Volume 10, Number 3

CBC SHAMELESSLY PROMOTES                                            LABOUR'S "ALTERNATIVE BUDGET"

On the eve of Finance Minister Paul Martin's February 18, 1997 Federal Budget, CBC's "National Magazine" decided to forego pre-budget speculation in favour of profiling the so-called "Alternative Budget." Written by a coalition of union and anti-poverty groups, the Alternative Budget promised to increase spending on social programs, create jobs and reduce the deficit.

CBC's "National Magazine" presented the Alternative Budget as a viable and realistic option. Neither CBC reporter Carol Off nor "Magazine" host Hana Gartner critically examined the contents of this budget-instead, it was applauded as a compassionate alternative to "conservatism." Carol Off stated: "[The Alternative Budget] flies in the face of conservative thinking of the 1990s. Politicians frown on what we used to call social programs and what now many call `hand-outs.' But the Alternative Budget says it is the responsibility of the state to take care of the poor. And, what's more, they claim, it's fiscally responsible."

The $25 billion tab outlined in the Alternative Budget is financed through increased taxes, monetary expansion, and-the easiest revenue generator to imagine but a far more difficult one to realize-rosy growth projections. Although the Alternative Budget essentially directs the Bank of Canada to print money, its authors claimed it would not cause inflation or higher interest rates.

Labour's fantasies not challenged

Canadian Auto Workers' economist and "National Magazine" panellist Jim Stanford stated in the February 17 special: "We say that we would instruct the Bank of Canada to try and keep their interest rates at their current nominal levels and we've already seen what low interest rates have done for job creation and for helping the deficit reduction effort."

Canada is a trading nation; exports and imports total two-thirds of Canada's national product, making Canada the third most integrated economy of all industrialized countries in the world. Jim Stanford's Alternative Budget is simply untenable as long as Canada remains a trade-driven economy. If adopted, the measures outlined in the Alternative Budget would cause interest rates to increase dramatically, thereby reducing investment, swelling the deficit, and likely leading to higher unemployment-the exact issue, jobs, that the Alternative Budget claims to solve.

The day after the federal budget was brought down, CBC Newsworld's "Benmergui Live" program had another proponent of the Alternative Budget, Seth Klein, as a panellist. Representing the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Klein claimed that the Alternative Budget was not a "wishlist," but a concerted effort to reduce unemployment and poverty.

The crux of the debate surrounding both the Alternative Budget and, indeed, the actual federal budget, is whether or not deficit reduction will eventually result in more jobs. On the February 17, 1997 "National Magazine," reporter Carol Off made the highly contentious comment: "We've been fighting inflation since the Trudeau era . . . even if it meant putting people out of work. For inflation fighters, 8 or 9 percent unemployment is considered acceptable, but not by the coalition."

In fact, Off made numerous unsubstantiated and inaccurate claims in her report. On poverty, she stated that: "More than 5.2 million Canadians are poor. Their incomes are below the minimum needed to live according to the government. That number includes 1.5 million children." No reputable Canadian agency, particularly Statistics Canada, has made the assertion that the definition of poverty bandied about by the press is the government's delineation of the "minimum needed to live."

Canadian media, private and public, have inundated the public with such misinformation that in the minds of most Canadians these "statistics" have become "facts." The media's figures are based on Statistics Canada's Low Income Cut-offs, a measure of income distribution. The figures are sent out with explicit instructions that they are not intended to be used as poverty lines.

Carol Off's unabashed promotion of the Alternative Budget focused on two themes: first, that Canada's poor and unemployed are becoming entrenched, and second, that the measures contained in the Alternative Budget might well be a solution. The opinions presented in Off's report were either those of the authors of the Alternative Budget, namely, John Loxley and Jim Stanford, or those of union representatives, specifically, the Canadian Labour Congress' Cindy Wiggins. In her report Off did not provide a single source critical of the Alternative Budget.

On the same show, "National Magazine" host Hana Gartner chaired a debate between Jim Stanford of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW), Lloyd Atkinson, former Chief Economist with the Bank of Montreal, and Leigh Anderson, Carleton University Professor.

Similar to Carol Off's report, Jim Stanford provided a scathing review of the Liberal government's economic management to date. He stated: "There isn't a single major industrialized economy that's done worse than Canada in the 1990s so don't start with the international comparisons. Our real standard of living is lower than it was at the beginning of this decade. That's the worst performance in the G-7 and Paul Martin should be fired for it."

These comments are simply untrue. Even scrutiny of the unemployment rates, one of the Liberals' greatest failures, shows that Canada is by no means "the worst" in either the Group of Seven industrialized countries or in the 28-member OECD countries.

In 1995, the last year for which international figures are available, Canada's unemployment rate was 9.5 percent, of which 14 percent were unemployed for more than one year. In contrast, France, Italy, Belgium, Finland, Spain, and Ireland had unemployment rates ranging from 10 to 23 percent, of which 30 to 63 percent were unemployed over the "long-term," meaning that they had been without work for a minimum of 12 months.

