Although arguably based in the beatnik culture of the 1950’s, the counter-culture came into its’ own during the turbulent 1960’s. It described the “New Left”, a youth-centric movement which grew out of dissatisfaction with established conservative values and traditions of the previous generation. The message was spread through music, art, “underground” publications and FM radio. It was visible nightly on television screens which carried images of anti-war and civil rights protests into homes around the world, depicting long-haired students and hippies taking their voices to the streets. .Those “summer of love” college-age baby-boomers grew up, but carried their “flower-power” beliefs with them as they entered the work force and began to influence mainstream culture and politics. .Over time, the counter-culture of the 60’s merged into the modern liberalism of today, and became the new mainstream..One of the sectors influenced heavily by the leftist doctrine of the 60’s was the news media..This has led to a liberal ecosystem wherein conservative or libertarian views are largely marginalized to fringe extremist right-wing sources, a mirror image of the underground sources of the “New Left” fifty years ago. .Conservativism and libertarianism have become the new counter-culture, and it has few voices in mainstream journalism. Challenging the prevailing narrative on any liberal “Hadrian-wall” subject – diversity, feminism, immigration, racial bias in policing, racism, LGBTQ rights – is effectively prohibited in most mainstream media..According to Media Bias/Fact Check, seven of the top ten newspapers (70 per cent) in the US show left-of-center political bias, while seven of the top nine news networks (78 per cent) show left or left-of-centre bias..Even in the traditionally conservative bastion of financial journalism there is liberal bias today. A 2018 study “Meet the Press: Survey Evidence on Financial Journalists as Information Intermediaries” found that 58.47 per cent of financial journalists self-identified as being left-of-centre, while another 37.12 per cent were moderate. Only a miniscule 4.4 percent said that they were right-of-centre..According to a June 2020 article in American Thinker, a long-term study entitled “The American Journalist in the Digital Age” found that in 1971 Republicans represented 25.7 per cent of all journalists, Democrats, 35.5 percent, and Independents, 32.5 percent. By 2014, only 7.1 percent of journalists identified as Republican, and Democrats outnumbered them four to one..In Canada, media bias is somewhat more balanced; although the CBC, Global News, the Toronto Star, MacLean’s, National Observer, National Newswatch, Huffington Post and iPolitics all demonstrate left-leaning bias – according to Media Bias/Fact Check. .The phenomenon of Donald Trump as President of the United States has exacerbated liberal media bias more than any previous issue in recent history, as it has highlighted a divided America. .Veteran news anchor Ted Koppel says that the press has abandoned objectivity and is now pursuing a political vendetta. .“I’m terribly concerned that when you talk about the New York Times these days, when you talk about the Washington Post these days, we’re not talking about the New York Times of fifty years ago, we are not talking about the Washington Post of fifty years ago. We’re talking about organizations that I believe have in fact decided, as organizations, that Donald J. Trump is bad for the United States.” .Former 60 Minutes correspondent Lara Logan is speaking out against media bias. .“You now have a press corps that’s working hand in hand with propaganda organizations with a political agenda… too many journalists today are political operatives. They’ve forgotten how to be journalists, they’ve forgotten what we’re supposed to be as journalists, and they’ve become political operatives. They have a predetermined outcome for all of their reporting. They want the removal of this president. They don’t think that he should ever have been elected, they don’t like anything about him… it’s called ‘resisting the normalization of Donald Trump’. It’s a Media Matters mission statement. Media Matters for America put this out… that they will resist the normalization of Donald Trump.”.Brit Hume, Senior Political Analyst for Fox News, sees a connection between anti-Trump bias in news reporting and coverage of Watergate by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein at the Washington Post. According to Hume, the outcome of Watergate, a corrupt president brought down by two young reporters, became a high-water mark for generations of future journalists. Within a liberally biased media, Trump serves as a surrogate for Nixon..A new study by the Media Research Centre shows that negative press coverage of Trump has increased from 91 per cent in 2016, to 95 per cent in August. Since Trump just won over 47 percent of the popular vote, the imbalance in reporting is clear. .In Canada, the up-and-coming challengers face entrenched government privileges for the established players. Without being granted the same licensing level as CTV, Global or CBC, Sun News Network stood no chance. .More currently, massive new cash bailouts for the legacy print media make the existing players de facto employees of the federal government. And since most of the existing major players in Canada already lean left, this creates a permanent competitive disadvantage for challengers in the market, like the Western Standard. .“Objectivity has been a fundamental journalistic principal for over a century. The contemporary debate by some over objectivity vs. “moral clarity” questions whether journalists should rather promote a partisan perspective – usually meaning liberal perspective – rather than simply report the facts. The jury is out.”.Ken Grafton is the Ottawa Bureau Chief of the Western Standard
