Juno News - September 26, 2022


CTV skews poll results coverage against Pierre Poilievre


Episode Stats

Length

4 minutes

Words per Minute

217.94398

Word Count

983

Sentence Count

53


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Well, so why don't we just move on to the next story here,
00:00:02.620 because this is such a perfect example, in my opinion,
00:00:05.560 of the tricks that legacy media try and pull on Canadians.
00:00:09.360 They do these little things where they place certain statements in their articles,
00:00:13.860 they play with the headlines to trick the reader
00:00:15.820 into believing something that isn't exactly as it reads, as a headline.
00:00:19.580 So CTV came up with this article,
00:00:21.580 and the headline is Justin Trudeau slightly favoured over Pierre Pauly
00:00:24.880 for Prime Minister, new poll.
00:00:27.020 So when you read that, you probably think to yourself,
00:00:28.680 well, the Liberals are, you know, they're edging up past Pierre Pauly's Conservatives.
00:00:33.240 You probably think that more Canadians are willing to vote Liberal.
00:00:37.220 But the problem is, actually, that's not the case.
00:00:40.120 Because if you read past the first couple headlines,
00:00:42.520 it says very plainly that 28% of respondents to the poll
00:00:46.580 said they would cast a ballot for the Liberals,
00:00:48.720 and 34% of respondents said they would part their vote with the Tories.
00:00:52.600 Now, I'm no mathematician.
00:00:53.940 I know we talked about math earlier on in the show, Andrew.
00:00:56.220 I'm no mathematician, but when I read that,
00:00:57.760 it appears to me that more people in that poll would vote for the Conservatives
00:01:02.340 than the Liberals.
00:01:04.300 So why exactly they think they can go along with the headline of
00:01:07.080 Justin Trudeau slightly favoured over Pierre Pauly for Prime Minister
00:01:09.740 when, you know, the numbers itself say that the Liberals would have fewer votes
00:01:14.760 than the Conservatives obviously speaks volumes.
00:01:17.060 It's only 11 paragraphs into the story, Andrew,
00:01:20.420 where they finally say that in a preferred Prime Minister poll,
00:01:24.400 which doesn't actually matter that much, in my opinion, on the national scale,
00:01:29.380 preferred Prime Minister,
00:01:30.980 Justin Trudeau edges Pierre Pauly by two percentage points.
00:01:33.660 So they're playing tricks with us there.
00:01:35.440 It's classic fake news, in my opinion.
00:01:37.060 It's just exactly what they've been doing for many years now.
00:01:40.700 This story is actually, I think, a test case in how media bias can work,
00:01:47.340 because what they said is not inherently untrue.
00:01:50.580 The poll does say that, but it also says what you know,
00:01:53.420 and what I actually think is a more reasonable and more useful metric,
00:01:57.020 that more people would vote Conservative than the Liberals.
00:01:59.960 I mean, there was that old meme that circulates every now and then
00:02:02.780 of like two people staring at a number on the ground,
00:02:05.420 and one of them is convinced it's a six,
00:02:07.120 and the other is convinced it's a nine.
00:02:08.580 And the premise of that is that, well, you know, both people can be right.
00:02:12.200 It depends on your perspective.
00:02:13.400 And then the retort to that is, well, no, one of them is wrong,
00:02:16.340 even if they don't know they're wrong.
00:02:17.840 Like someone put that down there knowing it was going to be a six or a nine.
00:02:22.100 And here you've got multiple people that can look at the same poll
00:02:25.000 and draw wildly different conclusions from it.
00:02:27.440 And I think that, you know, the headline could be, you know,
00:02:31.100 voters favor Justin Trudeau but would vote Conservative.
00:02:33.860 Like what is that?
00:02:34.540 Like that's actually, I think, a very useful and very concise headline.
00:02:38.420 Or you could even talk about how, you know,
00:02:40.460 Pierre Polyev is still introducing himself.
00:02:42.420 There are a number of ways to frame it.
00:02:44.020 But just picking one or the other, which is what media does here,
00:02:47.740 gives a very skewed version of this.
00:02:49.880 And I actually think this story in a way could be taught
00:02:53.020 and should be taught in journalism programs
00:02:54.640 because you do have a poll that has an inherent contradiction in it.
00:02:58.660 And it's amazing how media like to just pick the one
00:03:00.960 that benefits them the most and use that.
00:03:03.020 Well, the journalist, you're exactly right about it being a case study,
00:03:06.040 and it should be studied in journalism schools.
00:03:07.960 The journalists knew exactly, as you said, Andrew,
00:03:10.220 they had two, they had really two avenues to go with the story.
00:03:13.240 Well, three, really.
00:03:14.260 They could go down the middle and try and blend the two together,
00:03:16.580 as you said in the headline.
00:03:17.700 Or they could take the one that counts or the one that doesn't count.
00:03:20.880 They knew that the opinion polls of the preferred prime minister,
00:03:25.260 which really mean nothing when it comes to the ballot,
00:03:27.860 they knew that that...
00:03:28.380 Yeah, if you're prepared to vote Conservative,
00:03:30.220 but you're like, ah, you know, I guess I'm not sure about Pierre,
00:03:32.200 but I vote Conservative anyway, that is almost more useful.
00:03:35.000 There's no room on the ballot to write your thoughts about the leader.
00:03:37.960 It's just, you just circle the name and that's it.
00:03:40.220 That's all you get.
00:03:41.100 So they knew, however, that the preferred prime minister poll itself
00:03:44.620 was not as important as the voting choice.
00:03:48.080 That's why they put it 11 paragraphs down into the story.
00:03:51.200 But they chose to lead with it in the headline.
00:03:53.240 That, I think, speaks volumes to where the legacy media is coming from,
00:03:57.360 what they're prepared to do,
00:03:58.500 and just how willing they are to try and play tricks on the audience.
00:04:02.560 And I think that's just, it's just, it's not right.
00:04:05.440 And I think that it happens all the time.
00:04:09.040 That's why we talk about on the show, there's a bias of omission.
00:04:11.660 There's also, you know, there's also,
00:04:13.420 I consider it to be bias of placement in the article.
00:04:16.140 Most people will never get 11 paragraphs into the story
00:04:18.320 because they're busy.
00:04:19.120 They're doing other things.
00:04:20.300 They want to skim the headlines and get the story there.
00:04:22.960 I just think it's a classic trick that the legacy media play
00:04:25.720 and more Canadians should be aware of it
00:04:27.740 and they should get called out for it.
00:04:28.940 So I'm glad we're doing it on this show.