Monday, September 01, 2008

The Spin Starts Here

He's back. Beginning tomorrow evening Mike Duffy will return to his show and habit of denigrating the Liberals and chuckling with the Conservatives as he does it.

He made a brief appearance today to comment on Dion and Harper's meeting. Did he reflect over the summer on how to present a more balanced view/show? Not a chance. Same old Duff, ready and willing to present in detail the Conservative strategy in the upcoming election without providing a similar outline of the Lib's. In fact, while detailing the Con strategy, he even fails to mention the inaccuracy of the claims he suggests they'll be making.

Surprised? Of course not. CTV, or at least their political team is now unabashedly a mouth piece for the Con's. I bet you think I'm exaggerating and just whining about media bias don't you? Well you can listen to Craig Oliver yesterday telling us that he 'hates' the Green Shift Carbon Tax here. (Silly me. I somehow was under the impression that journalists view's on policy were irrelevant.) Or, if you prefer, you can listen to Jane Taber completely dismiss the fact that the Liberals are in the running, by asking yet more reporters, whether it will be a Conservative minority or majority, here.

Anyway, it looks like we are back into the thick of it. Political shows will air again and the chatter and coverage that elections bring with them will be non stop. Included in that coverage will be some good reporting and accurate feature pieces. There will also of course be poor reporting and obvious bias.

Fasten your seat belts and keep your eyes and ears open.

29 comments:

penlan said...

Soon after Dion came out & spoke to the press, after the meeting, Kory T came out & said:

"It's obvious the opposition want an election".

What BS. Each leader of the other parties went in & asked Harper to reconsider & try to make Parliament work, etc. But now it's THEIR fault there will be an election? Well you knew that was coming. And it will be spun to the max.

If Steve (Mr. Pouty) can't have his way he dissolves Parliament, well the GG actually, but takes NO responsibility for his, & his thugs, part in anything. What a creep.

I never watch Duffy. I can't. He just turns my stomach. I watch Politics with Newman.

It's all going to come fast & furious & I truly hope the MSM gives equal time to all involved. Fat chance. Guess I'm getting more cynical by the day, or hour.

Anonymous said...

ee

Karen said...

penlan, I understand why you don't watch Duffy. It indeed is tough to digest.

I do watch though, because I know many Canadians are watching and being misinformed.

My blogging about it won't change that, but it often brings up good ideas on how to counter the spin.

Newman is a must of course and I really hope Kady get's a spot again. Not just because she featured my blog a few times, lol, but because it opens up his audience to a new way of looking at the news, including of course, Kady's way and what Macleans is doing in general.

Steve V said...

knb

You READ MY MIND. When I saw Duffy come on, it was frankly amazing to listen to him. Having disappeared for the summer, he comes on, and immediately you are reminded of his glaring Conservative bias. Has their been one column or article in the last two weeks commenting on Harper's brilliance in holding these meetings to set the stage for an election? Leave it too Duff to push the chess master role, with his silly smirk. I watched it, and thought, oh christ, this guy is coming back. The PMO just got their nightly hour long programming back. What a transparent hack.

Anonymous said...

C'mon...you Liblogs are never happy unless everything media outlet has a Liberal bias and spin...any media outlet that is even close to being fair is considered anti Liberal. You have the highly partisan Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, the very left leaning CBC and most of the major dailies across the country. Of course this inability to present a fair and balanced view have hurt their readership and profits......
CTV is far from leaning towards the Conservatives...Jane Taber and Craig Oliver have long been pro-Liberal...one only has to look at their line of questioning and their daily comments. Mike Duffy simply calls them as he sees it../and he had often critized the Tories...it just that were a little more hardened to this constant media bias and have developed a much thicker skin over the years.
This is an Election that the (3) opposition parties are on the record of wanting...all have indicated they were going to vote against the governement...lets stop the charade..Dion is getting what he wanted and what he indicated he was going to do anyway.
He is publicly on the record of claiming parliament is dysfunctional...clearly he has instructed his committee chairs to be highly partian, one only has to look at the highly partisan paul Szabo...
So stop the whining, you are simply getting what you have asked for.