Although arguably based in the beatnik culture of the 1950’s, the counter-culture came into its’ own during the turbulent 1960’s. It described the “New Left”, a youth-centric movement which grew out of dissatisfaction with established conservative values and traditions of the previous generation. The message was spread through music, art, “underground” publications and FM radio. It was visible nightly on television screens which carried images of anti-war and civil rights protests into homes around the world, depicting long-haired students and hippies taking their voices to the streets. .Those “summer of love” college-age baby-boomers grew up, but carried their “flower-power” beliefs with them as they entered the work force and began to influence mainstream culture and politics. .Over time, the counter-culture of the 60’s merged into the modern liberalism of today, and became the new mainstream..One of the sectors influenced heavily by the leftist doctrine of the 60’s was the news media..This has led to a liberal ecosystem wherein conservative or libertarian views are largely marginalized to fringe extremist right-wing sources, a mirror image of the underground sources of the “New Left” fifty years ago. .Conservativism and libertarianism have become the new counter-culture, and it has few voices in mainstream journalism. Challenging the prevailing narrative on any liberal “Hadrian-wall” subject – diversity, feminism, immigration, racial bias in policing, racism, LGBTQ rights – is effectively prohibited in most mainstream media..According to Media Bias/Fact Check, seven of the top ten newspapers (70 per cent) in the US show left-of-center political bias, while seven of the top nine news networks (78 per cent) show left or left-of-centre bias..Even in the traditionally conservative bastion of financial journalism there is liberal bias today. A 2018 study “Meet the Press: Survey Evidence on Financial Journalists as Information Intermediaries” found that 58.47 per cent of financial journalists self-identified as being left-of-centre, while another 37.12 per cent were moderate. Only a miniscule 4.4 percent said that they were right-of-centre..According to a June 2020 article in American Thinker, a long-term study entitled “The American Journalist in the Digital Age” found that in 1971 Republicans represented 25.7 per cent of all journalists, Democrats, 35.5 percent, and Independents, 32.5 percent. By 2014, only 7.1 percent of journalists identified as Republican, and Democrats outnumbered them four to one..In Canada, media bias is somewhat more balanced; although the CBC, Global News, the Toronto Star, MacLean’s, National Observer, National Newswatch, Huffington Post and iPolitics all demonstrate left-leaning bias – according to Media Bias/Fact Check. .The phenomenon of Donald Trump as President of the United States has exacerbated liberal media bias more than any previous issue in recent history, as it has highlighted a divided America. .Veteran news anchor Ted Koppel says that the press has abandoned objectivity and is now pursuing a political vendetta. .“I’m terribly concerned that when you talk about the New York Times these days, when you talk about the Washington Post these days, we’re not talking about the New York Times of fifty years ago, we are not talking about the Washington Post of fifty years ago. We’re talking about organizations that I believe have in fact decided, as organizations, that Donald J. Trump is bad for the United States.” .Former 60 Minutes correspondent Lara Logan is speaking out against media bias. .“You now have a press corps that’s working hand in hand with propaganda organizations with a political agenda… too many journalists today are political operatives. They’ve forgotten how to be journalists, they’ve forgotten what we’re supposed to be as journalists, and they’ve become political operatives. They have a predetermined outcome for all of their reporting. They want the removal of this president. They don’t think that he should ever have been elected, they don’t like anything about him… it’s called ‘resisting the normalization of Donald Trump’. It’s a Media Matters mission statement. Media Matters for America put this out… that they will resist the normalization of Donald Trump.”.Brit Hume, Senior Political Analyst for Fox News, sees a connection between anti-Trump bias in news reporting and coverage of Watergate by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein at the Washington Post. According to Hume, the outcome of Watergate, a corrupt president brought down by two young reporters, became a high-water mark for generations of future journalists. Within a liberally biased media, Trump serves as a surrogate for Nixon..A new study by the Media Research Centre shows that negative press coverage of Trump has increased from 91 per cent in 2016, to 95 per cent in August. Since Trump just won over 47 percent of the popular vote, the imbalance in reporting is clear. .In Canada, the up-and-coming challengers face entrenched government privileges for the established players. Without being granted the same licensing level as CTV, Global or CBC, Sun News Network stood no chance. .More currently, massive new cash bailouts for the legacy print media make the existing players de facto employees of the federal government. And since most of the existing major players in Canada already lean left, this creates a permanent competitive disadvantage for challengers in the market, like the Western Standard. .“Objectivity has been a fundamental journalistic principal for over a century. The contemporary debate by some over objectivity vs. “moral clarity” questions whether journalists should rather promote a partisan perspective – usually meaning liberal perspective – rather than simply report the facts. The jury is out.”.Ken Grafton is the Ottawa Bureau Chief of the Western Standard
