The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Is The Media Biased? A New Take.

Episode Date: January 13, 2022

Some stories, trends and articles you may have missed, and then your turn with your comments, thoughts and questions from Covid to sleep to tennis.

and hello there peter mansbridge here you are just moments away from the latest episode of the bridge the media is biased but not in the way you think that sounds interesting we'll talk about it in just a moment and hello there welcome welcome to Thursday. And as we often do on Thursdays, a portion of the program today will be the mailbag. Your letters, your thoughts, your comments, your questions. But also, we're going to touch on a few items that haven't received that much attention this week. From the news file. Now, a week ago, a week ago today, in fact, we headlined a broadcast with the question,

is too much news bad for your health? And there was a lot of reaction to that. A lot of people feel that way, especially about negative news. This whole issue of why is bad news always news? And why is the preponderance of bad news on most programs, including this one? Anyway, we had that discussion. We had that question raised and played around with the answer well there's an interesting column in a magazine an online service called gen gen stands for

genetic engineering and biotechnology news now you know why they call it Jen. And the headline on it is the media is biased, but not in the way you think. So the article is written by a fellow by the name of Eric Wiener. And it's just out this week and it's getting a fair amount of attention, certainly in media circles, so I thought I'd share it with you. It starts off this way, you'll love it. The critics are right, the mainstream media is biased.

It's not a political bias, no liberal or conservative slant, but it's something even more insidious, a bad news bias. No liberal or conservative slant. But it's something even more insidious. A bad news bias. Ann Wiener writes, during my decades as a daily journalist for the New York Times and NPR, I knew that reporting on happy people and places wasn't going to advance my career. No one told me this. They didn't need to. The bad news bias is simply understood. Now, my experience over decades in the business is,

yeah, I think, you know, he's probably right. There is kind of a bias towards news that's bad because often bad news is news. But pushing to get to bad news is what Wiener talks about when he did a quick scan of media sites and saw a ceaseless parade, as he describes it, of disasters, human and natural, current and forecast, and all framed in the most negative light and he gives an example here's what he says a case in point is a recent article

that ran in axios news service the headline read rapid nasal covid tests feared to be returning false negatives. Now that sounds bad, alarming even, right? But read on, Wiener says, and you discover the basis for the story is a small pre-print study of 30 people, four of whom received a false negative. It suddenly doesn't sound so catastrophic, does it? Then we learn that there's emerging evidence that saliva swabs may be better for detecting Omicron than nasal swabs. That sounds like, as Wiener says, well, good news.

Or at least not as bad as the headline suggests. He goes on to argue that the bad news bias is a global phenomenon but it is most pronounced in the u.s one study found that in their pandemic coverage media outlets in the u.s struck a far more negative tone than their counterparts abroad 91 of the u.s stories were negative versus 54% overseas. The mainstream U.S. media is even more negative in their coverage of COVID-19 than scientific journals, the study found. Now, the study didn't talk about Canada, but my guess is we're probably somewhere closer to the U.S. numbers than we are to rest of the world numbers. Because we're influenced by U.S. stories.

As you can see just in me repeating this particular story, right? I won't read this whole article, but I will read part of the conclusion that Eric Wiener writes in Jen. And here's the way it goes. There are glimmers of hope. The Washington Post publishes The Optimist, a weekly newsletter that highlights what went right in the past seven days. At the New York Times, David Leonhardt regularly calls out the media's bad news bias in its pandemic coverage. It's a start, says Wiener, but it's not enough. For now, these efforts are a sideshow, an afterthought. Like a chocolate mint after an atrocious dinner is supposed to remind us that it's not all bad.

Too often positive, or at least less negative, coverage is dismissed as feel-good stories. The moniker is slung as an insult, synonymous with lazy journalism. But why? What's wrong with a story that makes you feel good? Why is it okay for a news report to send you spiraling into a dark place of despair but not okay for it to make your heart sing not necessarily an entire song but a refrain or two i like that and i you know it it reminds me of the old days when Mark Bulguch and I, my friend and co-author of Extraordinary Canadians, when Mark was the national lineup editor

and I was the host, and on days that were particularly bad days in the sense that, you know, there was some overwhelming, catastrophic disaster story that was dominating the news that day. Mark would always argue that we try to find some way of closing out the program that showed that, you know, the sun is going to come up tomorrow.