The media is renowned for being highly critical, and, indeed, often cynical. However, in this case, CBC was an ardent proponent of organized labour's vision of Canada. Rather than critique and evaluate the Alternative Budget, CBC's report championed its ideas and its authors.

The CAW's Jim Stanford commented that the Alternative Budget is "unapologetically in favour of government taking an active role to promote a better and fairer Canada." CBC's uncritical presentation of the Alternative Budget passively but forcefully reiterated these sentiments.

Click here to view Quote of the Month

CTV More Regionally Balanced than CBC

The National Media Archive examined all CTV national television news reports throughout 1996. Twenty-one percent of "CTV News" reports focused on national news, 31.2 percent examined provincial matters, and 45.4 percent reported international news.

In this issue, CTV's attention to provincial news is examined. Similar to the National Media Archive's findings on CBC's 1996 coverage, Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia dominated the newscasts. These three provinces totalled 75.1 percent of all stories concerning provincial issues. Ontario received the greatest number of reports at 501, Quebec followed with 364 reports, and British Columbia rounded out the top three with 268 reports.

Click here to view Table 1: CTV's Regional Coverage, by Report, 1996

Alberta placed fourth at 9.2 percent of provincial news, in direct proportion to its share of Canada's population (9.3 percent). This contrasts conspicuously to CBC's 1996 coverage of Alberta in which the province received just 6.5 percent of provincial reports, less coverage than Nova Scotia or Manitoba.

In fact, CTV was generally more balanced in their regional reports than CBC. Ontario, with 37.6 percent of Canada's population, received 31 percent of CTV's regional reports during 1996. In contrast, Ontario received just 25 percent of CBC's reports on the provinces.

On CTV, coverage of Manitoba, Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island was more or less proportional to each province's respective population. For example, Manitoba has 3.8 percent of Canada's total population and received 3.8 percent of CTV's regional reports. On CBC, these provinces received significantly more coverage than one would expect given their populations.

One notable deviation on CTV was its attention to Saskatchewan. With 3.4 percent of Canada's population, Saskatchewan received just 2 percent of CTV's total reports on the provinces.

Attention to Nova Scotia was unduly high on both networks in 1996 due to the Westray mine inquiry, with CTV dedicating 7.5 percent of regional reports to Nova Scotia. Quebec, with one-quarter of the nation's population, received 22 percent of provincial reports on both CTV and CBC.

Regional disparities found on CTV's coverage of provinces

Similar to CBC television (see On Balance, Volume 10, Number 2), political reports were more likely to come from eastern Canada, while news of crime, accidents, or disasters was more likely to come from the west. Politics averaged 34.7 percent of provincial news during 1996. B.C. (24.3 percent), Alberta (29.7 percent), Saskatchewan (6.1 percent), and Manitoba (27.4 percent) all fell short of this mark. In addition, Ontario trailed the average by 6 percent. The eastern provinces, Quebec (53 percent), Nova Scotia (41.3 percent), Newfoundland (45.8 percent), and P.E.I. (38.1 percent), all exceeded this average.

Click here to view Table 2: CTV's Provincial Coverage, by Subject, 1996 (Percentage of Reports)

Of the coverage of crime and catastrophes, 26.1 percent of all provincial news was about such tragedies. Alberta was closest to the average at 25.7 percent, while British Columbia (36.6 percent), Saskatchewan (48.5 percent), and Manitoba (33.9 percent) all exceeded the average. In contrast, Ontario (24.8 percent), Quebec (18.7 percent), New Brunswick (21.6 percent) and P.E.I. (14.3 percent) all had significantly lower coverage of these issues than the provincial average.

Click here to view  Table 3: CTV Coverage of Death and Destruction, by Report, 1996 (Number of Reports)

CTV uses foreign news agencies

ABC, NBC, CBS, and Skynews accounted for over 300 news reports on CTV during 1996. ABC News was the originator of 134 reports, more stories than CTV's top reporter, Alan Fryer, who logged 113 reports in 1996.

Click here to view Table 4: Top 35 CTV Reporters, by Story, 1996

Click here to view Table 5: International News on CTV: The Top 25 Countries, by Report, 1996

Click here to view Table 6: CTV's Use of Foreign News Agencies, 1996

Frown Count: Hana Gartner Interviews the Finance Minister

In 1994, the National Media Archive started to analyze CBC's "National Magazine" interview with the finance minister on budget day. The purpose of this was to gain some insight into the underlying attitudes of the journalists' assessments of the budget. We glibly called this analysis the "smile count." During the first year we conducted this assessment there were a lot of smiles going around. We found, for example, that then anchor Pamela Wallin smiled 14 times for a total of 24 seconds in her interview with Finance Minister Paul Martin.

