Comments on: The Image-Wrecking Two-Step: Lessons from the Media Record

By: P. Brohm

P. Brohm — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 13:17:44 +0000

Stephen Harper doesn’t need to worry about eastern media assasinating his image, he can do it all by himself. In less than 2 months he’s already set the country back 10 yrs. Long awaited child care program dumped, what good is $1200. per child per yr. going to do when day care is $25+ per day??? Oh yes, lets all get passports so we can cross the paranoid american border & kill tourism at the same time! Let’s chase down those marijauna smokers, harrass and jail them all, that’ll make a big difference. We suffered under a minority govt. where almost everyone in the house acted abominably, no worthwhile business could be conducted and it looks like it’s going to carry on again. We can only hope that out of this morass a leader of character, vision and integrity that reflects the tolerance of Canadians will arise. I can assure you that man is “not” Stephen Harper!

By: ThePolitic - Canadian Political Weblog » Globe and Mail Continues Ontario Media’s Character Assassination Campaign against Harper

Tue, 21 Jun 2005 14:35:33 +0000

[...] rrelevancies used to slander Preston Manning — all the endless cheap shots about his glasses, hair and voice? Now they’ [...]

By: DJeffery

DJeffery — Sun, 19 Jun 2005 23:29:17 +0000

OTOH: Life and Times is based on a life well lived. Undoubtably, CBC would give credit to Preston once he is no longer a threat, but while he was leader it was no holds barred. As for ‘Media as a whole tends to reflect its audience ‘, it’s been my impression that people in Central Canada seem to have their ideas formed for them by the media, rather than vice versa. To be fair, perhaps the busy lifestyle of Toronto forces them to have opinion regurgitated to them. It seems the MSM were particularly shocked when Stephen Harper won 4 non-confidence votes in a row and have been particularly virulent in their character assassination ever since.

By: Max West

Max West — Sun, 19 Jun 2005 17:31:41 +0000

OTOH: How is it possible to interpret dozens of sneering references to Manning’s hair, voice and glasses as anything other than deliberate putdowns, mostly by the Ontario press? If that’s not enough evidence for you of systematic bias, then nothing ever will be.

It’s not a “conspiracy theory.” It’s evidence of bias, which is something very different. If you think you’ve been reading about a “conspiracy” in all these posts, you haven’t understood what you’re reading.

By: OTOH

OTOH — Sun, 19 Jun 2005 15:43:29 +0000

Max,

I’ve read your posts - and I simply assert that your conspiracy theory is derived from a gross misinterpretation of the circumstances. The very things you cite as evidence of a conspiracy can validly be interpreted a merely reflective of a different perspective on the part of the writers.

It’s not a matter of “research”, but a matter of how one interprets the findings. All I’m doing is challenging you to step out of your assumptions and consider that there are other ways to see the situation. If you simply start from the base assumption that ‘Central Canada is out to hose the ROC’, I believe you come to conclusions about the situation that are counter-productive to the political dialogue in this country.

By: Max West

Max West — Sun, 19 Jun 2005 04:19:48 +0000

Evidence, OTOH. We’ve done a fair amount of work to bring you lots and lots of evidence in several posts. All you’ve done is a little typing off the top of your head. Get back to us when you’ve done your homework.

By: OTOH

OTOH — Sat, 18 Jun 2005 23:31:39 +0000

Your analysis misses a key point - you keep complaining about the CBC, and yet you fail to recognize that the ‘Life and Times’ references are quite positive towards Mr. Manning. (One has to wonder, in such a situation, if the allegation of “anti-western bias” is true in fact, or merely a perception)

You have conveniently omitted the fact that by the time Manning did his ‘image makeover’, the party was already suffering an image problem as being predominantly a “western protest party”, allied with the religious right. Most of the quotes that you put forward speak loudly to a great deal of skepticism towards the party itself - a clue perhaps that outside of Alberta the Reform party was not seen in a positive light. (Media as a whole tends to reflect its audience - it’s notable that you don’t have any quotes from the era from Alberta (esp. Calgary) media sources - those would no doubt be much less critical in tone)

As previously pointed out, the CPC has a significant image problem - and it stems from the early Reform days. A degree of ‘yeah, sure you’ve changed’ skepticism comes with just changing the paint job. The CPC/Alliance/Reform/{nom du jour} party has to work to build some trust among the voters - whether Harper can start doing that on the BBQ/Rubber Chicken circuit remains to be seen. Given his performance to date, I don’t think the media is conducting a ‘character assassination’ so much as Harper has committed ‘leadership suicide’. Of course, coming from nearly the bottom, it should be easy for him to achieve at least some measurable gains in the coming months.