Living With Media Bias

Sometimes there’s no easy way past a problem. I’ve suggested as much in the context of public healthcare delivery in Canada. Rather than tying ourselves into expensive knots looking for solutions that aren’t there, perhaps we’re better off accepting imperfection and making the best of what we have.

Claims of political bias at the CBC are an excellent case in point. Last week, we all became aware of a policy memo blocking use of the word “terrorist” in connection with the 9/11 attacks unless there was direct attribution. It seems CBC employees could report how “U.S. officials claimed the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon were the result of terrorism”. But something like “Tomorrow is the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks” would not be allowed.

After heavy push back from many directions - likely including some focused political communication from cabinet - the CBC backed down. They’ve since reversed their policy (or at least the public-facing version).

From the outside it looks like the officials behind that memo are uncomfortable passing moral judgement on the violent habits of the folks at Al Qaeda and Hamas. And it’s unlikely that the public retreat will change anything.

My earlier analysis of story selection, interpretation, and institutional viewpoint bias at CBC left me confident I’d identified a pronounced left-leaning tilt. That identification has only been reinforced in the months since my original research.

But I can assure you - with equal confidence - that that’s definitely not how CBC leaders see it. Take former CBC ombudsman Jack Nagler’s 2024 report. He acknowledged that 55 percent of the 1,882 complaints he received concerning CBC coverage of the Gaza war focused on the network’s unfair treatment of Israel. But apparently the other 45 percent complained about unfair treatment of Palestinians.

With some justification, insiders can take numbers like those and conclude their coverage is exactly where it should be: they’re annoying everyone equally.

That may be so. But what does it say about the reliability of their product? If, like Jack Nagler’s 1,882 pen pals, you don’t trust CBC’s claim of neutrality, how is their reporting useful to you?

Official numbers tell us that only a low single-digit percentage of Canadians actually tune into CBC News - or, for that matter to any of their broadcast and digital content. It seems that most Canadians have already voted with their feet.

Parliamentary funding for the CBC has come unstuck from public consumption. The corporation’s ever-growing allocations are paid out entirely as the result of a political choice.

Canadians, of course, are free to get their news wherever they like. Some will go with outlets that wear their bias proudly. Others will prefer platforms that at least try to deliver objective reporting in the news section and opinions through op-eds and X feeds. Fewer and fewer will bother with CBC.

Given there’s no obvious way to solve whatever it is that ails CBC, perhaps the next best thing is to simply ignore it.

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