Tomorrow is another day. Not everything's bad. There are shines of hope and glimmers of hope out there and so we would try to end the program on something nice and you see that still still continues today with various gimmicks that different news broadcasts use to to try and show something nice especially at the end of a day that's been difficult. And I guess that's a little bit about what Wiener's talking about in his suggestions for a way out of that. And we try to, you know, I've always been influenced by, you know,

the things Mark taught me over the years, and one of them was that. And I show it every once in a while on this particular program and podcast. I try to slip in some good stuff as well, and we will again today. Now, this next story could be seen as bad news or good news. It was a story in Axios, the news service that Wiener referred to. And it's about United Airlines in the US. Their CEO said in a letter to employees that since United's vaccine mandate went into effect last summer,

no employee has died of COVID. The CEO said that prior to the vaccine mandate, tragically, more than one United employee on average per week was dying from COVID. But we've now gone eight straight weeks with zero COVID related deaths among our vaccinated employees. Since our vaccine policy went into effect, the hospitalization rate among our employees has been 100 times lower than the general populations in the U.S. Based on United's prior experience and the nationwide data related to COVID fatalities among the

unvaccinated, that means there are approximately 8 to 10 United employees who are alive today because of our vaccine requirement. Alright. As I said, some may see that still as difficult news to handle.

Others will say, hey, that's good news. Here's another one on what we tend to do on electric vehicles, keeping up the story on that one as our lives change considerably in the way we either drive or think we're going to be driving in the next couple of years. This one comes from The Hill, the online service that operates out of Washington. State governments are carving out billions of dollars

to adapt to surging demand for electric vehicles and a new push to accommodate such vehicles that will require new infrastructure to operate. The growth of the electric vehicle market has already spurred billions in tax breaks and spending incentives as states race to attract new manufacturing plants. And the analytics that it draws upon on this article suggests that Americans purchased more than 434,000 electric vehicles and 801,000 hybrid models last year. That expansion spells trouble for states that rely heavily on gas taxes

for their infrastructure budgets budgets and we tend to forget that there's going to be a considerable drop in tax revenue for states and provinces and countries that have gas taxes and you see them when you go to the when you go to the pump and you watch those numbers flying around on the pump. Part of that, a good chunk of it, is taxes. Well, if people are going to stop using gas-powered engines in the next five years, in huge numbers,

that's going to have an impact. Okay, here are a couple of little stories. These are what we call in the business fun facts. And once again, this could be, depending on where you sit, this could be good news or bad news. Have you ever thought about going to Bali? I'm sure some of the Bridge listeners have actually been to Bali. I know a couple who have.

You know, beautiful Indonesian island. Right? You've seen the pictures at least. Spectacular. Well, listen to this. This is the impact of the pandemic. In 2019, the Indonesian island of Bali welcomed around 6.2 million international arrivals. How many do you think they had last year, 2021? Come on, take a guess.

They had 6.2 million in 2019, the year before the pandemic hit. In 2021, how many did they have? Well, it's a big drop. Figure, well, they only had a million last year. Maybe they only had 100,000 last year. No, here's how many they had last year. 45. Period. 45 international visitors to Bali last year.

Must have been some great deals on hotels. Almost all of that small handful of tourists reached the island by private yacht. Why is that? Well, the island's international airport was closed to international flights almost the whole year. While the airport officially reopened to international flights in October, so far it's handled only domestic flights, primarily from Jakarta. To come to Bali, foreign visitors have to get a $300 business visa, take multiple PCR tests, and buy special health insurance. That story, thanks to our friends at CNN.

