Keeping it Real…

If there is one question …or suggestion … that has cropped up more than any other, since I began this blog, it’s the belief by many that there is a conspiracy by the mainstream media  to promote a right-wing agenda.

It’s very easy to see how this belief can develop: just take a look at The National Post; listen to Michael Campbell on CKNW; and/or watch the easy ride given to Premier Gordon Campbell on the television news …  and I believe it would be easy to conclude there is a right-wing bias in the major media.

But a “conspiracy”?  Pretty strong stuff! Is there a conspiracy?

Who better than a reporter from China’s Xinhua News Agency to answer that!  We met as “confreres” many years ago, when I was President of the Legislative Press Gallery in Victoria, and he was a Xinhua correspondent, based in Ottawa.

Our paths crossed during his working visit to B.C. and, in our discussions, it was clear we saw our reporting roles quite differently: mine, more issue/crisis driven; his more ideologically programmed. And I felt pretty smug that our system was much better: after all, I had much more freedom and independence in my writing/reporting.

This was reinforced, in my mind, when  I mentioned I would be visiting Ottawa on vacation, and this “reporter” offered me an embassy car to drive me around to various venues, while touring my national capital. I declined (although the idea of having a chauffeur was indeed tempting! .   And over lunch in Ottawa, I pointed to this offer as another indication of how different our systems are: he was part of the “system” but I was an uncompromised,  independent reporter, free in a democratic society to write it as I see it!

Really?, my Xinhua friend wondered.  True, he said, he was restricted to writing “news” from a certain perspective, and under certain expected “rules”, clearly supporting his system’s ideology. But so did I, he argued.  The only difference, he said was that my “censorship” took place in the hiring process: by the time I made it to the “big” leagues of the media (The Vancouver Sun and later BCTV) my corporate bosses already knew my views, my ideology and my reliability to support their system!

It was quite a shock to my ego … but the more I have thought about it (and our media) over the decades, my Xinhua  media brother was quite right. Had I been a decidedly left-wing (or even radical right-wing) writer, reporter, I would likely not have made it beyond the Saskatoon Star Phoenix to the Regina Leader Post, let alone to the Vancouver Sun and BCTV … as both Legislative reporter and Ottawa Bureau Chief.

I was middle of the road, safe, and ideologically reliable.  Sure, over the years, I was able to raise a lot of hell with politicians in power from every perspective … maybe more so than  most …   but always within the “reliable” parameters of my training, experience and basic center of the road ideology.

The Compact Oxford dictionary describes a “conspiracy” as “a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful and harmful”.  So NO, I do not believe there is a conspiracy by media moguls and their “neo-con lackies” , as so many on the left like to believe and suggest  … because it is simply not needed.

Through hiring and management controls, my view is the media conglomerates and moguls now achieve their objectives and promote their agendas without any need to conspire with their supporters or competitors.

But in recent years,   it HAS become worse (more blatant, more strident, more unashamedly one-sided)  …   leading to their reduced credibility and the loss of readers, viewers and listeners.

Next blog … how and why this disaster has befallen our media .. and how they can stop the bleeding, and save their own future.

Harv Oberfeld 

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