media bias Archives - Page 7 of 10

Questions about Frank Graves

There’s a bit of chatter about today’s Ekos poll, but a lot of it has been about its pollster Frank Graves. As with anything in politics, there’s a problem when the messenger becomes the story rather than the message they are delivering.

A few press gallery flacks were all a-twitter at a new meme they perceived to be emerging from the Liberal benches during Question Period: “The Conservative Culture of Deceit”. Obviously more of a play on Stephen Harper’s “Culture of Defeat” remark about Atlantic Canada than the Justice Gomery’s remarks of a Liberal “Culture of Entitlement”.

The “Culture of Defeat” written for Harper in 2001 posed problems for the Conservative brand in Atlantic Canada and what made it particularly damaging was a bit of history on uncouth remarks about the region by another member of one of the Conservative’s legacy parties, the Canadian Alliance.

Back in 2000, Alliance pollster John Mykytyshyn went adrift in some turbulent seas when he remarked “[Atlantic Canadians] don’t want to do like our ancestors did and work for a living and go where the jobs are. Probably, the Alliance won’t go over as well there.”

Indeed, after these comments, the Alliance did not “go over” well in Atlantic Canada and it has taken years to climb back from these words.

Mykytyshyn told me, “as an unpaid volunteer, I was subjected to 13 days of media coverage on this based on an offhand comment that I apologized for, and the CBC did a 10 minute special on the incident.”

Fast forward to today, where we learn that the CBC’s EKOS pollster is also advising the Liberal Party of Canada giving the party strategic direction on the sentiment of the electorate.

Among Graves’ advice?

“I told them that they should invoke a culture war. Cosmopolitanism versus parochialism, secularism versus moralism, Obama versus Palin, tolerance versus racism and homophobia, democracy versus autocracy. If the cranky old men in Alberta don’t like it, too bad. Go south and vote for Palin.”

Start a culture war? I remember years and years of Liberal criticism about Conservatives dividing Canadians, “pitting region against region”. The Liberal Party branded itself as the party that “unites” Canadians rather than divides. The only thing the Liberal Party is not known to divide these days are leadership debts and the cheque at Carmello’s — someone else will pick it up.

But the CBC’s attachment to Graves is particularly conflicted since it erupted when Mykytyshyn made those unfortunate and divisive remarks, driving it home to every east-coaster watching or listening to Canada’s state-funded broadcaster. And now? Our tax dollars pad Graves’ bottom line as he advises the Liberals on how to “stop worrying about the West” as Lawrence Martin reports him saying. Further, the CBC is using him to provide objective, research-driven advice on party politics yet he is giving advice to one party.

Division does work in politics. But when the Conservatives own the right side of the entitled vs. ordinary split what’s left? Demonization of entire constituencies, provinces and regions of people is the politics of desperation. It always fails.

UPDATE: Kory Teneycke unloads on Graves on CBC’s Power & Politics. Teneycke pointed out Graves’ donation record to the Liberal Party. The Sun points out donations totaling $11,042.72 to the Liberal Party including the leadership campaigns of Ignatieff and Rae with just $449.04 going to a Tory candidate in Ottawa-Vanier.

I emailed Richard Stursberg, the executive VP of CBC/Radio Canada about this:

Was CBC aware of Frank Graves’ financial donations to the Liberal Party of Canada and his current advisory role to that party? And given this revelation, does CBC now believe that this presents a conflict of interest in how it reports research and analysis from EKOS/Graves concerning public opinion of federal party politics?

Here is the CBC’s reply,

Hi Stephen:

Your email to Richard Stursberg was referred to me for a response.

We will let Frank Graves of Ekos comment on the nature of his relationship with political parties. I believe he made a public statement on the subject earlier today.

I can confirm that CBC News uses Ekos, along with several other large, national firms, as a source of polling data, as do other media organizations. The data we receive is carefully reviewed and vetted by our own research department and is presented, in accordance with our own journalistic standards and practices (available on our website) fairly, accurately and without bias. We disagree with your suggestion that any conflict of interest exists with regard to either our polling or our journalism.

Yours truly,
Jeff Keay
Head of Media Relations
English Services
CBC/Radio-Canada

And my reply to Jeff,

Hi Jeff,

thanks for your reply.

I’m more concerned about Graves being presented as a non-partisan observer in the analysis he provides for the CBC.

Do you believe that conflict exists between the CBC’s use of Graves’ research and CBC use of Graves’ analysis? You may assert that Graves produces great and professionally sound data for the CBC but can it rely on his analysis as a non-partisan? Will CBC vet Graves’ commentary as they do with his data?

