Leafing through my leaked copy of the right-wing playbook, I see on page 97 — just after “Start the day with a healthy meal of roast orphan”, and just before “End the day with a puree of at least five endangered species” — the headline “Attack any media outlet that has even a hint of balance for being biased”.
You heard something you disagreed with on CNN? That must be because they’re a liberal mouthpiece. You read an opinion that didn’t jibe with yours on the op-ed page of the Globe and Mail? It must be an anti-conservative, anti-family rag.
Hence this complaint to the BlogsCanada politics e-group:
I am diappointed to see such a virulent anti-CPC bias (or attitude, whatever works for you) in the BlogsCanada E-Group. Maybe you should change the name to BlogsLiberal.ca, because I feel I’ve fallen for the ol’ bait and switch. Seriously, go read the last twenty articles on E-Group and count how many of them are anti-CPC, to say nothing of the value-subtracting comments.
(The complaint is signed “David St. Hubbins”. Uh-huh. Anyone here see Spinal Tap?)
BlogsCanada publisher Jim Elve, bless him, gives this carping far more attention than it deserves, and painstakingly goes through those last 20 articles and establishes that, actually, a lot of them are actively pro-CPC, and written by actual active Conservative Party members, and some are anti-Liberal, and —
— and why bother?
If the criticism was actually serious — if it came from somebody who emanated even a whiff of a hint of a notion of having read the posts that offended him so much — then maybe, maybe Jim would have been under some obligation to defend himself and his blog.
But thoughtful criticism is the last thing on the minds of too many armchair media critics on the right — and I single out the right, more than the left, because in both the U.S. and Canada they’ve adopted this as one of their key tactics.
The goal isn’t to achieve balance. The goal is to bully folks like Jim Elve into thinking twice before publishing anything that deviates from the narrow confines of what they hope to establish as the tolerable limits of political debate.
I appreciate the pains Jim went to in responding to that complaint, but I appreciate his effort in recruiting and maintaining a diverse range of commentary far more. If he doesn’t feel it appropriate to stoop to name-calling and personal abuse, good on him…
…but I feel no such compunction. The guy’s an anonymous jerk, and deserves to be called on it and then ignored… just like the hordes waiting in the wings for any encouragement.
