Sunday 8 November 2015

Trudeau Grit



A couple of commenters at Biased BBC have independently spotted a BBC online article called Justin Trudeau takes Canada by the horns as Prime Minister. Neither seemed exactly impressed at its impartiality:
Pass the sick bag. The BBC is gushing over Trudeau of Canada’s fresh start. 
‘Justin Trudeau takes Canada by the horns as Prime Minister’ – says this BBC love letter. (Have your sick bucket handy). I can only imagine the ‘journalist’ didn’t have time to inform us that Justin will personally pilot the first manned mission to Mars whilst announcing the cure for all cancers.
It felt like 'gushing' to me too, being wholly positive in its reporting of the new PM's fresh start on gender equality, climate change, immigration, the war in Syria, etc. There are also nothing but supportive or helpful comments from various Canadian news outlets. Wonder who wrote it? Justin Trudeau?

From Canada election: Liberals sweep to power as the election results came in through to the above article, Mr Trudeau's coverage has been strikingly positive. The BBC News website has also given us Young Canadians' hopes for a new era under TrudeauIs Canada's new PM the only world leader with a tattoo? and Canada's Middle East policy set for shake-up under new PM - a strikingly unbalanced piece, where the 'deft', 'nuanced' Mr Trudeau is contrasted with the 'hard', 'absolute' policies of the pro-Israel, Muslim-offending Mr Harper.

All of this contrasts sharply with the coverage afforded Stephen Harper by the BBC when he won power in 2006. I can find only three articles on the BBC website from that time: Canada's right returns from wildernessNew Canadian PM rebuffs US envoy and Will Kyoto die at Canadian hands? (The BBC didn't cover Canada much back then). 

The last of those three articles came from the BBC's former environment correspondent Richard Black and will doubtless bring back 'happy memories' of his old BBC 'reporting' (or 'activism' as many saw it). Here's how it began, for old time's sake:
When the history of the Kyoto Protocol comes to be written, Canada will appear as a particularly influential figure in the narrative.
It has already played the role of Florence Nightingale, nursing the treaty back from the brink of oblivion.
Is Canada's newly elected Conservative Party now preparing to don the mantle of Darth Vader and emasculate the protocol to the point of impotence?
"We're very depressed," said John Bennett, senior policy adviser to the Sierra Club of Canada, a prominent environmental group?
etc.

1 comment:

  1. It's another Obama Dawn - cue kettle drums and stirring horns.

    ReplyDelete

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