I note that Lawrence Martin has confirmed Graves quote putting the pollsters explanation in dispute, “The quote is exactly as Frank gave it to me. ‘I told them…’ meaning the Liberals.”
see: http://bit.ly/az0PQD

Thanks,
Stephen Taylor
http://www.stephentaylor.ca

and the subsequent reply,

Hi again:

No, we don’t believe a conflict exists. We use Ekos polling data, along with those of other firms. To the extent that Frank Graves shares his analyses of those polling data on our programs, we let his analysis speak for itself and our audiences will judge it accordingly. This is like our other political commentators and analysts, many of whom have relationships of varying degrees with various consituencies, political or otherwise, or for that matter with several constituencies at once.

Bottom line, we’ll put CBC News journalism up against anyone’s for rigor, fairness and transparency.

Have a great weekend!

Jeff Keay
Head of Media Relations
English Services
CBC/Radio-Canada

The Sun story includes comment from Paul Adams, executive director of EKOS:

“EKOS has never polled for any political party or been retained as a client by any political party,” he said in an e-mail Thursday night.

“Mr. Graves did give an interview to Lawrence Martin, the Globe columnist, in which he offered the Liberals hypothetical advice, just as he might to any other political party in the course of an interview.

“To the extent that the Globe article may have implied that Mr. Graves had previously proffered this advice directly to the Liberal Party, it was a mistaken implication.”

From EKOS’ website, we learn about Paul Adams:

Prior to joining EKOS, Mr. Adams had a distinguished career as a journalist. He covered mainly political stories as a correspondent for CBC television’s The National and later as Parliamentary Bureau Chief for CBC Radio. In 1999, he joined the Globe and Mail as senior parliamentary correspondent and later served as the newspaper’s Middle East correspondent.

Small world.

UPDATE 4/23: Graves has apologizes for his remarks and wants to set the record straight:

H1N1, issues management and disaster response

Would it surprise you, gentle reader, that every morning (early morning!) a senior staffer from each ministry gathers with their peers from other ministries at Langevin to discuss the issues of the day and what fallout — both actual and political — may come from events that have either happened or may transpire?

If this doesn’t surprise you, it may indeed shock you (ok, it probably won’t) that issues management has a greater concern about political fallout and much of this focus is centred upon not so much the opposition’s line of attack on an issue but the media’s distillation of what the government of the day is doing about it?

Let’s put this in perspective and consider a real failure in this approach as it informs not simply the shuffling of public funds, but of a nation’s emergency response to potential disasters.

Remember H1N1?

Back in the fall it was all the rage. Bodybags sent to native reserves, an opposition raising a five-alarm fire for the government’s vaccines on order to the President of the Liberal Party describing H1N1 as “Harper’s Katrina”.

And one of the shallowest measures and glibly tangible critiques of the government? A comparison of spending on those “clandestinely partisan” (critics say) ads telling Canadians that — good-golly-gosh — the economy is going to get better and that government is leading the way, with the government effort on those “sneeze in your arm, not on your hands, you yob” adverts.

Here is a Liberal blogger’s summary of her party’s critique of the whole episode,

After being publicly embarrassed by the media, the Harper Conservatives have said they will act on H1N1 television advertising. After the CP report on the government’s spending five times more on its economic action plan ads than H1N1 preparation loudly made the rounds Sunday afternoon, the Conservatives started the damage control Sunday night. It’s not a tough concept to grasp, after all. Nobody likes a government spending money in its own interest to the detriment of a major public health issue

Issues management kicks into high gear! Bruce Cheadle of the Canadian Press, a wire reporter turned impassioned advocated for the commercially unbalanced, did indeed take a swipe at the governing party over their ‘too blue’ and ‘too Harper’ website on the Economic Action Plan and found that spending on economic ebullience was taking precedence over pandemic placation.

I remarked on this fallacy at the time,

Another criticism highlighted in the CP story is that the latest round of Economic Action Plan ads cost the government $5 million compared to $2 million spent on H1N1 ads.

Here are two issues that have a psychological component.

For economic stimulus, a large part of its purpose and success is affecting consumer confidence. As for H1N1, handwashing and vaccine readiness helps but fueling hysteria does not.

Now that we’ve had a chance to see the virulent dust clear, we have word that the government…over-reacted?,

The federal government spent $37-million on advertising and other communications around the H1N1 flu pandemic, more than it devoted to anti-viral drugs or managing the outbreak combined, according to newly divulged cost figures.

A prominent critic of government response to H1N1 said much of that ad blitz came after the epidemic had peaked, urging Canadians to get flu shots at a time when they were virtually pointless.

“If it’s well spent for a legitimate medical emergency, that’s fine,” said Dr. Richard Schabas, Ontario’s former chief medical officer of health, who has repeatedly argued that public-health agencies over-reacted to the pandemic.

“It was the persistence of the immunization program, the persistence of the advertising after the outbreak had passed that really I find most offensive.”

