National Post Drinks Fraser Institute’s Bathwater
The Fraser Institute is winning 6-0, at least in terms of The National Post’s coverage of its flawed study on stimulus. On March 24, The National Post reported this study on its front page while its business section, The Financial Post, ran an op-ed by the study’s authors.
A couple of days later, The National Post published a column by Lorne Gunter endorsing the study. About a week later, The Financial Post featured another op-ed by the study’s authors, a column by Terry Corcoran that endorsed it, and a column by Peter Foster that also endorsed it.
So, the Post has printed a total of six pieces promoting the one Fraser Institute study! Meanwhile, it has printed nothing on the other side of the debate, not even a single letter to the editor.
Of course, the Post is a right-wing newspaper, so I am not surprised that it agrees with the Fraser Institute on stimulus (and other issues). However, I have tended to respect its past willingness to engage with opposing viewpoints. But on this item, the Post has fallen far below any standard of fair play.
UPDATE (April 7): The score is now 7-1.
What a great title.
I very much agree with Travis, above.
Except, I would make a slight clarification to make it clear, based on the evidence so far, that the NaPo, in fact, actually is the Fraser Institutes bathwater.
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The interesting thing about the Post is that it has always lost money, yet is still in business. Let’s say that it is living proof that business is not about profit maximization. It has propaganda value so its losses were subsidized by Canwest, and by Conrad Black before the Aspers. The losses buy influence over public opinion which is more important to the owners than the red ink generated by the newspaper. Plus newspapers are fun to own, and people like to run them.
The Post had more influence on the move to the right than anything else in Canada in my opinion. When the FP became the NatPost I asked their business editor if he would take regular submissions from CCPA researchers, and he said no. They were one-sided from day one, and I imagine they will remain so, unless alternative ownership could be found.
yes and the rubber is definitely hitting the road on losses with newspapers given the various new mediums for delivery. Oddly enough the mainstream seems to quantify many newspapers as leaning left, especially down south. We do have fundamental problems when it comes to delivery of news and bias. One would hope for balance but given the resource imbalance, its no wonder the neo-con agenda has done so well.
I wish Marcuse was still alive, I wonder what he would have thought about the internet. One dimensional man got his name for a reason and a commodified culture sure fed into beating down notions of organized resistance. I still believe with the internet, at least new spaces of low cost debate have opened up- just look at this blog. Will these spaces change much- we are still early in development but the I-pad is coming!!!
When Americans say newspapers “lean left”, they mean they’re not fundamentalist Christian anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-sex-education, anti-contraception nutjobs. “Leaning left” isn’t considered to be about economic issues, because even talking about the idea that there could be a spectrum of opinion on economic issues is avoided in the US.