OTTAWA — Accusations of liberal media bias usually come in two distinct flavours.
There are boisterous complaints about “Justin journos” sucking up to the government, purveying “fake news” and peddling lies for partisan and ideological purposes.
Media
When ‘conservatives pounce’: The right finds its cautionary tale of subtle media bias
44% of Canadians believe that ‘much of the information’ they receive from media outlets is false. And the more conservative you are, the less you are likely to trust the media
It’s clear that both views have gone mainstream in recent years as qualms over media reliability have morphed into widespread mistrust among Canadians. Abacus Data found in 2022 that 44 per cent of Canadians believe “much of the information” they receive from media outlets is false.
And the more conservative you are, the less likely you are to trust the media.
Only 31 per cent of Liberal voters say that information they get from the media is false, compared to 59 per cent of Conservatives. An astonishing 89 per cent of People’s Party of Canada voters say they don’t trust the media. Plunging faith in the media also coincides with government efforts to help beleaguered news organizations adapt to a digital age that has disrupted their ad revenue.
Critics on the right, including federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, have argued that the hundreds of millions of dollars in Liberal newsroom bailouts give journalists a vested interested in protecting the government. (The same charge sticks even more naturally to the predominantly government-funded CBC.)
Like all biases, you’re not really aware of them until somebody points them out
Even those conservatives who don’t think journalists are undercover partisan operators sometimes still detect a subtle type of bias in the news, which may even be more pernicious.
“But like all biases, you’re not really aware of them until somebody points them out. If you’re university-educated and urban-living, you tend to have a worldview that is different from somebody who isn’t — and it takes a lot of effort to open your eyes up,” said MacDougall.
The perceived bias can be so subtle that it can be difficult to articulate. Critics might discern it from the tone of a story, which is subjective and tough to exhibit as ironclad proof of bias. Sometimes it’s in the magnitude of the coverage given to progressive issues over others (think: climate versus the economy), and the type of sources that are chosen to comment on the stories.
When former Harvard president Claudine Gay resigned after a catastrophic appearance in front of Congress in December and a flurry of subsequent plagiarism allegations, conservatives were only mildly surprised to find that much of the news coverage blamed them for the president’s missteps.
One headline, from The Associated Press, rocketed around right-winger group chats and attracted an avalanche of ire on social media: “Harvard president’s resignation highlights new conservative weapon against colleges: plagiarism.”
It exemplified perfectly for conservatives the understated kind of media bias they see around them — one so obvious that it could serve as a case study that anyone could understand.
“Part of why the AP story was so gobsmacking was because it was so shamelessly not aligned with common sense. If you’re just a regular person who doesn’t care a lot about politics and you see that headline, you go, ‘Wait, what? When did plagiarism become a political issue?’” said long-time conservative strategist Ginny Roth, a partner at Crestview Strategy.
It’s a long-running inside joke in American conservative circles that when Republicans have a scandal, the press writes about the scandal, but when Democrats have a scandal, the press reports how Republicans “pounce” on the scandal. The phenomenon even has its own Wikipedia page (titled “Republicans pounce,” of course) and some pundits make a point of keeping a running registry of these kinds of stories.
National Review writer Charles C.W. Cooke attributes mainstream press biases to his belief that journalists naturally tend to agree with left-of-centre policies and politicians. Even when they attempt to maintain objectivity, it affects the framing of their stories.
“Almost invariably, the press assumes that what the Democrats are doing is normal and that what Republicans are doing is not — even when it is the Democrats who are proposing big changes. This formulation always results in the GOP being cast as the aggressor,” writes Cooke.
In recent decades, conservative parties have begun working to circumvent mainstream journalists as the filter for their messages, with strategists taking the same view of journalists having leftward inclinations that affect their coverage. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has prioritized video messages and other ways of directly reaching out to Canadians and, when he does talk to the media, he’s not afraid to tussle with them.
Research about the ideological leanings of journalists suggests that view might not be entirely off-base.
Journalism today draws more heavily than ever from highly-educated urbanites. And those groups are far more likely to hold progressive views than a general sample of the population.
Research in the United States also found that reporters overwhelmingly describe themselves as liberal.
