CBC to study whether its news is biased

[Liberty and Truth]

:127: and in a related story, Al Quaida announced that it is going to launch a study to see if it has an Islamic Fundamentalist bias....

http://www.ottawasun.com/news/canada/20 ... 40176.html

CBC to study whether its news is biased

OTTAWA — The CBC has commissioned a study to determine whether its news is biased, the president of the public broadcaster told the Senate finance committee this week.

“Our job — and we take it seriously — is to ensure that the information that we put out is fair and unbiased in everything that we do,” CBC President Hubert Lacroix said.

He said CBC asked outside experts to conduct an independent review of its news gathering and delivery last year.

The “bias studies” will be released publicly, hopefully, early this fall, Lacroix said.

The announcement came as Conservative senators grilled him Wednesday demanding to see contracts proving CBC wasn’t sharing polling data with the Liberal Party of Canada.

Sen. Doug Finley, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former campaign manager, said it was “totally unacceptable” for CBC to use a pollster who had advised the Liberals to “bring on a culture war” based on information paid for by taxpayers.

CBC refused to comment on the study’s methodology Thursday.

Jeffrey Dvorkin, a former National Public Radio vice-president and CBC Radio chief journalist, said bias studies depend on the questions asked and are often suspect.

“I fear this may be part of the CBC’s attempt to placate its political opponents and to limit the ability of the news and current affairs service to do the kind of tough reporting that the public broadcaster has been known for,” he said.

Conservative Party spokesman Fred DeLorey said if CBC needs a study to determine the appropriateness of using a Liberal Party donor as a pollster, it demonstrates how “deeply out-of-touch the network has become.”

University of Moncton Prof. Marie-Linda Lord hoped the study would lead to changes regarding Radio-Canada’s “overwhelmingly” Quebec-centric programming.

Liberal Sen. Pierre De Bane told Lacroix his network is not a unifying force in Canada since it promotes two versions of the country.

Radio-Canada should be renamed “Radio-Quebec,” he said.

[Fritzthecat]

I'm just glad we have Global and CTV which are unbiased news agencies.

[Urbane]

A agree with this column from the Toronto Sun. This "independent study" will render "results" that will say that CBC plays it down the middle. Fox News could commission a study south of the border that could tell them what they want as well. I find CTV and Global to be far more down the middle than CBC. The CBC's liberal bias goes way back. I remember my dad, who was in radio news, talking about Liberal bias in the days of Mackenzie King and that's a long time ago.

Bias at the CBC? Who knew?

By QMI Agency

Last Updated: May 15, 2010 2:00am

Accusations of the CBC’s liberal news bias — which has migrated over the years from the water cooler to cyberspace — have likely been around since Lorne Greene struck his Bonanza and left CBC radio for the Ponderosa.

So it’s hardly new.

What’s new, and infuriating, is that CBC execs somehow think it’s new — so new to them, in fact, that they told a Senate finance committee this week of commissioning a supposedly independent review of its news gathering and delivery to see if such a bias truly exists.

We could have saved them a whole whack of cash — our cash, and your cash — by answering the question for them.

Is the CBC biased?

Answer: Is a royal flush a good hand?

The reality, of course, is that the CBC would not have such a privileged role in Canada if not for the billion-plus dollars that we taxpayers have to dish out every year to pay its way, unlike private enterprises like CTV and CanWest Global which have to survive — or see their stations silenced — by competing for their dollars on the fickle street of consumer and advertiser whimsy.

So it irks us to no end to see the CBC commissioning a review — at our expense — to pose a question with an answer so obvious that it should slap them upside the head.

Forget the recent stuff. Forget the appropriateness of the CBC using a Liberal Party donor as a pollster who then, on the taxpayers’ dime, suggested the CBC “bring on a culture war” to darken the Tories and illuminate the Liberals.

Forget shots by one senator that Radio-Canada should be called Radio-Quebec.

Such accusations, and the biases that bring them to the fore, have been systemic for years.

It irks us, too, that the CBC refused last week to comment on the study’s methodology because, as we all know, questions can be jerry-rigged to get whatever result is desired.

The “results,” though, will be released when available, as early as this fall, said CBC president Hubert Lacroix.

We can hardly wait.

Hopefully we will get what we paid for.

But we doubt it.

As for Lorne Greene’s Bonanza?

It’s an old TV show.

Look it up.

[coffeeFreak]

:dyinglaughing: :coffeecanuck: Is there such a beast?...media and unbiased is the ultimate oxymoron

[logicalview]

Try posting under "logicalview" on CBC and you'll find out if it is biased.

They approve 1 of every 10 pots that I make. The little friggers.

However when that certain mod is away all of my posts go through.

What posts don't make it? Right of center posts obviously.

Somebody told me that the mod might be one of our very own Castanet mods.

Imagine that.

[NAB]

Cut off public funding to the CBC, and just watch how fast their obvious bias changes to something more neutral. The idea of the CBC evaluating themselves for political bias is a joke. One need go no further than watch their news reports to see how individual news personalities and political program hosts play loose with and reflect their personal political bias, ...seemingly without any oversight or restrictions at all from their publicly funded ivory tower bosses. The CBC is long past their 'best before' date as to being a media entity that unifies Canada, and have become a media entity that divides Canada while being heavily subsidized by taxpayers as they do it.

Nab

[Fritzthecat]

Try posting under "logicalview" on CBC and you'll find out if it is biased.

They approve 1 of every 10 pots that I make. The little friggers.

However when that certain mod is away all of my posts go through.