And here's one last one before we get around to some of your letters. You know, I've told you and I've broadcast the bridge from Scotland because we have a little place there. And, you know, we love it. It's nothing big, but it's, you know, we love it. It's nothing big, but it's, you know, we love Scotland. And, you know, I was born in the UK and blah, blah, blah, all of that. Anyway, the energy company that services our place in Scotland is called SSE. They put out a little flyer.

You know how these energy companies do, and they're always giving you, like you fabulous hints as to how to save money on your energy bill. And this year, that's particularly important because energy bills everywhere are skyrocketing. This is Electric SSE, okay? One of the UK's largest energy companies has told customers facing price increases,

that's like me, they actually say this. Ready? To eat porridge or buy socks made of merino wool so they can keep costs down while staying warm. SSE Energy Services, a division of OVO, also suggested customers do a few star jumps and have a cuddle with pets or loved ones to keep cozy during the winter months the advice is part of a long list of energy saving tips the company has emailed customers and published on its website amid a gas price crisis gripping the uk and europe which is expected to send

average household bills climbing 56 percent to 2 000 pounds or more in april campaigners said some of the advice struck the wrong tone given the crisis eat porridge actually i love porridge I grew up on porridge. Porridge with a little dab of brown sugar in the middle of it. Eat porridge or buy socks. All right. We're on it. SSE Energy Services.

They do it all. Gas. Electric. Okay. energy services they do it all gas electric okay enough of that time for some of your letters we'll be back with them right after this And welcome back. Peter Mansbridge here in Stratford, Ontario. This is The Bridge for Thursday. You're listening on, well, you could be listening on a number of different ways. Either on your favorite podcast platform,

or you could be listening on Sirius XM Canada channel 167 Canada Talks. And we're glad you're with us. All right, time for some of your letters. If you've listened to the bridge for the last couple of years, you know some, we have some frequent writers. David Oliver is one of them. He lives in Victoria.

His son, who's also written, his son is the wonderful Jeffrey Oliver, who has written to us more than a few times from onboard ship crossing the Atlantic. He works on those big vessels that move freight and oil and whatever back and forth across the Atlantic. And he's managed to connect with us more than a few times. Anyway, father lives in Victoria, son lives in St. John's, Newfoundland, and over Christmas, the families were able to get together as David went out to Newfoundland. But that's not what the letter's about.

David is back home in Victoria, and as he often does, he listens to the bridge, and as he often does, he manages to jump on me and correct little things. Or actually, not necessarily correct, but add a little more context. Which he does today, as it relates to yesterday's program, where Bruce and I on Smoke, Mirrors and the Truth talked about Boris Johnson and the kerfuffle yesterday in Westminster

in the British House of Commons, where a number of people were yelling at Johnson to resign, and some of them were using the old phrase, or part of the phrase that was used against Neville Chamberlain in May of 1940 with the sort of go, just go refrain. Well, David, when he heard that, perked up right away and wrote in. The statement made by Leo Amory on the 7th of May 1940 in the UK House of Commons was, quote, you have sought, you have sat too long here for

any good that you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go. He was repeating the words of Oliver Cromwell in 1653 when forcibly ejecting the long parliament. These words came at the end of a devastating attack on Neville Chamberlain's conduct of the early actions of the war, and as I mentioned yesterday, especially the Norwegian campaign, which was a disaster, and played a significant in the replacement of Chamberlain by Churchill. I wasn't going to mention this, but I will, because it just reminded me of something that happened over the last couple of months. I just finished reading a great book on the Norwegian campaign, where it talked, among other things, about, you know, the author Ian Fleming, who was part of the Special Operations Branch or one of those spy services during the Second World War.

And after the war, Fleming wrote fantastic novels about, that's right, James Bond. Well, Fleming's brother, I think it was Peter Fleming, was a member of the Royal Navy, and he was on that Norwegian campaign. And there were times during that that people were concerned that he had been killed in the conflict, but he managed to get back and get back to England, where he was a writer of sorts himself. And he ended up writing, it was never published,

a manuscript about what would have happened if Hitler had invaded Britain and had been successful. Well, I'd read this in this new book that I had just finished on the Norwegian campaign. And through, I won't give you all the, I won't bore you with all the details, but I was invited to a special party on the launch of the new James Bond film a couple of months ago now in London, in England. And, you know, it was a select group who were there and it was organized by the Fleming family, as the Flemings still have a lot to do with all the Bond films.