A survey of 462 financial journalists found that 58 per cent described themselves as very or somewhat liberal, while only four per cent described their views as very or somewhat conservative, reported a 2018 paper by researchers at the Arizona State University and Texas A&M University.
A recent study by The Economist, analyzing the language used by prominent outlets between 2017 and 2022, found that mainstream news generally veered to the left.
The study found that 17 of the 20 most-read news websites in the U.S. used more language associated with the left than the right. It found that TV news outlets, like CNN, underwent a bigger shift to the left over the five years than did written media.
“This Democratic slant has grown over time, driven mainly by changes in once-centrist outlets,” reports The Economist.
The reasons for this are debated, but one theory is that it was another effect from the broader reckoning around social justice that happened during the pandemic and in the wake of the George Floyd killing. Institutions from retailers to museums began explicitly espousing or supporting views associated with left-wing ideology, like critical race theory. Newsrooms were not immune to the pull.
“It used to be that newsrooms were biased towards a small-L liberal, centrist consensus and not that representative of fringe views. Now, I think they’re representative actually of pretty far-left fringe views,” said Roth.
While MacDougall agrees that conservatives generally have to work harder to get a fair shake from the media, he also warned people on the right not to get too caught up in playing the victim. He pointed to the current controversy around Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s recent free luxury holiday in Jamaica as proof that, above all, the media craves juicy stories.
And when conservatives govern, he said, there are times when the negative reporting targeting them is just proper reporting.
“The hardest thing in government to do is to distinguish between the fact that you’re getting heat for being in government versus for being the party that you are in government,” he said.
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Sometimes, you just have to return to the classics.
That’s especially true as Halloween approaches. While you queue up your spooky movie marathon, here are 10 iconic horror movies from the past 70 years for inspiration, and what AP writers had to say about them when they were first released.
We resurrected excerpts from these reviews, edited for clarity, from the dead — did they stand the test of time?
“Rear Window” (1954)
“Rear Window” is a wonderful trick pulled off by Alfred Hitchcock. He breaks his hero’s leg, sets him up at an apartment window where he can observe, among other things, a murder across the court. The panorama of other people’s lives is laid out before you, as seen through the eyes of a Peeping Tom.
James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter and others make it good fun.
— Bob Thomas
“Halloween” (1978)
At 19, Jamie Lee Curtis is starring in a creepy little thriller film called “Halloween.”
Until now, Jamie’s main achievement has been as a regular on the “Operation Petticoat” TV series. Jamie is much prouder of “Halloween,” though it is obviously an exploitation picture aimed at the thrill market.
The idea for “Halloween” sprang from independent producer-distributor Irwin Yablans, who wanted a terror-tale involving a babysitter. John Carpenter and Debra Hill fashioned a script about a madman who kills his sister, escapes from an asylum and returns to his hometown intending to murder his sister’s friends.
— Bob Thomas
“The Silence of the Lambs” (1991)
“The Silence of the Lambs” moves from one nail-biting sequence to another. Jonathan Demme spares the audience nothing, including closeups of skinned corpses. The squeamish had best stay home and watch “The Cosby Show.”
Ted Tally adapted the Thomas Harris novel with great skill, and Demme twists the suspense almost to the breaking point. The climactic confrontation between Clarice Starling and Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine) is carried a tad too far, though it is undeniably exciting with well-edited sequences.
Such a tale as “The Silence of the Lambs” requires accomplished actors to pull it off. Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins are highly qualified. She provides steely intelligence, with enough vulnerability to sustain the suspense. He delivers a classic portrayal of pure, brilliant evil.
— Bob Thomas
“Scream” (1996)
In this smart, witty homage to the genre, students at a suburban California high school are being killed in the same gruesome fashion as the victims in the slasher films they know by heart.
If it sounds like the script of every other horror movie to come and go at the local movie theater, it’s not.
By turns terrifying and funny, “Scream” — written by newcomer David Williamson — is as taut as a thriller, intelligent without being self-congratulatory, and generous in its references to Wes Craven’s competitors in gore.
— Ned Kilkelly
“The Blair Witch Project” (1999)
Imaginative, intense and stunning are a few words that come to mind with “The Blair Witch Project.”
“Blair Witch” is the supposed footage found after three student filmmakers disappear in the woods of western Maryland while shooting a documentary about a legendary witch.
