And as a starting point, I think the first example should be any mainstream news piece that refers to industry hack and corporate whore Tim Ball as a "PhD climatologist" -- you know, like this.
I'm sure the rest of the submissions will practically write themselves.
3 comments:
We recently had an outbreak of Tim Ball propaganda in our local rag, and I was amused to see that the University of Manitoba (have I got the right university?) has felt itself obliged to craft a letter to be sent out as needed to newspapers, denying that Tim Ball was ever a climatologist there. Unsaid but clearly implied was the idea that they were very sorry that they had ever laid eyes on the sleazy bastard. And of course, the next week there was a letter from some local wingnut basically saying, "yes he was!"
Uh, what part of "straight from the horse's mouth" do these guys not understand? Oh, yeah... any of it.
University of Winnipeg, actually, and I so want a copy of that. Got a link?
Uh, no. Sorry, it was in actual print, on actual papaer. I can look around and see if I can find it, but it was a week or so ago...
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