Steve V said...

cliff

You are one ignorant fool, do some homework.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Stevie...
The Old Liberal stand by...when the facts don't align...simply start the name calling...
Those darn old facts are tough aren't they...

Steve V said...

"when the facts don't align...simply start the name calling...
Those darn old facts are tough aren't they..."

Are you for real?? You actually said this:


" most of the major dailies across the country."

Go look at who own's what, then get back to me. Like I said, ignorant fool, and THE FACTS DON'T LIE.

John W said...

Of course. CTV knows that a Conservative majority will mean the end of their main competition, the CBC, at least as we know it.

Anonymous said...

Stevie...The name calling continues...that is why the Liberals are left with the majority of their seats in the big cities...with very little Red in the rest of the country...now why do you think that is...again...don't you hate these FACTS...and where do your star candidates run...why, in the big cities of course...don't want to take too much of a risk...
Again a few more facts...
I know...more name callin is on the way...when the facts don't align...that is what the left will do....

Anonymous said...

Well John...I doubt that would be true, but we can hope...it would save the Canadian Taxpayer a billion plus dollars per year...and...is it really needed in todays information technolgy age?

Mr McKinnon said...

Duffy infests my nightly newscast! He drives me bonkers!

Karen said...

Steve, fair is fair. You read my mind all the time, lol.

Yup, we have this hack to deal with once again.

I'd really like the Lib's to point out the flaws of his coverage though.

ie - Just the occasional 'that's not accurate Duff, but good try'.

Calling them out is going to be the name of the game.

Karen said...

He is publicly on the record of claiming parliament is dysfunctional...

Link to that quote please, oh, and not the one where he is repeating what Harper said but the media take it out of context.

You prove my point.

and most of the major dailies across the country.

Are you insane? Do you have any knowledge of who owns the media in this country?

Apparently you do not.

Karen said...

john, sad, scary and true.

liberazzi said...

G&M - fair both ways. Too call them Lib or Con is just ignorant.
Sun - pulease
Natpost - Con mouthpiece
Star - liberal yes, but Hebert et al, have given Dion a rough ride at times.
CTV - bandwagon jumpers. Duffy certainly has some Con leanings, which is why I prefer when the other guy, who's name escapes me at the moment, when he runs the show, as he is more down the middle.
CBC - fair both ways, its just more Con bullshit to say otherwise. Newman does a good job at calling the Cons on their nonsense. Is that a Liberal bias or just not letting the Cons get away with their horseshit? For instance, when James Moore was trying to peddle that expert witness crap or whenever Barney Rubble is on.

RuralSandi said...

KNB - Cliff aka perhaps Jonathon aka Tom Robinson....is hassling Liberal bloggers today, like Red Tory.

Filter or delete might be a good idea.

He's obnoxious and has no idea of facts.

Mike Duffy claims he tries to be fair - ya, right. He has on right wing radio talk jocks, apparently Flannigan is going to be a regular strategist on his show, etc.

You see, CPC supporters have trouble thinking for themselves - Harper "purposely" declared Liberal bias in the media to manipulate his supporters and make excuses for his failings - and those lame brains fell for it.

The only Liberal media I can think of is the Toronto Star, split - the Globe and Mail and ALL the rest are Conservative.

CPC supporters can do math you see, so they believe 1 is 100.

Don't you just love with when Duffy "begs" for emails....and mocks and smirks at those who disagree with him or have a complaint - what a jerk.

Perhaps CTV should be made aware that viewers don't take kindly to being made fun of and mocked.

Or, hey - maybe their sponsors - money talks.

RuralSandi said...

CPC supporters can do math you see, so they believe 1 is 100.


Whoops....meant to say "CAN'T do math"....

Sorry

Anonymous said...

My favourite Duffy moment was when the manager of the Parliament Cafeteria gave Dion's running tab to Duffy to see if some publicity might get Dion to actually take care of it. It seems Dion kept buying lunch on a tab but never bothered to pay it, even when asked.

I wonder if Dion ever paid it? God that was funny.

MERBOY said...

Cliff said...

