Yesterday Toronto Star media writer Antonia Zerbisias complained that she heard few shouts of protest about Jeffrey Simpson's Wednesday Globe column, in which he attempted to show the Canadian press has no liberal bias. I read the column and was going to post something but didn't have time.
Simpson raises the same points that have been made dozens of times already, namely that because of the National Post and the roster of conservative-minded columnists at the Sun chain, there's no real slant.
This is such a lame argument. Before his next column on bias, maybe Simpson should talk to some conservatives. We are aware that right-wingers populate editorial and comment pages! No one complains about that. It is the news coverage that aggrieves us! The reporting from Ottawa, the way stories are chosen, the way stories are presented, the way debates are framed.
This is the problem that Simpson or Zerb or others of the centre-left or left will never grasp. They just cannot fathom the possibility that any sane, thinking person might see the world through a fundamentally different lens than they do. Hence, what they see as "straight down the middle" is actually tilted to the left. This problem will never be resolved because, as Simpson correctly points out, bias is in the eye of the beholder.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 12:46 AM