What posts don't make it? Right of center posts obviously.

Somebody told me that the mod might be one of our very own Castanet mods.

Imagine that.

Maybe that should tell you something.... :dyinglaughing:

[coffeeFreak]

Cut off public funding to the CBC, and just watch how fast their obvious bias changes to something more neutral. The idea of the CBC evaluating themselves for political bias is a joke. One need go no further than watch their news reports to see how individual news personalities and political program hosts play loose with and reflect their personal political bias, ...seemingly without any oversight or restrictions at all from their publicly funded ivory tower bosses. The CBC is long past their 'best before' date as to being a media entity that unifies Canada, and have become a media entity that divides Canada while being heavily subsidized by taxpayers as they do it.

Nab

Do you really believe that all other networks are unbiased? All networks carry a bias; it would be impossible not to. Concentration of ownership, political agendas, advertising dollars all play a part in directing the news...

[Urbane]

Do you really believe that all other networks are unbiased? All networks carry a bias; it would be impossible not to. Concentration of ownership, political agendas, advertising dollars all play a part in directing the news...

Sometimes the bias is more obvious though. Fox News in the U.S. is waaaay off on the right and they tend to make things up and deliberately distort things. CBC is definitely biased . . . perhaps not as much to the left as Fox is to the right but clearly on the side of the Liberals with the NDP close behind. As I look at the CBC the two main stories now are the Afghan detainee story and the Guergis/Jaffer situation but I doubt that most Canadians are really riveted to either of those stories.

[bcbudrockz69]

Try posting under "logicalview" on CBC and you'll find out if it is biased.

They approve 1 of every 10 pots that I make. The little friggers.

However when that certain mod is away all of my posts go through.

What posts don't make it? Right of center posts obviously.

Somebody told me that the mod might be one of our very own Castanet mods.

Imagine that.

thats ur problem,, being right of center :dyinglaughing:

[c2c]

At least the CBC has the integrity to have an independent evaluation of potential bias. One can’t say the same for the CTV.

The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council issued two negative rulings against CTV over its political coverage of Dion during the last federal election. One was against CTV Newsnet's public affairs discussion program Mike Duffy Live Prime Time. Duffy has since left the show and is serving as a Conservative senator.

http://www.canada.com/news/slapped+broa ... story.html

[NAB]

I do not necessarily agree that the other networks are politically and socially biased, at least not as blatantly as the CBC in my view.

But that is a rather irrelevant comparison anyway, since the others do not exist on billions of dollars in forced financial support from the Canadian taxpayer whether they watch it or not.

Also, if we are going to financially support the ongoing development of Canadian culture and arts, ...I would rather see those billions go direct to the organizations involved (provided they can demonstrate they do not have a political agenda) , rather than be filtered through the bias of just those who run and work for the CBC.

Perhaps even in that way those groups would prosper or fail based on supplying what the audience wants, rather than just catering to the left wing bias of a unique viewer minority, ....who typically see themselves as some sort of political, social, educational, and/or cultural elite.

Nab

[Merry]

I don't believe there is a news program or newspaper in existance that isn't at least a bit biased in it's reporting, but it's true that the bias of some are more obvious than others. That said, my biggest beef with privately funded news programs is their tendency to run thinly veiled "ads" under the guise of being "news".

[Liberty and Truth]

I do not necessarily agree that the other networks are politically and socially biased, at least not as blatantly as the CBC in my view.

But that is a rather irrelevant comparison anyway, since the others do not exist on billions of dollars in forced financial support from the Canadian taxpayer whether they watch it or not.

Also, if we are going to financially support the ongoing development of Canadian culture and arts, ...I would rather see those billions go direct to the organizations involved (provided they can demonstrate they do not have a political agenda) , rather than be filtered through the bias of just those who run and work for the CBC.

Perhaps even in that way those groups would prosper or fail based on supplying what the audience wants, rather than just catering to the left wing bias of a unique viewer minority, ....who typically see themselves as some sort of political, social, educational, and/or cultural elite.

Nab

Good points Nab. It really chaps my butt that my tax dollars go to funding lying scum like David Suzuki. There's a program "The Nature of Things" that does nothing but misinform, sensationalize and fear-monger, and Suzuki draws a cheque right from our tax coffers to do it. Time to put that lunatic out to CBC pasture where he can play with Mr. Dress-Up and the Beachcombers.

[bcbudrockz69]

I do not necessarily agree that the other networks are politically and socially biased, at least not as blatantly as the CBC in my view.

But that is a rather irrelevant comparison anyway, since the others do not exist on billions of dollars in forced financial support from the Canadian taxpayer whether they watch it or not.

Also, if we are going to financially support the ongoing development of Canadian culture and arts, ...I would rather see those billions go direct to the organizations involved (provided they can demonstrate they do not have a political agenda) , rather than be filtered through the bias of just those who run and work for the CBC.

Perhaps even in that way those groups would prosper or fail based on supplying what the audience wants, rather than just catering to the left wing bias of a unique viewer minority, ....who typically see themselves as some sort of political, social, educational, and/or cultural elite.

Nab

Good points Nab. It really chaps my butt that my tax dollars go to funding lying scum like David Suzuki. There's a program "The Nature of Things" that does nothing but misinform, sensationalize and fear-monger, and Suzuki draws a cheque right from our tax coffers to do it. Time to put that lunatic out to CBC pasture where he can play with Mr. Dress-Up and the Beachcombers.

look to the gulf mexico see if suziki is wrong . im sick of big oil ruining our planet and lieing through their teeth