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| Small demonstration and overblown coverage by the media |
One of its most laughable examples is the case of Donald Trump's then press secretary, Sean Spicer who brazenly told a news conference that the crowds attending Trump's inauguration ceremony were the largest ever. This bit of hyperbole was easily disproved with photographic evidence presented by news organizations disproving the statement rather handily. It was a bit comical, but nonetheless somewhat disconcerting to see the President's office lying over something that was so trivial.
Fake news is a real and a dangerous reality, whether advanced by Russia planting dubious and untrue stories in Facebook about Hillary Clinton, or by unscrupulous politicians slandering their opponents unfairly with scurrilous and untrue allegations. An insidious offshoot of the 'Fake News' phenomenon is the denial of real stories and facts reported by the media, by politicians wishing to taint legitimate reporting that is unfavourable.
But the one aspect of false reporting that is never discussed or mentioned is the very real practice of the media in shaping the political discussion by featuring and reporting stories that are more favourable to one side of the political discussion. These stories aren't false in the traditional sense of 'fake news,' but by featuring overwhelming one-sided coverage of an issue, the mainstream media shapes or attempts to shape public opinion.
This gentle reader, is fake news at its most dangerous iteration.
Given the mainstream media coverage, you wouldn't be faulted in believing that Quebec's Bill 62, limiting the right of Muslims to wear a face-veil when receiving public services is roundly opposed by Quebecers and Canadian as well.
The reality is that the opposite is true, a pesky fact trivialized or ignored by the mainstream media.
“The March 2015 telephone survey by Léger Marketing found 82 per cent of Canadians favoured the policy somewhat or strongly, with just 15 per cent opposed. Support was widespread, but especially strong in Quebec, where 93 per cent were in favour of the requirement.” LinkAnother more recent poll returned pretty much the same results.
Eighty-seven per cent of Quebec respondents surveyed by the Angus Reid Institute in September said they support the bill, while six out of 10 Quebecers "strongly support" it. LinkIn fact, I cannot think of one other political issue where the public is so much attuned to one position, it is in fact quite astonishing and the fact that the media glosses over this fact is stunning.
The overwhelming weight of negative stories and opinion pieces in addition to widespread coverage of the one minuscule demonstration opposing the ban in the mainstream media can only be construed as a dangerous and insidious iteration of fake news
You'd think that if the opposition to the bill is as pronounced as the media tell us, then more than just the one small demonstration against the face-covering ban would have occurred. In fact, the real story is not about that one small demonstration in Montreal where a dozen protesters stood at a bus stop in masks, but rather how puny and insignificant that demonstration was.
The real story should be the widespread support the Quebec law has.
This over-emphasis on a slanted view of the debate in the media has a very real and tangible effect in shaping public opinion. A good example of this is a story by the Journal de Montreal's Lise Ravary, a journalist with outstanding credentials.
She penned an article entitled "Dear Canadian Friends" in which she took English Canada to task for "raining down accusations of racism in relation to Bill 62."
I can understand her consternation because politicians across the country did indeed rain down scorn on Quebec in relation to the ban;
Premier Kathleen Wynne was among those speaking out against Quebec's controversial religious neutrality law at Queen's Park on Thursday morning.Premier Rachel Notley blasted Quebec's Bill 62 ... “I think it smacks of Islamophobia.” .
“This is the kind of action that drives wedges in communities," said Wynne.
The law, which would effectively force Muslim women who wear a niqab or burka to uncover their faces to use public services, will push women already at the margins "further into isolation,” Wynne continued. Link
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh told the Star that he unequivocally opposes Quebec's Bill 62, and predicted that, .... “We need to oppose Islamophobia,
But the reality is that those sanctimonious politicians DO NOT represent the attitudes and positions of the vast majority of their English Canadian constituents, something that is lost in the media bias. Not one of the articles quoting these politicians expose the dichotomy that over 80% of English Canadians agree with the ban.
