A rchive Date
[ 31-05-2000 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[Media see public with liberal-tinted glasses
By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN
Toronto Sun
April 9, 2000
Believe everything you see and hear in the media these days about the Canadian Alliance and its would-be leaders and you're apt to believe the following about Ontario voters.
First, they are ideological liberals who want their politicians to push for abortion on demand and gay marriages.
Second, they are suspicious of anything having to do with religion and third, they are appalled that any politician today could seriously advocate for the death penalty.
Thus, as the conventional media wisdom goes, Preston Manning and Stockwell Day are unelectable in Ontario and therefore no threat nationally to the federal Liberals.
Now, the electability of Manning and Day aside, how has this happened? How has such a distorted picture of the values of the Ontario electorate emerged in such a short time within so much coverage of the Canadian Alliance? To be sure, it is certainly fair to argue that in terms of voter recognition and trust, Manning and Day have a long way to go to convince most Ontarians they are prime ministerial material.
But the gang attack on them by the media - even by the so-called "conservative" press as my colleague Mark Bonokoski noted in a column last week in reference to Day - appears to have had quite another agenda.
That is, to suggest that socially conservative values themselves are discredited ideas in Ontario, which is absurd.
To argue that few Ontarians are concerned about abortion on demand or the proliferation of gay rights, or that few would support a return of the death penalty or a greater role for religious values in public life, is ridiculous.
The Ontario Tories know this. While Premier Mike Harris has been more subtle than Reform, much of his Common Sense Revolution (CSR) has been built around the implicit if not explicit values of social conservatism.
Family values, law and order, school uniforms, codes of conduct, self-reliance, curtailing welfare, are all in fact direct appeals to the social conservatism of Ontario voters. When Harris talks about representing the quiet, law-abiding, hard-working families who don't have time to protest at Queen's Park, he is appealing to the values of social conservatism.
Combined with tax cuts, the main plank of Harris' fiscally conservative agenda - it certainly hasn't been less government - this has proven to be a formidable vote-getter.
In fact, what have been mistaken for "Ontario" values in the often condescending media coverage of the Canadian Alliance, are actually the liberal values that many hold dear in media centres like Toronto - particularly in the media.
But head north to the suburbs and to the so-called "905" area code and beyond, and you'll find all sorts of ideological support for the values that the media claim most Ontarians do not believe in when pontificating on the Canadian Alliance.
Now add to this the fact that the Alliance doesn't have to sweep Ontario federally - where 20% of the electorate voted Reform in 1993, 19% in 1997 - to damage the Liberals.
The federal Liberals are now largely a regional party, almost totally reliant on Ontario for their majority, just as the Bloc's power base is in Quebec and Reform's the West. Should everything else remain equal and the Grits lose a mere 20-30 Ontario seats next time out (where they now hold 101 of 103), the political map of Canada could change dramatically.
Why then, has there been such a disconnect in media coverage of the Canadian Alliance, what often seems an attempt to discredit social conservatism - the message - by ridiculing the messengers, in this case Manning and Day?
Unfortunately, while the Canadian media often lecture the public on the "values" of Manning and Day, there has been little research done in Canada on the "values" of the media.
But in the U.S., there has been extensive work in this area.
What it has found is that the media (not proprietors, but journalists, especially senior ones) tend to be far more liberal in their outlook than the public they claim to represent.
Last week, for example, the National Post cited a recent media study showing a significant gap in perceptions (and incomes) between American journalists and the American public. One survey found that 82% of journalists supported abortion, compared to only 49% of the public, with similar disconnects on issues like school prayer and belief in God.
A 1996 survey of 139 senior Washington journalists found they were ideologically well to the left of the public.
In the 1992 presidential campaign, 89% voted Democratic and only 7% Republican, compared to a far narrower 43%-38% gap among all voters. In describing their own political views, 61% of these journalists identified themselves as "liberal to moderate," only 9% as "moderate to conservative."
As Howard Kurtz, the Washington Post's media reporter noted at the time: "There are all kinds of ... topics - religion, abortion, homosexuality, what I call the cultural topics, (where) I think we do have a problem because the outlook of most journalists ... is considerably to the left of the population, and there are times where we simply have blind spots in the way we treat these issues."
Of course, none of this could be happening in Canada. Right?
Lorrie can be reached at (416) 947-2212, by fax at (416) 947-3228 or by e-mail at lgoldste@sunpub.com. Or visit his home page
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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