Media / Media Bias
CBC's budget bias
By Arthur Weinreb
Tuesday, March 1, 2005
Last week’s federal budget was widely reported the day after it was tabled in the House of Commons. One of the most significant factors of the budget was that much of the heavy duty spending that was announced was not for this year or next, but was spread over a period of five years. Another feature of Paul Martin’s first minority government budget was that most of the spending will be done towards the end of the government’s "five year plan".
The budget has been described by some as meaningless because the five-year period is longer than this minority government will last and the spending for future years, so far as they seem to be set in stone, is misleading.
In order to properly convey what this budget means, it is necessary to clearly show that the amounts set out in it, where applicable, are spread out over a five-year period. Of all the major media, the CBC was the worst offender when it came to throwing out numbers without specifying that they were amounts that are to be spent over a five-year period and not immediately.
In their budget report on CBC News’ website, the first paragraph of the article stated, "Finance Minister Ralph Goodale delivered a broad-ranging and balanced budget Wednesday, including almost $13 billion for the military, $5 billion for a national child-care program and another $5 billion for the country’s cities." When those figures were mentioned, it was never stated that those amounts were allocated over a five-year term. The five-year aspect to those major expenditures wasn’t mentioned until the fourth paragraph and even then it wasn’t clear; "And given an ambitious social agenda, Goodale has turned to a five-year framework." Although reference was made to "five years", it still was not made clear that those large amounts that were mentioned in the story’s lead were to be apportioned over that period with most of the spending slated for the end of that term.
The proper way to report the figures of the budget was the way that most other media, including the ultra pro-Liberal Toronto Star did it. Every time an amount was reported, it was reported as "$5 billion over five years", not simply $5 billion.
The CBC, of course has a conflict of interest when reporting what the government of Canada is spending; after all the network collects approximately $1 billion a year of taxpayers’ money. The CBC has a vested interest in making it appear that the government is actually spending $13 billion on the military this year rather than over five years. The higher the government’s overall spending appears, the less it appears that the CBC CBC gets.
Perhaps the network should be required to state that it receives public funding every time it reports on government spending. All in the name of fairness, of course.
Arthur Weinreb is an author, columnist and Associate Editor of Canada Free Press. His work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Men's News Daily, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck and The Rant. Arthur can be reached at: aweinreb@rogers.com
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