Media Bias and False Balance (S03 E01)

Special Guest: Andrew Coyne, Globe & Mail columnist and CBC At Issue panel member.

Media bias, false balance in journalism, free speech, and social media - all these issues touch upon how we communicate, learn about each other, and build social trust. The picture becomes even more complicated when the Edelman Trust Barometer finds that trust in Canadian media is down to its lowest level in a decade. How do we communicate when we so profoundly disagree with each other on so many issues? Or when we don’t trust what we get from the media? That's what our special guest Andrew Coyne, Globe & Mail columnist and CBC At Issue panel member, addresses with host Daniel Proussalidis on this episode of The Long Way:

"We live in a very perilous time in this respect because there used to be a broad sense of this idea that reasonable people can differ. And there were two components to that statement,” Coyne tells The Long Way. “One is, you can differ - it's OK to have differences of opinion. There's not just one side to every issue. It's OK for people to disagree. But the other component of that was you have to be reasonable. We're not just going to treat people who are plainly out of their minds or arguing in bad faith the same as reasonable, credible individuals. Both sides of that equation right now are in a lot of peril."

Following Daniel’s conversation with Andrew Coyne, The Long Way examines one of the proposed solutions to toxic talk – especially in social media: government regulation. How reasonable a solution is that? Field reporter Peter Stockland addresses that question with Peter Menzies, a former vice-chair of the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission.

Listened to this episode? Have some thoughts on how this all relates to building the common good in Canada? Leave your comments below or write to us at media@cardus.ca.

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