The right-leaning Globe and Mail just published an article: Free-trade deal with EU could cost thousands of Canadian factory jobs.This is not really news, as many people have been sounding the alarm.
But what I found interesting was that while the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, provided statistics to validate their claim, the Globe felt it necessary to add the disclaimer: "The centre is a left-leaning think tank."
What the hell?
Do we then just dismiss the story as being left-leaning and without merit? This is balanced reporting?
The media quotes the Fraser Institute, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and the Manning Centre for Democracy all the time, and never refer to them as 'right-leaning think tanks'.
This is inexcusable. But then so is the Globe and Mail calling themselves a real newspaper.
I growl and grind my teeth (grind my dentures doesn't sound quite right) when I think of old papers like the Globe and Mail descending into the depths of partisanism like this.
ReplyDeleteWhen I started in the newspaper business in the 60s, there were rules for good writing and one of them was "be impartial"! Oh, sure, one Vancouver paper could be identified as "Liberal" and the other as "Conservative" but not in their news stories.
Reporters had to be impartial. Editorials could reflect the opinions of the writer, and columnists could pretty much say whatever they wanted. But reporters had to stick to the facts and not inject their opinions, which, if found in a story, were immediately crossed out by copy-editors on the city desk.
Even words like "pretty" and "handsome" were pencilled out of cutlines (photo captions) if the deskman thought the writer was trying to influence the public or, worse still, the subject of the photo.
Political affiliation could be mentioned only to identify someone's job or candidacy: "Liberal MP" or "Conservative candidate" or "secretary of the downtown Green Party headquarters", not that we had a Green party in those days, so let's say "Social Credit party headquarters"!!
But those were the rules. Reporters had to report, not discuss, elaborate, speculate, or, heaven forbid, fudge.
It's very sad Kay
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