Enemies of Democracy

I was listening to The Current this morning and heard Linda McQuaig debating an Ottawa radio shock jock -- Lowell Green -- about the Afghan detainee scandal. The shock jock started by claiming that only extreme liberal-leftists and socialists think this is an important issue. He then claimed that to criticize the government's detainee policies is to criticize/ fail to support the troops and declared, as a result, that that government critics should be ashamed. And he finished with "God bless the troops."

When crap like this voiced on the CBC one can only despair at the future of public discourse in Canada. The CBC, and the Globe, seem to have fallen into the American model of equivocating between objectivity and a lack of bias and, hence, treating both sides of every issue equally -- regardless of the evidence. As a result, they now give a voice to representatives of "each" viewpoint, that is, one from the centre/ left and one from the (sometimes extreme) right. But instead of choosing representatives from the right who engage in reasoned discourse, they give voice to shock jocks who engage in angry (and empty) rhetoric. And as we have seen in the States, when the public discourse is reduced to cheap rhetorical tricks, reason and evidence-based policy is thwarted in favour of policy that largely benefits moneyed interests (despite the populist rhetoric used to defend it).

Now the Globe is a private institution and can give a forum to whomever they like. But insofar as they continue to publish the rants of partisan hacks (Rex Murphy and Margaret Wente come to mind, surprise, surprise) they risk losing their status as Canada's premiere newspaper and becoming a pale imitation of the Sun newspaper group. The CBC, on the other hand, as a public institution has a duty to the country to uphold the quality of the public discourse. Although this means they should not be partisan -- favouring the positions of the "right" or the "left" simply because they are positions of the "right" or "left" -- it doesn't mean they shouldn't be biased. One can be objective and biased if one's bias is based on the evidence. Moreover, although they should continue to give voice to representatives of different viewpoints, they should choose only those who at least attempt to engage in reasoned discourse. The very health of our democracy is at stake.

Note: although I advocate denying right wing hacks a forum at the CBC and the Globe, I am not thereby advocating violating their free speech rights. The distinction between negative and positive rights is fundamental. Rex's negative free speech rights would no more be violated if he were terminated by the CBC and the Globe any more than mine are currently violated by their failure to provide me with a forum. And Rex no more has a positive right to be provided with such a forum than do I.