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TORONTO, September 26, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A former television news anchor who has decided to run as a candidate for the Conservative Party of Canada, has called on journalism professors nation-wide to monitor the anticipated national election for anti-conservative bias against the Tories.

Peter Kent, a former anchor for CBC and Global Television, wrote to 29 journalism professors, according to a Canadian Press report, stating, “Given my first-hand experience in newsrooms across Canada over the years, I believe that most Canadian journalists are small-‘l’ liberals”. He added, “It is also clear that Canadian journalism schools tend to be staffed by predominantly liberal professors who, year by year, turn out even greater numbers of liberally conditioned graduates and post-grads.”

The comments are especially surprising given that Kent has been understood to be liberal on social matters in his capacity as a news anchor. It is not clear exactly how Kent defines the terms “liberal” and “conservative”. Some prominent Conservative party MPs are fiscal and political conservatives only and strongly reject traditional social conservative principles.

Speculation on when the next federal election will occur generally points to the spring of 2006, although some have said an election could be called as early as this fall.

“Is there an inherent liberal bias in some of our leading news organizations or, asking the same question another way, is there an inherent anti-conservative bias in some of our leading news organizations?” Kent asked in his letter.

Even the liberal-leaning Toronto Sun, in an editorial published this summer, admitted to bias, by comparing the media coverage of conservative Liberal Pat O’Brien’s defection to sit as an independent, to that of Belinda Stronach’s desertion from the Conservatives for a Liberal Party cabinet position.

Stronach’s sudden defection was made out by almost every major news source to be clear evidence of Conservative party leader Stephen Harper’s inability to “appeal to socially moderate voters.” The media managed to ignore Stronach’s obvious motivation (the Cabinet position) and accused Harper of being inept and unable to compromise his conservative beliefs for the unity of the party. The Sun’s editorial quips that the media “laughably made Stronach out to be the intellectual voice of moderate conservatism in Canada. Right.”

Tony Gosgnach corroborated Kent’s claims of media bias in a LifeSiteNews.com Special Report covering the last national election. “‘Mainstream’ media outlets and their reporters exhibited a shocking degree of selective, slanted and outright biased coverage throughout the campaign, but never more so than when it came to the so-called hot-button issues of abortion and homosexuality,” Gosgnach wrote. “In fact, if one took the coverage at face value, it would be difficult to discern that these were even contentious and controversial issues at all. Instead, one might easily have thought that the whole country was pro-abortion and pro-homosexual, and that anyone thinking outside that little box was an extremist wingnut of the first order.”

Gosgnach also pointed out the massive discrepancy between the political leanings of journalists when compared to the average citizen: “Around the same time, results of a survey in the U.S. revealed that only seven per cent of national news journalists there considered themselves conservative,” he wrote. “Eighty-eight per cent, on the other hand, believed society should accept homosexuality. One suspects the situation is not any better – and is likely worse – in Canada.”

Gosgnach concluded his report with the advice that “Canadians need to – with apologies for stealing the Conservative campaign slogan –“demand better” from their news media. The era when reporters acted as lackeys for abortionists, homosexual activists, feminists, liberals and other assorted narrow interests should be long past. That it still isn’t is a troubling situation that needs to be dealt with immediately, before another election campaign comes upon us.”

Gosgnach added how important it is for those concerned to “Write letters, send e-mails, support alternative media, yell, scream, jump up and down and do whatever you have to do to demand better and fairer coverage from our well-paid and monopolizing mainstream media. The future of our country – not to mention generations of unborn Canadians and families – depends on it.”

See CP coverage:
https://money.canoe.ca/News/Sectors/Media/2005/09/25/1235205-cp.html

See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
  Incredible Media Bias During Canadian Federal Election
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/jun/040630b.html
  Canadian Media Biased: Toronto Sun Editorial
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/jun/05060708.html
  Canadian Conservative Leader Harper Decries Lack of National Conservative Paper in Canada
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/dec/04120602.html

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