[Cowperson]

In the USA, there used to be something called "The Fairness Doctrine," essentially a government regulatory agency - the FCC - mandated responsibility of all holders of broadcast rights to present issues in an even-handed manner.

In 1969, a court case settled that the FCC had the right to enforce the Fairness Doctrine but decided as well that it did not have to.

In 1987, the FCC dropped the Fairness Doctrine.

Some would say the Fairness Doctrine needs to be re-introduced while others, myself included, do not want a government agency telling anyone what it thinks is "fair." "Government," after all, is really a collection of individuals with all their own baggage and peccadillos.

With social media and all manner of communication being what it is today, only the idiots amongst us - or the truly partisan - would seriously argue against the notion that the common American/Canadian has never had a wider access to information and differing opinions than we see today.

That also creates it's own set of issues, including the apparently ever-increasing predilection of the common news consumer to surround himself/herself with the comfort food of like-minded opinions.

This is called "Confirmation Bias."

FOX was essentially the first to note this trend and wisely began to formulate a business model based on a certain bias to the right, feeling the "confirmation bias" on that side was under-serviced. They were right and are far and away, I believe, the most watched cable network.

MSNBC in the last year has begun to seriously exit any pretense of being even-handed to service the left wing and has seen it's ratings starting to climb. The New York Times, to it's everlasting shame, had it's public editor declare "of course we're a liberal newspaper" in print a few years ago.

CNN has tried to make a living in the middle and seems to be getting clobbered. That hasn't gone unnoticed and you've seen several media commentators wondering if it's possible in this day and age to succeed presenting an even-handed approach.

Increasingly, money is talking and that money is driven by the consumer of news.

If someone asks you what your favourite news source is, the right answer is probably "nothing." Theoretically, you should be observing them all to get an enlightened view of both sides of any discourse.

We, as normal people of course, do not do that, as predicted along the lines of "confirmation bias." We chose to surround ourselves with like-minded opinions, even though we don't have to.

Of course the CBC has a bias to the left side. A survey in the 1990's, as one example, found 70% of CBC radio staff had voted NDP in the previous election. Whaddya expect from programming as a result? Or throughout the Corp.

Nevertheless, picking sides has become increasingly good business.

Secondly, given the wide range of differing biases and opinions you have access to in the new media age, that's not necessarily a killer if you're genuinely curious (most of us aren't).

All taxpayers, however, pay for CBC's bias and, yes, there is something wrong with that. Public broadcasters should have some greater responsibility than the private sector.

My two cents on that topic.

Lastly, I do watch a few things on CBC. I've found myself hooked on the insipid, weepy "Heartland" as I'm trying to identify all the locations they shoot in my immediate area. And, I might note, it's a show syndicated around the world, indicating it's quality. "Being Erica," which I don't watch, is another show which has expanded it's viewership beyond Canada. For every success like that, however, there is are several explosions like the great concept behind "Little Mosque On The Prairie," a terrible non-comedy which somehow keeps hanging around.

Cowperson