Anyway, I couldn't go because of COVID. Cynthia and I were going to go, and Willie was going to come with us, and it was going to be a lot of fun, and Daniel Craig was there, and the whole bit. So I was looking forward to that possibility. And the party was going to be hosted by Matthew Fleming, was hosted by Matthew Fleming, who is the grandson of Ian Fleming,

or yes, of Ian Fleming and Peter Fleming, I guess. And he'd heard somebody had told him that I was hoping to come and that I'd read about Peter Fleming's manuscript that never got published and how much I'd love to read it because the topic sounded fascinating to me. Anyway, Matthew sent a copy, a new copy of the latest edition of Goldfinger. You know, one of the early Bond books.

And he wrote on the inside cover, Dear Peter and Cynthia, I hope this book is something to be enjoyed during stays at Brea Stedding, which is the name of our little place in Scotland. My best wishes, Matthew Fleming. 13th November, 21. Now, that's a great book to have on the bookshelf in Scotland. A connection right straight through, well, to James Bond in a way.

Anyway, I digress. I thought you might enjoy that. Moving on. We did a thing earlier this week on sleep and sleep apps and the and the sudden interest in them because people because of the pandemic have been having trouble sleeping and i had a number of different letters from people saying oh yeah i usually sleep apps like wendy holmes in london ontario i thought i'd write in to agree with your information on sleep stories i found them after downloading the calm app it's one of the most popular ones, for

meditation at the beginning of the pandemic. I have never found anything more sure to put me to sleep and that includes medication. I too love the train travel stories and I might add several are from Scotland. Since I've traveled there, I can really picture the scenery in my mind. This interrupts all that anxious thinking, and you find yourself sound asleep. To be honest, I've never heard the end of one of these stories. I highly recommend giving them a try. And then one other one from Christine McDonald in LaSalle, Ontario, also about the sleep thing. This is neat. My daughter's little dog, Oliver, just adores your voice.

When you were still working, the national would come on, and he would stop and watch and listen. Your cameo on Murdoch Mysteries, same thing. Now he listens to The Bridge. Your appeal is quite broad. Hey, we've got to start adding those dogs to the download numbers, which, by the way, passed 2 million this week. So thank you.

2 million downloads since we started with SiriusXM last February. So in less than a year, we've had more than 2 million downloads of our podcast, which I still don't understand all this data stuff as it relates to podcasts, but I'm told that it's an incredibly good number. So thanks to you. But this story

about the dog, I can remember when the National way back, we're going back now into the late eighties when they changed. Remember when, well, some of you will remember some of you aren't old enough to, but some of you will remember that the opening used to be. I know I'm not very good at this,

but that, that kind of a noise. Um, and when we changed it, we got irate letters from more than a few pet owners who said their animals would not go to sleep until they heard that each night. And could we please put it back on? Okay. This one comes from Lee rora back i think she's in southern ontario

why are many other jurisdictions around the world able to deal with these health care issues better than we do why is our health healthcare system in every province so fragile? Why have we constantly been reacting versus planning the oncoming onslaught that we find ourselves in now? Why do we only have 600 ICU beds in a province of 14 million? That's Ontario. Really? Doesn't that seem low? Why haven't we trained more nurses and other healthcare professionals in the last two years?