Digging up a Liberal press release,

Last week, the House of Commons adopted a Liberal motion calling for the allocation of the $400 million in pandemic response funds to help the provinces deliver vaccines to Canadians, plus additional planning support, and the diversion of partisan Economic Action Plan advertising funding towards a large-scale H1N1 awareness campaign.

Dr. Schabas’ position is alluded to without specific reference to his actual view in the press release dated November 10th of last year. The Liberals advocated for a massive diversion of funds into an awareness campaign “as Canadians grow increasingly concerned that they won’t be vaccinated until well after the peak of the H1N1 flu”.

Our mothers always said that it’s better to be safe than sorry, but Schabas is actually criticizing the over-response and wasted spending on H1N1 advertising! Misallocation of H1N1 funds, needled into the wrong place, could have had a disastrous effect.

I’d argue that this is a way in which politics and media sensationalism hurts good and measured public policy informed by the most pressing facts. Issues management became a reaction to political fallout at the expense of a good and measured response. To be sure, the worst case scenario would have been if for some reason the politics had skewed the response in the other direction and the event had been much more pronounced.

How do we safeguard our consideration of real and informed concern when it faces an unhelpfully loud and very present sensationalism motivated by unrelated selfish considerations?

A real issue to manage. Unfortunately, it’s apolitical.

Chiefs of Staff pick their misplay of the week

Every week, the government’s chiefs of staff gather to meet to discuss everything from emerging crises and challenges to staffing issues. This high level meeting of chiefs is among the other regular classified gatherings including senior communications and issues management meetings. Save extenuating circumstances, every ministerial chief of staff is expected at the meeting.

Last week, I learned that among the pressing issues of state, the chiefs are now taking a weekly poll at the boardroom table to award an Ottawa-based reporter a dubious honour who they believe “got it wrong” that week. I’m told that the inaugural recipient of the Chief’s (dis)honour is Mike Blanchfield who wrote a puzzling piece on the Prime Minister’s YouTube experiment:

Pot, Palin and prorogation: Harper gets grilled on YouTube

OTTAWA – After being called a “pansy” by a cartoon Sarah Palin, Stephen Harper’s experiment with YouTube might yet leave him pining for the parliamentary press gallery.

The response to the prime minister’s pitch this week to hear from Canadians via the popular video website hasn’t exactly been overwhelming. By mid-afternoon Friday, just 69 people had weighed in.

But they hit on a wide variety of topics, including many Harper likely won’t be eager to address – like legalizing marijuana and 9/11 conspiracy theories.

It often wasn’t so much what they asked – it was how. Many did Marshall McLuhan proud, using the medium of do-it-yourself video to ask tough questions, while lampooning Harper with stinging messages. His controversial prorogation of Parliament was a prime target.

“You are what we call in Alaska, a pansy,” said a digital cartoon of ex-Alaska governor Sarah Palin in one posting.

“Is it a Canadian tradition for Canadian leaders to run away and hide? If a president did what you did, there would be rioting in the streets? How did you get away with it?”

Another appended Britney Spears’ video “Oops, I Did It Again,” to ask Harper whether he would ever again break his own fixed-election date law and call another snap election like he did in 2008.

Others were serious and direct, especially when it came to climate change.

One B.C. questioner challenged Harper’s conduct at December’s global climate-change meeting in Copenhagen: “I’m interested to know why Minister Prentice and yourself addressed the climate-change issue in such a way that Canada suffered an international embarrassment as the winner of the Fossil of the Day Award.”

Another questioner attached a 29-minute video of a Bill Gates presentation to buttress a question on how Harper planned to fund his maternal and child-health program that he plans to push through the G8.

On the economy, bald and goateed Martyman500 from Markham, Ont., looked straight into the camera and asked the prime minister why he was bringing in the Harmonized Sales Tax: “Why do you let big companies hire and fire workers so they have to avoid paying benefits?”

Harper has been criticized for avoiding the national media – and its tough questions – by taking his message directly to Canadians through advertising or local media.

There appeared to be few, if any, filters on his YouTube channel – based on what was posted Friday.

The prime minister has said he will answer the YouTube questions Tuesday.

Ignore the opinion writing and obvious corrosive slant on the wire service for a moment and consider Blanchfield’s barometer on YouTube participation.

Some facts from the YouTube Q&A:
At the time of this writing, the Prime Minister’s interview received:
135,291 views
1,897 ratings
4,302 comments

as for the participation:
170,000 votes were received for almost 1,800 questions submitted according to Google’s Public Policy Blog.

We expect fact from our news reporters and opinion from our columnists. Of course, at some point, 69 people had weighed in (also true: at some point just one person had weighed in). But let’s make sure facts are relevant. Blanchfield’s article suggests the PM YouTube experiment had underwhelmed. According to the raw metrics, this is not true.