Whose responsible for this stasis? Is it the politicians? It's hard to blame them. They're certainly trying hard. A few more risks might help, I guess. But it's probably asking them too much to change. The voters? Maybe a little. But four million of them watched the debates. And they vote. Sometimes. In ever declining numbers.
No. It's the media. It's all the media 's fault. They suck. It is, as Jack Layton might say in a desperate attempt to sound hip and happening, a #fail of epic proportions.
They, most of them anyway, fail in three main ways.
They repeat more than they report. How do I know that the Liberals are running an attack ad? Is it because I saw it on television? No. I know because its being reported on by all the usual media suspects. Why isn't the environment a story in this election? Because the leaders aren't talking about it, the media is silent. Why does Harper think he can get away with answering five questions a day? Because he knows, not only that they will let him get away with it, but that they will report on it, making him look like he is in control and won't be pushed around.
They talk more to each other than to the reader. In any job, it is an occupational hazard that you start defining yourself by the reactions of your peers. While one would think that in this massively interconnected, socially networked age the line between journalists and their readers would have become looser, less defined, the truth is less clear cut than that. Increasingly, the political commentators from one outlet also appear on others. Or journalists who once worked at one paper have moved on to one of the other two. There is, over time, an eternal recurrence of the same voices talking, essentially, to, or at, each other. Want to see this in action? Follow political journalists on twitter. The professional and personal lines here are blurred, as they are in reality, as we don't see so clearly in newspapers, television and websites.
They're obsessed with the small stories. Perhaps this is best seen in the reporting and analyzing of polls. Every day since the election started, the Globe and Mail has reported on, and thoroughly discussed, minute changes to a tracking poll or a leadership index. The changes are so minor that they are almost always well within the rather large margin of error. Why is the margin of error so large? Because the polls aren't really telling us anything. Inordinate amounts of real and virtual space has been wasted with this analysis. And this approach can be seen across the media in countless ways - a focus on insignificant developments of little or only short-term consequences at the expense of developed exposition on substantive issues.
Innovation in most industries is rare, but the media has a particularly honed herd mentality. Real changes and risks are few and far between. The glory days of innovation in the Canadian media was, of course, in the years following the launch of the National Post. At long last, real competition and original voice pushed the other outlets to do better, to raise their game. For a short while there were interesting options and competing viewpoints across the spectrum. But, as Conrad Black retreated from the field, things began to settle into mediocrity and sameness.
Today marks the launch of Sun TV, and a brand of journalism that is sure to be skewed so far to the right so as to verge on propaganda. I am not saying that there is inherent value in having a biased, untruthful, and cynical media outlet in the domestic sphere. It is a sad statement of affairs in and of itself. But it may shatter some of the complacency in its competition and break the stasis that has descended upon us. - BC
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