"that is why the Liberals are left with the majority of their seats in the big cities...with very little Red in the rest of the country"

I love that the Conservatives have been campaigning in power often with taxpayer money for the last two years and yet they aren't ahead of where they were in 2006 even with a supposed weak opposition... sad sad sad.

Anonymous said...

You liblogs are really quite humourous with your media comments...as I said previously, unless a media outlet 100% left leaning...then the liblogs consider them anti-liberal...imagine any rational person claiming the CBC isn't left leaning...they sometimes even go so far as to re-broadcast BBC programming...it time to take your head out of the sand and look at the facts...
Or as one of you had indicated...you could block me...after all that is the CBC way of dealing with issues...block all right of center commnetary...
Ahh...the good old Liberal way of doing things.....

Anonymous said...

And Merboy...then why are you liblogs so scared of an election...you have been doing your anti-Harper jibberish for the past (3) years...plus all the publicity of a leadership convention...and where are you guys at in the polls...and where are all your financial supporters...oh the party Corporate Elite are now restricted in their fundraising efforts...oh well you still have that adsam money socked away somewhere.....

MERBOY said...

Cliff said...

"you have been doing your anti-Harper jibberish for the past (3) years"

Yeah I'm pretty sure questioning the government and its leader is basically the oppositions' job... maybe you could explain to me how a non stop 2 year ad campaign criticizing the opposition partly funded by taxpayers is the governing party's job... oh no good reason... that's what I thought.

Frankly Canadian said...

One thing the good people of this blog site can take credit for, is making the real facts public knowledge and then posting these facts on the internet to be exposed to the Canadian People. When is the last time you saw a young Canadian sit down to watch the news? never? Young people today do everything on-line, what we do need though is to get more of that youth involved, maybe via educators or scholastic institutions. At any rate one thing I took away from the town hall meeting with Michael Ignatieff was to try not to waste too much energy on changing the opinions of people who won't listen to reason, and try to get the message out to people who don't always here that message again and again and again (limit preaching to the choir). I believe part of Barrack Obama's huge success is because he thought outside the box, the American's have the same media bias problem there as well. The media bias comes from profit pure and simple! the more they promote governments who will look after their best interest the more they look after those governments and the more those governments look after the media companies via advertising, plain and simple. The intelligent people who write these blogs daily need to continue to find ways to raise viewership, and the people who read these blogs need to continue forwarding the good blogs to other family members and friends, to raise interest. Anyways don't worry about bad media, they do also have moments where they can be informative.

Anonymous said...

Cliff is another example of a conservative who only trolls around trying to create a fuss, all the while hiding his or her identity, cowardly hiding behind the internet.

That's probably to hide the can of spray paint in his hand.

As for facts, they get in the way so much that cons twist the truth so much it becomes as if they almost believe it.

A fixed election date in law, which contains no qualifiers about loop holes around minority governments, is a very interesting case in point. The spin in the face of these facts cause even the most naive person to become cynical.

penlan said...

knb,

You have a much stronger fortitude than I to be able to watch & listen to Duffy - kudos to you!

I know it's important to know what is being said, & spun, by these biased show hosts/reporters so that the spin can be unspun & the facts are told. I can find that in places other than Duffy's. My aversion to him is so strong & I don't need my blood pressure rising anymore than where it is already.

I find Newman more middle of the road & have seen him come down hard on Liberals, as well as Cons, when he feels they aren't forthcoming or are just repeating the same talking points/propaganda in the segment over & over ad nauseum.

I'm looking forward to watching Newman today - it will be interesting & I've missed the show. Have fun at Duffy's. ;)

Anonymous said...

Mike Duffy does light infotaining interviews but he tends to have good panels and is genuinely liked by politicos in Ottawa.

I like him too.

Karen said...

anon, good for you. He may be a nice guy, but that doesn't take away from the bias reporting he does.

penlan, I watch both of course and Duffy didn't disappoint tonight.

Conservatives in MAJORITY territory, was one of his lines. It's absolute BS though his enthusiasm may play to our favour.

It's early days my friends, but that is no reason to be complacent.

penlan said...

knb - Duffy will never disappoint, at least you can count on him for that.

Newman sure was "peppy" yesterday...lol...sounded like he was glad to be back on the air! Haven't seem him that animated in a long time.