Unfair Media

I hate it when news programs have only one guest, who proports to be an expert, who is obviously partisan, on to discuss a certain issue. I think supporters of all political parties can agree on this. Whether you think the media as a whole is too far to one side is not the argument I want to have with this.

As an example, I was just watching Newsworld and they had Kate Tennier, founder of Advocates for Childcare Choice, to discuss the Conservatives proposal. She was obviously a huge supporter of the Conservatives and a huge opponent of the Liberals. I've looked in to her a bit since the segment air and low and behold she has written for the Globe and Mail, one of the most right wing papers in the country. This is what is said below her article:

Kate Tennier is founder of Advocates for Childcare Choice, a non-partisan Ontario-based group affiliated with other child-care choice organizations across Canada

non-partisan? Not from where I was sitting. With a lot of these things you have to be able to read between the lines. I like to think I'm a good observer and the observations I made about her were anything but "non-partisan." She obviously had no love for Prime Minister Martin, and it went beyond simply opposing his polices. You could that she personally doesn't like him.

Now I'm not against partisanism. Obviously this website is highly partisan. What I'm against is subliminal partisanship on news programs. I'm sure we can all agree on that. If someone is placed on a news program and is billed as an expert and then starts spouting off partisan lines it turns me off. And for people who don't follow politics as closely as I do they might be fooled in to thinking this woman was just stating an expert opinion as opposed to what she was really doing: pushing her chosen party's agenda forward.

I'm not saying Ms. Tennier isn't an expert, and I don't have any problem with her supporting the Conservatives (Beyond the sickening feeling it elicits inside of me -Ed.) I'm not claiming she has done wrong, I'm saying the producers of the news program have done wrong. If they were going to have someone who was Pro Conservative on there they should have a Pro Liberal and a Pro NDP as well so that they could rebut her arguments.

If she had been able to put her personal political feelings aside and give an unbiased argument I would have had no problem with her being on there, but she clearly failed in that regard.