We argued that these smiles and the overall congenial nature of the interview was an indication of the Liberal government's extended post-election honeymoon. The smile count of journalists interviewing Finance Minister Paul Martin have never been as numerous or friendly as in 1994. As Figure 1 shows, 31 percent of Pamela Wallin's expression were friendly in 1994. The next year, the amount of time she spent smiling at Paul Martin dropped by nearly half to 17 percent. In 1996 in Hana Gartner's first post-budget interview with Paul Martin, she smiled 22 percent of the time. But this year, despite what the spin doctors call a feel-good pre-election budget, the smile count has declined so much that we are compelled to rename it the "frown count."

Click here to view Figure 1: Smiles Turn to Frowns-Anchor Facial Expressions in Post-Budget Interviews

In criticizing the finance minister for going too far with deficit reduction and not spending enough, Gartner made 8 hostile or contrary facial expressions lasting 28 seconds in total. Meanwhile, her smiles comprised only 15 percent of her total facial expressions during the interview. Of that, Gartner rarely offered a genuine smile in which her teeth showed. The most she could apparently muster were six half smiles or grins.

Gartner spent most of the interview time furrowing her brow, rolling her eyes, or generally looking contrary. This year's interview was even more hostile when one considers that in the past, the anchors had fairly neutral, non-expressive faces during the majority of the time they spent interviewing the finance minister. Generally, two-thirds to three-quarters of their facial expressions were simply neutral, or showed no discernable emotion. This year, Gartner's neutral face comprised only 34 percent of her facial expression time while hostile looks comprised half of her facial expressions.

CTV Year in Review-the Top Ten Stories of 1996

Number One: Strikes
Reports in 1996: 149
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CTV's Number One news story of 1996 was public and private sector strikes. Over the year, 149 reports focused on the demands, threats, and actions of organized labour. The Ontario public servants' strike early in the year, and the Canadian Auto Workers' action against General Motors and its subsequent repercussions throughout North America were among two of the top strike stories in 1996.

Number Two: National Unity
Reports in 1996: 128
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Similar to previous years, national unity was the second most frequently covered issue of the year on Canada's private national network. CTV devoted 128 news reports to the war of words between sovereigntist and federalist forces. The majority of the stories dealt with the court battles to counter separation, relations between the Quebec and federal governments, and public relations stunts like Howard Galganov's trip to New York City.

Number Three: Somalia Inquiry
Reports in 1996: 87
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The Number Three news story of 1996 on CTV was the Somalia inquiry with 87 stories. Amidst allegations of poor leadership and cover-ups, the testimony of officials and rank-and-file members of Canada's armed forces was consistently a focus of national media coverage. The resignations of General Jean Boyle and Defense Minister David Collenette were not included in this category.

Number Four: Olympic Games
Reports in 1996: 49
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The Atlanta Summer Olympiad, held between July 19 and August 5, 1996, was CTV's Number Four news story with 49 reports. With 22 medals, the Centennial Games was the scene of Canada's best performance to date in a non-boycotted Olympics. The Centennial Park bombing of July 27th and its investigation were not included in this category.

Number Five: Saguenay Floods
Reports in 1996: 44
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The devastating floods in Quebec's Saguenay region in July was the subject of 44 news reports, making it CTV's Number Five story. Cause, catastrophe, and clean-up were the predominant themes of the reports. Discussion of Quebec and federal government compensation were not included in this category.

Number Six: GST
Reports in 1996: 38
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With the next election looming, the federal Liberals' 1993 campaign promise to abolish the GST accounted for 38 news reports on CTV during 1996, making it the Number Six story of the year. Included in this category were the removal of John Nunziata from caucus after voting against the Liberal budget, the resignation of Sheila Copps, and Prime Minister Chrétien's apology following the CBC Town Hall Meeting.

Number Seven: Airbus Scandal
Reports in 1996: 33
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During 1996, Canada's own tale of international intrigue played out and became known as the Airbus Affair. Coverage ranged from Brian Mulroney's first day in court to the federal government's apology and Mulroney's revocation of his libel suit. CTV devoted 33 news reports to this issue, making it the Number Seven story of the year.

Number Eight: Canadian Airlines
Reports in 1996: 31
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Canadian Airline's dire finances made big news near the end of 1996 when the company's executive officers resigned and announced that its workers would have to take a pay cut in order to avoid bankruptcy. As CTV's Number Eight story, 31 news reports dealt with the announcements as well as subsequent negotiations between Canadian and its unions.

Number Nine: Westray Mines Inquiry
Reports in 1996: 27
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Twenty six miners were killed in the mining disaster at Westray, Nova Scotia, in 1992; four years later the inquiry into those deaths was CTV's Number Nine news story of the year. Twenty four news reports dealt with the testimony of inspectors, politicians, management, miners, and grieving family members.

Number Ten: Human Rights Bill
Reports in 1996: 17
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An amendment to the Human Rights Act aimed at prohibiting discrimination against homosexuals was CTV News' Number 10 story of the year. CTV reported this story 17 times during the year. Much of the controversy reported on television news was from the Reform and backbench Liberal MPs who criticized the bill. The virtual unanimity of the Reform Party was given more controversial coverage than the break in ranks within the Liberal Party.

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Last Modified: Wednesday, October 20, 1999.