The filmmakers want us to believe the footage is real, the story is real, that three young people died and we are witnessing the final days of their lives. It isn’t. It’s all fiction.
But Eduardo Sanchez and Dan Myrick, who co-wrote and co-directed the film, take us to the edge of belief, squirming in our seats the whole way. It’s an ambitious and well-executed concept.
— Christy Lemire
“Saw” (2004)
The fright flick “Saw” is consistent, if nothing else.
This serial-killer tale is inanely plotted, badly written, poorly acted, coarsely directed, hideously photographed and clumsily edited, all these ingredients leading to a yawner of a surprise ending. To top it off, the music’s bad, too.
You could forgive all (well, not all, or even, fractionally, much) of the movie’s flaws if there were any chills or scares to this sordid little horror affair.
But “Saw” director James Wan and screenwriter Leigh Whannell, who developed the story together, have come up with nothing more than an exercise in unpleasantry and ugliness.
— David Germain
Germain gave “Saw” one star out of four.
“Paranormal Activity” (2009)
The no-budget ghost story “Paranormal Activity” arrives 10 years after “The Blair Witch Project,” and the two horror movies share more than a clever construct and shaky, handheld camerawork.
The entire film takes place at the couple’s cookie-cutter dwelling, its layout and furnishings indistinguishable from just about any other readymade home constructed in the past 20 years. Its ordinariness makes the eerie, nocturnal activities all the more terrifying, as does the anonymity of the actors adequately playing the leads.
The thinness of the premise is laid bare toward the end, but not enough to erase the horror of those silent, nighttime images seen through Micah’s bedroom camera. “Paranormal Activity” owns a raw, primal potency, proving again that, to the mind, suggestion has as much power as a sledgehammer to the skull.
— Glenn Whipp
Whipp gave “Paranormal Activity” three stars out of four.
“The Conjuring” (2013)
As sympathetic, methodical ghostbusters Lorraine and Ed Warren, Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson make the old-fashioned haunted-house horror film “The Conjuring” something more than your average fright fest.
“The Conjuring,” which boasts incredulously of being their most fearsome, previously unknown case, is built very in the ’70s-style mold of “Amityville” and, if one is kind, “The Exorcist.” The film opens with a majestic, foreboding title card that announces its aspirations to such a lineage.
But as effectively crafted as “The Conjuring” is, it’s lacking the raw, haunting power of the models it falls shy of. “The Exorcist” is a high standard, though; “The Conjuring” is an unusually sturdy piece of haunted-house genre filmmaking.
— Jake Coyle
Coyle gave “The Conjuring” two and half stars out of four.
“Get Out” (2017)
Fifty years after Sidney Poitier upended the latent racial prejudices of his white date’s liberal family in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” writer-director Jordan Peele has crafted a similar confrontation with altogether more combustible results in “Get Out.”
In Peele’s directorial debut, the former “Key and Peele” star has — as he often did on that satirical sketch series — turned inside out even supposedly progressive assumptions about race. But Peele has largely left comedy behind in a more chilling portrait of the racism that lurks beneath smiling white faces and defensive, paper-thin protestations like, “But I voted for Obama!” and “Isn’t Tiger Woods amazing?”
It’s long been a lamentable joke that in horror films — never the most inclusive of genres — the Black dude is always the first to go. In this way, “Get Out” is radical and refreshing in its perspective.
— Jake Coyle
Coyle gave “Get Out” three stars out of four.
“Hereditary” (2018)
In Ari Aster’s intensely nightmarish feature-film debut “Hereditary,” when Annie (Toni Collette), an artist and mother of two teenagers, sneaks out to a grief-support group following the death of her mother, she lies to her husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne) that she’s “going to the movies.”
A night out with “Hereditary” is many things, but you won’t confuse it for an evening of healing and therapy. It’s more like the opposite.
Aster’s film, relentlessly unsettling and pitilessly gripping, has carried with it an ominous air of danger and dread: a movie so horrifying and good that you have to see it, even if you shouldn’t want to, even if you might never sleep peacefully again.
The hype is mostly justified.
— Jake Coyle
Coyle gave “Hereditary” three stars out of four.
Read the full review here. ___
Researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed from New York.
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