We spent $300 billion over 22 months, and this is the best we can do? Why do we have the same number of beds now in the middle of a pandemic than we did pre-pandemic? Where's the leadership? The only reason why we're in lockdown is because of our healthcare shortcomings. And just so that we're clear, this is not a reflection on our health care workers. They are true heroes and rock stars in our country. Canadians have, for the most part, done what we asked of them by getting the vaccines. We wear our masks. We're conservative by nature. But I'll tell you this this we're pissed off big time i would argue that our so-called leaders have completely lost the pulse of the nation

and the health care debacle that we are witnessing again and again is at the cusp of this canadians coast to coast to coast are proud of the fact that our health care is fully accessible to everyone and yet are confused and angry when it doesn't work when we need it most. Why is that? And these poor health care workers, we're asking so much of them. They didn't sign up for this, not to this extent. It feels like we've all been hoodwinked. So Lee is not a happy person, and she wants some answers to some of those questions so

we'll try to get at that when we talk to our leaders you know i i'm not sure you know some of these questions are they're all good questions but some of them are not going to be properly answered i don't think until this is really over and the investigations are done and the investigations are done and the inquiries are held about what the heck was going on through this i don't think everything that lee mentions here is is 100 correct i mean i think there have been some adjustments the number of beds and hospitals um by moving things uh you know around and adding this and that here and there um But the overall tone of her questions, well, it's actually, it's bang on.

Karosh Kianazad writes from Toronto. I'm always fascinated with the behind-the-scenes operations of things and understanding how things that I'm not familiar with work. To that end, I wonder if you can spend some time on a potpourri day to highlight what's different about preparing for a podcast versus preparing for the national. With the latter, you had a whole team of producers, directors, and staff to coordinate and plan with versus the former where you, sometimes Willie, are doing it all yourselves.

Are the decisions different? And it goes on with a number of questions. Let me tell you basically how this works. First of all, you have to recall, and I've said this a few times, you have to remind yourself that this program is not a newscast, and it doesn't pretend to be a newscast. It's a podcast. It's basically me sort of doing my ranting and raving and bringing on guests on occasion and having a few regular guests like Bruce on Wednesdays and Bruce and Chantel on Fridays for their opinions on things. So it is, it's not a newscast, and therefore I don't have a huge staff.

What I have is I have you, people like David Oliver in Victoria, who is kind enough to pick up on things when they think that, you know, Peter, you should add this for context, or this wasn't quite correct and you should add this. And so that happens. That's, in fact, as part of that staff that I used to have back at the National, but it's different because it's not a newscast. I decide each day what to do.

Nobody tells me what to do. The people at Sirius are terrific. They're hands-off. They trust me to do a program that's interesting and informative and tries as best as possible to keep things in some level of context. And, you know, I'm lucky because of my years at the CBC and their contacts and people that I met over time that I'm able to pick up the phone and call any number of different people to help out, whether it's to be a guest or just simply for information. So that's how it kind of works here behind the scenes. The scene is pretty, you know, I'm sitting in my office in my home in Stratford. Once again, this started as a hobby.

It was just for fun. And I'm trying to do it now still just for fun but be informative at the same time. It wasn't my intention to sell this podcast to what in turn was a version of the highest bidder theory. But it became very popular and always looking for different ways to extend the uh listenership um serious xm was a wonderful opportunity it's heard right across north america

in terms of the serious option and uh also as a podcast it it goes up in their space with their podcast platform provider. And it gets out there to, as we've seen, millions of people. So that's great. And have fun doing it. But keep in mind, it's not a newscast. Okay, just a couple more. Maura Good writes from Grand Prairie, Alberta. Maura is not entirely happy with me.

She's listened twice now because we ran it when I was last in Scotland. I did it in Scotland. Our special on libraries. And then we repeated it over the Christmas holidays because it had been so popular the first time and it was popular again the second time on the repeat, which surprised me. I thought when I first floated the idea to Willie of,

you know, I'm going to do a special on libraries because there's this new book out written by a couple of authors in Scotland about the history of libraries and where libraries are right now in terms of the positioning of them in the public space. And, you know, I got a couple of strange looks but it was as it turns out it hit a it hit a nerve if you will and people listen to it and if you happen to you know dial back and and get it because it's pretty interesting anyway uh mora wrote very happy that i'd done a program on libraries, but she was upset with one sentence, where I said, and this is true,

I did say this. Don't forget, this is the guy who thought we should do a program on libraries. But nevertheless, I said at one point, I cannot remember the last time I visited my local library. That's true, I can't local library. That's true. I can't remember that. That was a long time ago. She was very upset that I said that. And it was basically the basis of why she wrote the letter.

