The Canadian mainstream media pride themselves on their power and influence to mold the opinions and values of Canadians. They believe they are invincible, because their coverage of the news is factual and without bias and, therefore, deserves the public’s respect and trust.
It was quite a shock and horrifying to the mainstream media, therefore, when covering the Freedom Convoy protests in Ottawa in February that members of the public rudely shouted at them, told them to go away, claimed they were “fake news”, and demanded that they “speak the truth”. CBC, CTV, and Global TV journalists were, according to their reports, “abused for doing their jobs”.
This reaction by the public was not surprising, however, as the public was able to compare the media’s coverage of the protests to what was actually occurring on the ground. It was obvious that the digital, print, audio, and visual media reports did not coincide with the reality of the situation. Rather, the media reports supported Trudeau’s propaganda machine, misrepresenting the situation. This inaccurate reporting by the mainstream media occurred because they have been bought by the Trudeau government with huge bailouts of taxpayers’ funds (see REALity article, “Trudeau’s Manipulation of the Media”, December, 2021). For this reason, the media do not report what is actually occurring, since such reporting would put at risk their government funding. For example, the Toronto Star receives $115,385 weekly from the Trudeau government and it is not about to lose this lucrative income by foolishly reporting information contrary to Trudeau’s “truths”.
Canadian journalists, however, are nonetheless horrified by the lack of public respect for and distrust of the mainstream media. Globe and Mail columnist, John Doyle (February 23, 2022), stated that the treatment of the media was a “national disgrace” and he was outraged that the members of the public were preventing the media from carrying out their “legitimate work”. He claimed that this behaviour was caused by “misinformation”, in that the public was refusing to believe the media’s spin. Instead, they were unbelievably making up their own minds, and Doyle claimed this was due to what they found on social media.
Further, Globe and Mail public editor, Sylvia Stead (February 26, 2022), claimed that the crowd “attacking” reporters at the protest was caused by a deep mistrust of the media, which journalists should “call out”, presumptuously assuming that journalists are superior to the public and are in a position to judge their behaviour. She didn’t indicate in any way that the journalists may possibly be wrong.
The journalist, however, who appears to be suffering the greatest anguish and torment over the unbelievable behaviour of the public towards the media, was Globe and Mail columnist, Andrew Coyne. Mr. Coyne comes from a distinguished family of Liberals who, he apparently believes, should continue dictating to the public what isappropriate behaviour. In his article (February 23, 2022), Coyne, contemptuously states, “large numbers of our fellow citizens can be made to believe almost anything” and that “thousands of people were persuaded that vaccines, and vaccine mandates” pose a “threat to their health and freedom”, causing hundreds risking arrest and disobeying a peace order to disperse. This, he claims in disgust, is “not normal”. He went on to state that the behavioural norms of civil society are determined by “knowledge”, i.e. that we learn from “people with more knowledge, experience and judgement”. That would be the mainstream media, according to Coyne, as well as the government, universities, and courts, who have “accumulated wisdom”. He expresses his shock that the public, instead, is doing its own research via the internet, and sharing its findings on social media. This, he believes, is the source of the “misinformation” problem. The public is not listening to the political elites. He concludes that misinformed individuals are “defenseless, vulnerable to any number of bad actors looking to manipulate them” – like the media? Not for a minute does he contemplate the possibility that the public has been manipulated by an untruthful government, politically correct media, biased judges, and insanely woke universities. Coyne fails to grasp that the members of the public no longer want the elites to direct their thoughts and action, as the elites have been found to lack the necessary “wisdom and knowledge” to do so.