Juno News - September 04, 2019The mainstream media is spreading ＂misinformation＂
Episode Stats
Words per minute
179.14012
Summary
In this episode, I talk about bias in the media and the ways in which it is amplified and spread across the internet. I discuss the role played by domestic media outlets and political operatives, and how they amplify stories to make them seem more important than they actually are.
Transcript
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when people write and talk about misinformation and interference in elections particularly coming
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from foreign sources they mean not just creating fake news although that's a part of it they also
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mean amplification stories that are amplified over others to make those stories seem more
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important that's a concern coming from russian bots from bots within china and also you saw that in the
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conversation about the u.s presidential election and whether or not there were several hundred bots
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that were amplifying promoting this or that story or this or that political campaign rally well you
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know it's funny because i think we shouldn't just talk about amplification of news coming from foreign
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sources but let's talk about amplification here in canada within our own soil coming from our own
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media and from our own political operatives and what that tells us about well not about foreign
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interference because it ain't foreign but about bias writing in my recent column in the sun post
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media papers i say my media colleagues better get their anti-shear bias in check pronto and i'm not
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faulting people for creating fake news although sometimes there are of course stories that we
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doubt the authenticity of them but more about what is promoted what is amplified and what is not so
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for instance we have the story about andrew sheer and his 14 year old video making remarks about
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same-sex marriage why he would not support them now this was amplified massively it became the story
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that we all must read the story that everybody must have an opinion on it was rammed down people's
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throats as the top issue of the day clearly various reporters they they told themselves somehow them
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and their editors there was a mechanism within them the gears got going where they decided this
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this is really where it's really at this is the big story of the day you gotta pause and go really
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i mean i think that speaks to some sort of inherent bias i think that speaks to where your headspace is
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at that you feel that that really is the top story of the day it all came out because ralph goodale
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pushed a video showing andrew sheer making these remarks ralph goodale himself as we all know now
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also voted against same-sex marriage now there are a whole lot of members of parliament and provincial and
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local politicians who are posting a whole bunch of things to social media every single day
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they're not all news so why is this news well because sources domestic sources in the canadian
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media decided to amplify the stories and what's interesting is that there are some stories that
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are amplified and other stories that are not for instance prime minister justin trudeau and the
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liberals found themselves in a bit of a hot spot when benébreth canada posted a press release about
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concerns about one liberal candidate who had said remarks that were characterized as anti-semitic now
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he's the previous imam of a montreal mosque that was the victim of that tragic massacre a couple years
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ago and he had risen to national prominence giving one of the speeches at the memorial i guess the
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liberals thought hey we have a good candidate here we would like this imam to enter the liberal
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caucus well benébreth canada comes out with this press release and then the liberals pretty quickly
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dump him as a candidate after that and there's now debate raging as to whether or not the liberals
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weren't sure about these remarks didn't really fully know about them they said they'd been doing
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an investigation for a couple weeks or if they only dumped him because he was caught well he's now
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done a press release and he has said that no the liberals knew and they were working with me on this
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to sort of massage all of this and maybe explain what i was actually getting at and why it's misleading
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and why it's not actually anti-semitic and so forth and we're going to deal with all of this
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okay that's very interesting and i'm not commenting on those particulars maybe we'll learn more a bit
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about them but that story was not particularly amplified i mean is it sort of being basically
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reported on yes and the major news outlets are acknowledging hey here's a candidate they had
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questions about him he was dumped the story kind of went dormant for a couple days he had the press
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release the press conference that press conference will be sort of basically reported on so the
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rudimentary work will be done but hands down i guarantee you it is not going to be the amplified
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story the story that we all must discuss it's rammed down our throats as the top issue of the day that
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you all must have an opinion on and justin chudeau is going to be hounded and dogged at every event
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make comments on this like andrew sheer was about his 14 year old video so i say all this because it
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makes me chuckle when i hear concerns about certain foreign interference because of course the main
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the main concerns are the amplification of stories that work one way or the other and it is a concern
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and of course we don't want that we don't want a whole bunch of russian bots pushing anything for
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or against justin chudeau or andrew sheer because hey it's not their country it's our democracy
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we kind of got a chuckle that the same stuff that we hear about a fear-mongering happening
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from foreign sources it's kind of already happening here in our domestic sphere