And the letter is really an endorsement of the need and the placement of libraries in our communities. She says, I don't know what's offered at your library, but I enclose a picture I took yesterday describing some of the possibilities at my local library here in Grand Prairie. And there's so much more. When we were locked down last year, I could still get books from my library using my library app. I logged in using my library card number and put in my request. When the book became available, library staff sent me a text. I phoned and made an appointment for curbside pickup. It was amazing. I even requested a copy of your latest book and received a message that there were 26 people ahead of me. So did I still want to put in the request?

Fortunately for me, I received your book as a birthday gift, so did not have to wait that long. Even today, with 32 copies circulating in our joint library area, every copy is out, and there are still 11 requests ahead of mine. Man, I should go to Grand Prairie. I should take a box load of books to Grand Prairie. So Peter, when you talk about your book sales and where to purchase your books

in the future, maybe you could mention the fact that your books are also available in public libraries all over this country. There you go. I just did. Here are my main points. Visit and promote your local library. Please get a library card and discover all the possibilities. By having a library card you are also supporting your local library. Out of interest as a writer, perhaps you could find someone to research the stats through the circulation of your books in Canadian libraries. Actually, I'll ask my publisher, Simon & Schuster. They may know.

Anyway, Maura, I know that you're a big fan of libraries, and I will try to make sure I don't say that again but I just I wanted to be up front I wanted to explain what my situation is with libraries and I I'm guessing that might be the situation in you know a number of a good number of other people and we should all rethink that because you're absolutely right. Libraries, and that's the whole point of that program. Listen to it. It's just what can be offered, why it's such a good thing,

why we're all of benefit as a result of libraries. Okay, Final letter. And this one is another correction of a correction. And I got a couple of letters on this. But I picked Don Polk from Kingston, Ontario to read his letter. Hi, Peter.

Good morning. First of all, congratulations and thanks very much for creating the bridge with a mix of interesting news, views, and stories I enjoy hearing each day, sometimes just before going to sleep. Well, as long as it doesn't put you to sleep, as we've heard from some others. Regarding your comment today, this was, I think, a couple of days ago, but I did it again yesterday.

Regarding your comment today on the podcast about the greatest number of tennis Grand Slam championships, Serena Williams with 23, no doubt you have since had it pointed out that Australia's Margaret Court actually leads with 24 singles titles, a record which Serena continues to try to equal. That's correct.

I mean, I'd first talked about the race between the men for the overall title, which sits at 20 now, and Djokovic is trying to make it 21. And I left the impression, well, I didn't leave the impression, I said, that would be the new world record. Well, it's the new world record for men, but not the overall world record as the women. Serena has 23, Margaret Court, who doesn't, you know, this is a former. She's not active anymore, but she leads with 24 singles titles. And Dawn's quite right.

Serena Williams has been trying and not quite getting there to get to 24 herself. Will she end up doing it at some point? Who knows? It's getting late in the day for Serena Williams, just as it is for Roger Federer, who remains the favorite of many. My mother,

who passed away a number of years ago, was a huge Roger Federer fan. And she would watch Federer every minute that she was able to watch him on television. Anyway, there we have it. Those are your thoughts and your letters and your comments and in some cases your questions. Tomorrow, Friday, Good Talk, Chantelle Hebert, Bruce Anderson. Looking forward to it.

Lots to talk about again this week, and we know how popular Good Talk is with you. So thanks for listening on this day and this week once again thank you for pushing us past the two million mark and downloads since last february 2nd i think is when we started with sirius xm and we're pretty proud of that number but that that number is you, and so we thank you for your loyalty and interest in the bridge. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks for listening. Talk to you again in 24 hours. Thank you.