And so because of media bias, it appears that English Canada opposes the ban when in fact the opposite is overwhelmingly true. If a seasoned journalist like Ravary can be misled by the media about English Canadian attitudes over the ban, where does that the less sophisticated?
While politicians in English Canada react with indignity and horror at Quebec's burqa and niqab restrictions, they remain sadly out of touch with the sentiments of the vast majority of Canadians, something the media is loathe to report.
Liberal media bias is a form of fake news that is insidious and we should all be aware when the truth is manipulated in an effort to reshape public opinion.
I'll leave you with something those outside French Quebec will never be exposed to, an interview with Fatima Houda-Pepin on a Quebec Sunday night talk show, the widely successful Tout le Monde en Parle. Madame Houda-Pepin is a Muslim ex-Quebec Liberal party member of the National Assembly who left the party because she supported measures to limit religious involvement in public life.
I lifted this translation from a comments section and give full credit for the translation and the publication to Bernard Payeur who works at Boreal Books
"Fatima Houda-Pepin during an Interview on Tout le Monde en Parle, Quebec's most watched variety and current affairs program (my translation):
I am from Morocco, a country open [to the world] and tolerant. When I was growing up, I had Jewish, Christians and Muslim playmates; we went to school together we celebrated each other's [religious] holidays. I bear no grudges, having lived Islam in harmony. I only got to know what fundamentalist Islam was when I came to Canada. It is here that I got to know the most intolerant, the best organized, the most structured and the best financed groups, with means and worldwide connections. It was quite a shock.
Nonetheless, the vast majority of Muslims try hard to integrate; their children do well in school, they have a future. This is not well-known because the fundamentalists have the upper-hand (control the message) and have the ear of the media. They (the fundamentalists) have become the tree which hides the forest.
For the fundamentalists, a woman must not be seen in public, right. If, by chance or by necessity a woman must go out in public, she must be invisible. She must, when going out [in public], wear her prison and that way we don't see her figure, we don't see her beautiful face or her hair because it's [sexually] seductive and so on and so forth …
It is a segregation [of the sexes] that is done in the public space. We in Québec and in Canada went to the United Nations to denounce apartheid regimes, segregation based on race was unacceptable and I would not accept segregation based on sex because that is what it means, the chadors, the burqas and all these imported ways of dressing which are meant, in the name of freedom of religion, to impose values that are alien and from another century.
Freedom of religion, for me, leaves some things to be desired. We will eventually have to confront this reality. I believe that the state's neutrality in religious matters is our best guarantee of freedom of conscience and religion which is why it is so important to define limits that apply equally to all.
Fatima Houda-Pepin is a former Muslim member of the Quebec National Assembly.
Mr. Sauga here: I stated in the last editorial that "when in Rome...". Our country was founded on Christo-Judaic principles. That being said, while it does not mean anybody who comes to Canada (or the U.S. for that matter), our democracy promotes equality for all. Some women choose to wear the full religious garb, and if they choose to do so of their own free will, who are we to say they cannot, except where verification of identification is required.
ReplyDeleteSadly, at least to my understanding, there are women who choose not to wear the niqab but are coerced to do so by family members. Women are killed in the name of Islam, i.e., honor killings. Those who partake in this should be punished as murder one to the fullest extent of our secular law. Furthermore, no woman should be coerced to wear this garb if she chooses not to, especially once she steps off her own property line. Religion starts on one's property and ends at their neighbour's. Too, to threaten one even within the confines of one's own property should be unlawful. There is no jurisdiction, even one's private home that allows one person to threaten another with harm.
The sad reality, of course, is that phenomenon like this go unreported. Since Harvey Weinstein is now becoming targeted at long last for alleged decades of wrongdoing, so should oppressors within the home, but it takes a certain bravery to do this much like it took one woman to embolden other women to come forward. TAKE THAT BILL O'REILLY! ...and the founder of Jut for Laughs and Marcel Aubut, who probably sucked his way up from former ownership of the Quebec Nordiques to the Big Cheese of the I.O.C.