Because I’ve continued to be active politically in the 10 yearssince I began writing a newspaper column (yes, this really is my tenthanniversary column), I’ve often faced criticism for being biased. My defenseagainst these charges is quite simple: “Of course I’m biased.” By making myown politics a matter of public record, I believe I’m being fair and openwith readers, while providing them with a perspective that they don’tgenerally get in the mainstream media.

What I take issue with is the notion that the rest of the news media aresomehow free from bias. The truth is that Canadian media are rife withright-wing bias, but they persist in maintaining a veneer of balance. Onedoesn’t have to scratch the surface very hard to see how thin that veneeractually is, and how close the ties are between the media, right-wingpolitical parties and the ubiquitous conservative think tanks.

Take, as just one example, the news program Global Sunday, hosted byDanielle Smith (from the editorial board of the Calgary Herald, Global’ssister publication). Smith is the former Executive Director of the CanadianProperty Rights Research Institute (a seemingly defunct organization whichfought smoking restrictions and other grave affronts to personal freedom)and a former researcher with the Fraser Institute.

She’s married to SeanMcKinsley, former Executive Assistant to Alliance MPs Art Hanger and JasonKenney and former Executive Director of the Alberta Taxpayers Association(an affiliate of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, formerly headed byKenney).

Together with Matthew Johnston, McKinsley formed the polling andcommunications company JMCK Inc. (publishers of the epic work “Fight Kyoto”by former Alliance spokesperson Ezra Levant). You might remember Johnston asthe former Executive Assistant to Alliance MP Rahim Jaffer — a position heheld until he got caught trying to impersonate his boss on a radiointerview.

Johnston also succeeded Smith as Executive Director of CanPRRI and served asPresident of Teaching Liberty Inc. (a company “committed to advancing theprinciples of personal freedom and limited government through education”),all while he was still working for Jaffer. Of course, Jaffer didn’t disclosethe connection when he stood up in the House of Commons to demand charitabletax status for CanPRRI, nor did he ever explain why his position paper onthe Endangered Species Act read like a reprint of a CanPRRI paper authoredby Smith.

If your head isn’t already spinning, hold on — it gets better. Who do yousuppose are the primary clients for JMCK’s research? Give yourself top marksif you picked any of the following: the Canadian Alliance, the CanadianTaxpayers Federation, the Calgary Herald and Global News.

Last weekend,Smith hosted NDP leader Jack Layton on Global Sunday and confronted him withthe results of a recent JMCK poll that put the NDP in fourth place, at amere 10 per cent (an Environics poll conducted in the same time period placed theNDP in second, at 15 per cent). She didn’t mention that her husband was President ofJMCK, or that JMCK had a history of being wildly out of sync with otherpollsters.

The Fraser Institute is another prime launching pad forright-wingers interested in gaining a foothold in the media. Mark Mullins,the Institute’s Director of Ontario Policy Studies, co-wrote the CommonSense Revolution and gave it his economist’s stamp of approval. In hiscurrent posting, Mullins is able to release studies, columns and articlesthat advance the Fraser Institute’s extreme agenda — all of which seem tobe covered at length, with little opportunity for rebuttal. For sheerentertainment value, my favourite was the one that purported to demonstratethat public auto insurance made driving more dangerous.

Showing theincredible chutzpah unique to Conservatives, Mullins has even spoken up onOntario’s current fiscal situation, which he describes as follows: “PremierDalton McGuinty’s new Ontario government is running a $5.6-billion deficit.”Not surprisingly, Mullins prescribes cuts to health and education spendingas the cure for this deficit, as if that worked for Mike Harris and ErnieEves.

The Ottawa Citizen is now virtually a subsidiary of the FraserInstitute. Former editor Neil Reynolds, once president of the Libertarian Partyof Canada, brought in William Watson, a former Fraser Institute executivemember, as editorial page editor, and also added John Robson, another FraserInstitute veteran, to the editorial board. Small wonder that the Instituteis able to brag about “over 4,000 media stories (a year) on The FraserInstitute, which totalled over 135,000 column inches of print coverage andtranslated into over $9 million in advertising equivalency. Advertisingequivalency is a measure used in the communications field to assess therelative impact of editorial coverage compared to what it would cost topurchase equivalent space in newspapers or in broadcast media.”

But, whoneeds to buy advertising when the media are willing to uncriticallyregurgitate your right-wing agenda?

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Scott Piatkowski

Scott Piatkowski is a former columnist for rabble.ca. He wrote a weekly column for 13 years that appeared in the Waterloo Chronicle, the Woolwich Observer and ECHO Weekly. He has also written for Straight...